The Secrets of Porvenir
SOMETIMES ALL IT TAKES IS one small artifact to tell an entire story. In 2015, during a metal detector survey in the Big Bend region of western Texas, archaeologist David Keller found one such object under windblown sediments that had likely protected it in place for around 100 years. "It was a heavy moment," Keller says of his initial examination of the object with a hand lens. He called over the rest of his team to have a look. It was a fragment of a .45-caliber bullet, which later analysis would show was fired from either a Colt M1873 single-action revolver or a Colt M1909 double-action revolver, that had been heavily deformed by impact. That impact had fused the lead projectile with human bone. There had never been any doubt that Keller, then with the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross State University, and the team were working at a crime scene. "Seeing that particular artifact drove it home in a way that was really visceral," he says. "It shook us up." The bullet had been fired during the summary execution of 15 unarmed Mexican-American men and boys by Texas Rangers and local Anglo ranchers very early in the morning of January 28, 1918. The artifact's story spills out from that fateful night to a period known in local history as La Matanza (the Massacre) or Hora de Sangre (Hour of Blood), a time when border-related anti-Mexican violence in Texas was widespread.
The bullet is one of dozens of pieces of evidence collected by Keller and his team during their three-day project a decade ago near what was once the hamlet of Porvenir. The finds provided tangible details about how the massacre was carried out. The researchers were shocked to discover that some of the artifacts suggested the possible involvement of shooters no one had expected, a wrinkle that Keller still can't quite get his head around. "We've tried so hard to find an alternative explanation," says Keller, "because I guess we don't want it to be true."
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