Bagdad,
Mexico---The Lost City of Sin
Norman Rozeff
April 2011
Time, hurricanes, and the changing course of the river have
obliterated what once was the vibrant town of Bagdad, Mexico at the mouth of
the Rio Grande. It certainly has not been forgotten, for many vivid memories of
its short existence have been preserved and have given it an air of mystery.
Let me bring back its aura of yesteryear.
Bagdad, approximately 500 yards south of the river, was
first noted in a map drawn in 1847 and is said to have been established in
1848. Today its approximate location is ten miles north of Washington Beach.
Although it wasn't named Bagdad until later, it likely existed as the small
community of
Boca del Rio for decades.
From as early as 1780 it may have even been to destination for rich Spanish
families of Matamoros seeking recreation.The origin of the name Bagdad is uncertain. Some claim that
an American with a sense of humor gave the non-descript collection of
jacales
and mud and oyster shell-plastered huts with thick thatched grass roofs the
name at the time of the Mexican War. Ancient Baghdad in Mesopotamia was
considered sophisticated and glamorous in sharp contrast to what existed along
the sand dunes. Also the thieves in
The Arabian Nights might have
offered some similarities to the
rateros frequenting the area.
The area natives had another story as to its
name. William Neale, the early pioneer settler of Brownsville, wrote that the
famous pirate Don Jean Lafitte or his followers around 1835 were responsible
for the title. Inhabitants of the area believed that the pirates had buried
vast sums of money in the nearby dunes.
The site was officially designated as a Custom House Port of
Entry in 1840. Custom officials were stationed there to keep items from being
smuggled up the river. At that point the very small entity may also have been
called Resguardo, custom house port in Spanish.
M. Kenedy and Company beached its steamboats there to repair
them. While there was a limited steamer traffic to this second class port in
the Matamoros Custom District, it likely ceased for the most part by 1846. A hurricane
in 1844, one of several that would be experienced over time, knocked down
whatever structures existed at the site. Like the mythical Phoenix, the town
would rise again after a period of rebuilding. This hurricane was a serious
one. It left the natives of the area naked and bruised, forcing those at the La
Burrita Rancho to the west to take refuge on the side of a small hill. Further
south many perished in the storm.
In 1846, Luther Giddings, an officer of the First Regiment
of Ohio volunteers passed through the area and described it as "a small
collection of mud and reed huts occupied by Mexican herdsmen and
fishermen." By a year later it had grown somewhat, been improved and
"Americanized." Off-duty soldiers from the U.S. Army Brazos Island
Depot likely used Bagdad for their rest and recreation activities.
The American Flag newspaper in 1847 commented
somewhat tongue-in-cheek about the community. An observer wrote of " the inventive genius of its people who
could live and acquire money without performing any labor or showing any
visible signs of gaining a living. Their intent was merely to attract all who
came to the mouth of the river into Bagdad where money was extracted by means
of liquor, decoctions, cards, dice, threats, smiles, and caresses, or, these
failing, by more potent means, such as club, dirk and pistol." Early on
then one can detect what a den of iniquity might grow from these sour roots.
As an entity, populated primarily by fishermen, it certainly
didn't amount to much until the Civil War really put it on the map. A
very strange confluence of events was to draw the small village into big-time
activities. On April 19, 1861, seven days after the war had begun, President
Abraham Lincoln gave an order to blockade all rebel seaports, including that of
Brazos de Santiago (transl.: Arms of St. James. Originally the name of the
settlement was Brazos de St. Iago. After shortening to Brazos St. Iago, it was
corrupted to Brazos Santiago.) on the very north end of Brazos Island. As
President Lincoln's blockade, part of General-in-Chief Winfield Scott's
Anaconda Plan, of the Confederate States of America's ports tightened, the
CSA's chief source of revenues, namely the export of cotton was stifled.
The CSA quickly sought diplomatic relations with Mexico.
American citizen, Juan A. Quintero, Cuban by birth, was sent on May 22, 1861 to
Monterrey to establish favorable trade relations with the three northern states
of Mexico—Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas. They agreed to deliver salt
peter used in the manufacture of explosives, military supplies other than small
arms and flour in exchange for 850,000 lbs. of cotton. Arms and ammunition also
came from Havana and British Belize to Bagdad. In short order a regular
steamship line was established between London and Matamoros via Bagdad.
Innovation eventually found an alternative to the dangerous
operation of blockade running. This was to move cotton from Arkansas,
Louisiana, Texas and other areas of the Trans-Mississippi area to the
Texas-Mexico border. Texas became a "blockade-running haven" referred
to as the "back door" of the Confederacy. Most cotton was exchanged
for gold coin as prices rose steadily when the war progressed.
Once here it was transported across the river to Mexico
where custom and regulatory officials could profit handsomely by declaring it
of "Mexico origin." Indeed, some didn't even have to touch Mexican
soil except on the its last leg of its journey. This was because the
Hidalgo-Guadaloupe peace treaty of the
Mexican War, finalized in 1848 had declared the Rio Grande an international
waterway to be used freely by both nations. Crafty entrepreneurs as Charles
Stillman, Miflin Kenedy, and Richard King
simply re-flagged their shallow draft steamboats with the flag of Mexico
thereby evading inspection or confiscation of their cotton bale cargo by Union
forces. According to Dr. Jerry Thompson "By January 1864 more than 150,000
bales of cotton had been carried across the Rio Grande, and by the end of the
war, 320,000 bales had been sent into Mexico."
Bagdad itself had no natural harbor or breakwater. In fact,
a troublesome sand bar offshore had a clearance of only four to five feet of
water. This meant that any exported or imported cargo had to be transferred
from offshore vessels to skiffs and lighters of shallow draft. Ships of all
nations, including those of the United States, sometime numbering up to one
hundred, anchored offshore.
Cotton, of course, was the primary export while the CSA
imported powder, sulfur, mercury, lead, cloth, brown sheeting for Negro
clothing, sugar, blankets, and more. Mexico initiated a flat 12 ½ % export tax.
Monthly revenue duties for the Mexican government ranged up to $100,000.
Naturally banditry increased, and custom officials were frequently targeted.
South Texas and certainly Bagdad were not healthy places.
The fall of 1862 saw the town in the grip of a yellow fever epidemic. Sick
inhabitants became general and with that the mortality rate rose. Naturally
this partially paralyzed the commercial transactions.
Within months over 200 carpenters descended on Bagdad to
build the city of unplanned boards and scrap lumber on pilings driven into the
marshy area. A later exception was the two banks built of brick, places halfway
safe that were needed to secure the riches from the abundant thieves patrolling
the area. Initially scalpers were doing a land office business selling or
renting tarpaulins to protect people and goods from the elements.
Bagdad became a bustling community with a telegraph office,
hotels, grog shops, and houses of ill repute. It even had a sizeable abatoire.
Money flowed freely as even common laborers could easily earn $5-6 a day.
Skiffs and lighter fees were $20-40. A simple meal was to cost $2-3 while lodgings
for the night ran $5-8.
William Neale, who had operated a stagecoach line from
Matamoros to Bagdad in the years 1837 to about 1846, again re-instituted that
service in the 1860s. The 35 mile run took three hours. He ran ten trips per
day and charged a handsome fare of $5.00 that also included a meal. The road
between the two entities was so heavily trafficked that its surface was ground
to a fine, dusty powder.
Like magic Bagdad had grown dramatically in but a three-year
period. One historian characterized its population as heterogeneous—whites
blacks, mulattos and Indians but most of all Yankee entrepreneurs. With French
forces having been recruited from many European nations and seamen from others
the city would see French, German, Italian English, Austrian, Spanish, Belgium
Hungarian along with the Confederates, Yankees and Mexicans. Such a motley crew
brought with them "constant brawls, stagecoach robberies, street fights,
knifings and shootings."
Audrey Simmons of Harlingen gathering information from
Clarksville native Teresa Clark Clearwater, wrote "At its height, the city
had grand hotels with elegant names, theaters, two-story buildings set upon
pilings to avoid the tides, and sidewalks built of wood which were usually
covered with water when the tide was in. Many of the businesses and places of
entertainment had French names supplied by the owners who had drifted in from
New Orleans." She goes on to relate "…by 1863, the lazy, dreamy
village of Bagdad across the river from Clarksville had begun its skyrocket
course to the dizzy peak of 25,000 human
beings---most of whom were the scum of the earth, adventurers and sharpers from
everywhere. Many of them came from New Orleans, but also venturesome
Brownsville people went to this funnel of gulf traffic to seek their
fortunes." In addition to the brothels, many restaurants, saloons, and gambling
houses the town even had a small church, and also a cemetery adjacent to the
sand dunes to the southeast.
Belgium Oblate Father Pierre Perisot detailed the community
as "The cosmopolitan city of Bagdad was a veritable Babel, a Babylon, a
whirlpool of business, pleasure and sin." This mostly shacktown was
populated with gamblers, prostitutes, tavern keepers and assorted gentry.
Newspaper accounts portrayed the town as a "sand hole on the gulf",
"a dirty, filthy place where the streets are covered with slime and mud
puddles." The New York Herald characterized it "an excrescence of the war. Here
congregated… blockade runners, desperadoes, the vile of both sexes; adventurers,
the Mexican, and the rebel gather and where (there are) numberless groggeries
and houses of worse fame [where the]
decencies of civilized life were forgotten and vice in its lowest form
held high carnival while in the low, dirty looking buildings… were amassed
millions in gold and silver." One blockade runner described Bagdad as a
place where everyone was trying to grab what he could by using whatever scheme
possible to make money out of crisis. A Brownsville paper, according to
Thompson, described the town as a place where "fandangos were held every
night and women as beautiful as houris exhibit their charms, without the least
reserve." Famed Confederate Navy man, Admiral Semmes, passed through this
"back door" on his way to his beloved southern home. He described the
town as "This seashore village rejoicing in the dream Eastern name of
Bagdad. It was so unique that it could easily be fancied as its name imports,
really under the rule of the Caliphs, but for certain signs of the
"Yankee", that met the eye."
Some sources put the peak population of Bagdad at about
15,000 while others suggest that it may have even been as high as 35,000. The
sailors coming ashore from the many vessels helped to keep the revenues flowing
into local coffers.
In September 1862, 20 ships were to be counted anchored
offshore. By January 1863 the number had risen to 60, and by April 1863, 92
were to be tallied. In June of 1863 Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles,
notified Secretary of State, William Seward, that there were 180 to 200 vessels
of all nations waiting to discharge and load cargo at Bagdad.
While the U.S. Navy initially tried to intercept cotton
moving offshore, these seizures led, of course, to diplomatic protests. The
Navy was soon cautioned by federal State Department officials in Washington not
to create any international neutrality incidents. Soon circumventive action was
also taken by the merchants who were exporting smuggled, southern cotton. To
avoid confiscation by blockading navy forces they began to fly the flag of
Mexico on the lighter boats ferrying the cotton to British and other
ships. Eventually the ships made sure to
anchor in Mexican waters for discharge of merchandise to Bagdad, Mexico and the
subsequent on-loading of cotton bales. In a peculiar twist of history some of
the exported Southern cotton made its way to New York City, and undoubtedly
some found its way into cloth for Union military uniforms. The proof of the
pudding was lading slips indicating one arrival to New York City from Matamoros
in 1861, 20 in 1862, 72 in 1863, and from January to March 18, 1864 32 ships.
On March 3/8/63 Bagdad had served as the embarkation point
for Union sympathizers fleeing Texas, the new state in the CSA. One hundred
forty refugee individuals were transported by the unarmed steamer Honduras to
New Orleans. While Union forces had retreated from the Valley in February 1861,
they returned with an invasion force of nearly 7,000 on November 1, 1863. The
Rio Grande Expedition, as it was named, had as one objective the interceding of
cotton transport to Mexico. Although not specifically stated another of its
objectives was to keep French forces in Mexico from abetting CSA operations and
providing succor to the Confederacy. For some time the U.S. government was
leery that France and Britain might recognize the CSA as a nation.
In 1862 the Imperialist forces of Napoleon III invaded
Mexico. Ferdinand Maximilian von Hapsburg was to chosen to become Emperor of
Mexico, though it was never to be totally conquered. Juan Nepomuceno Cortina,
the legendary and controversial leader in Tamaulipas, would more than once
swing his allegiance to conflicting parties. In early 1864 he declared against
the Napoleonic forces. In April 1864, hoping to obtain the friendship and intercession
of Cortina's Liberal troops to hinder the cotton trade, Union General John A.
McClernand, in a formal ceremony at the Plaza Hidalgo in Matamoros, gave
Cortina ten artillery pieces. This interference with the affairs of Mexico was,
of course, a violation of U.S. neutrality. After the Union army abandoned
Brownsville on July 28, 1864, Cortina would soon change alliance and allow
CSA cotton to flow across the border. As an indication of the great trade and
money involved Matamoros had a population of 9,000 before the war commenced and
had 40,000 people by the summer of 1864.
In the summer of 1864 on August 22, 400 French and Austrian
troops initially landed at Bagdad to take possession of it. French forces in
the area were increased over the following months. This elicited considerable
new construction in Bagdad. Cortina's soldiers would conduct a skirmish with
the French near Bagdad, but the results were insignificant. At the time, for
whatever reasons, Confederate soldiers on the north bank of the river fired on
Cortina's forces. Later it was revealed that CSA Col. Rip Ford believed Cortina
had his eyes on capturing his old nemesis, Brownsville. This didn't come to
pass. In October 1865, 700 French soldiers from Bagdad were sent to Matamoros
to reinforce Imperialist General Tomas Mejia on his way to that city with a
force of 2,000 men. After the city was conquered Cortina could do little except harass his
enemies by cutting the telegraph line between Matamaoros and Bagdad.
By August 1865 the mercantile market of Bagdad bottomed out.
Merchants were selling items for 1/5 their cost, even if they could give it
away. For sale signs sprouted everywhere. The exhilarating ride was over.
In late 1865, a reporter for the New York Herald
communicated that the small French garrison in Bagdad was "poorly armed,
demoralized, and bedraggled…devoid of spirit, seemed indolent, and were
positively little better than a pack…of ragamuffins." There then was
initiated a chapter of Bagdad's history that is clouded with contending interpretations
of a wide range.
Professor Thompson in his book Cortina writes that
the episode began when, on November 5, 1865, a small band of American
filibusters led by William D. St. Clair and Francisco de Leon, moved across the
river to Bagdad, seized the small steamship Rio Grande from its lone
guard, and towed it across the river. Their aim was to arm it then move upriver
to challenge the Imperialist occupiers of Matamoros. Before this occurred, it
was seized by American authorities at
Clarksville, for the ship actually belonged to someone from New Orleans, not
the Empire.
This was only the start for besieged Bagdad. According to
Thompson, a month later Captain R. Clay Crawford of the Union 5th
Tennessee Infantry conceived the idea to seize the entire town. Together with
filibuster Arthur F. Reed, they obtained commissions in the Liberal army and
began recruiting "army deserters, outlaws, adventurers from Galveston, and
border riffraff." Payment in gold and expenses were offered as
compensation. On January 4, 1866, after a planned feint by Cortina forces at
Matamoros to keep Mejia occupied, Crawford crossed the river from Clarksville
and gathered his men at the Globe Hotel. The next day their surprise actions
captured the Imperial soldiers guarding the ferry. They were part of the 180
Mexicans garrisoning the town. At the same time 150 or more blue-uniformed
soldiers crossed from Clarksville into Bagdad. Most were Blacks. The town's whole Imperial garrison was soon subdued
and residents fled into the sand dunes. Confusion reigned because Cortina was
soon on the scene with forty of his own men and other Liberals there, who tried
to take charge, were rejected by both Crawford and Cortina. Without resolution
pandemonium ensued. The town was thoroughly looted and ransacked. The plunder
carried across the river was said to have filled fifty lighters and took days
to transport from Clarksville to Brownsville. The loss of life was put at four
raiders killed, eight wounded, and eight Imperialists killed and 22 wounded.
Still others placed the American dead at eight with two women also killed in
the town.
In later years, the exact truth of the episode became
obscure, at least in local quarters. All too easily individuals with personal
prejudices laid blame almost wholly on the Black soldiers who were broadly
portrayed in a disgraceful picture. Teresa Clark Clearwater was one who took
the Black soldiers sorely to task. After all her father, the founder of
Clarksville, also had a mercantile store in Bagdad, one which was cleaned to
the rafters. The alternate story was that some Americans had been incarcerated
in Bagdad. When their release wasn't effected, 300 (200? 150? Take your pick.)
Black soldiers and other officers crossed to free them. Subsequently they went
on a drunken spree that lasted three days and was the basis for the wild melee
that had ensued. One historian sought to explain the rampant destruction in
Bagdad by writing that perhaps the Blacks "hailed [it] as a symbol of the
Confederacy."
Petitions relative to the sordid affair were sent to Washington.
Four army officers were appointed as a commission to investigate the matter.
They produced an eight-point report to U.S. authorities. The soldiers involved
were given a clean bill of health, the essence of the matter being that Mexican
officials had requested the soldiers' help in dispelling the French. The report
contended that the soldiers involved had been discharged and were awaiting
transport home. The U.S. government therefore claimed no responsibility for the
filibustering acts to the citizens and did not punish the soldiers. While no
compensation was forthcoming, the Union military did return some captured
armament to the French but only after the French threatened to blockade Brazos
Santiago. On January 25, contra, French
marines, 120 Austrians, 100 Rurales, and 300 Mexican Lancers reoccupied
the town. It was but a skeleton of its former self, for as many as 7,000 of its
citizens had departed. The fact was that with the end of the Civil War Bagdad
had suffered an immediate and severe depression; $1000 lots now sold for $15 an
acre or less. The last Imperialist forces themselves would depart Bagdad
forever on June 23, 1866. They were transported
to Veracruz.
The final chapters in the life of Bagdad center around
hurricanes. The first was the hurricane of 10/7-8/1867. Even with the vagaries
of tropical storms it is difficult to fathom the path of this one. The storm in
the gulf hit the Texas coast on 10/2-3 just south of Galveston which we all
know is a considerable distance from South Texas. It then turned south and
moved all the way to the Rio Grande. The survivors at Bagdad would later record
that from the middle of the night on 10/7 the winds ranged were about 20-25
mph. At daylight they were from 25 to 30 mph out of the north until sunset when
they rose to 40-60. Winds of 60 miles per hour were in force by 8 PM and from
10 to midnight had risen to 80. At 12:30 AM the brunt of the storm had quickly
passed. It was the tidal surge in the gulf that caused the major damage to
Bagdad. The perpendicular height of the water was said to have risen eight
feet. That propelled it inland anywhere from five to 25 miles according to The
Daily Ranchero of 11/7/67. Brownsville and Matamoros were struck by the
hurricane winds, but the damages there were exacerbated when after midnight a
tornado coming from the southwest violently swept the two cities.
One historian writes that a purported 10,000 lives were lost
in Brownsville, Matamoros, Clarksville, Bagdad and the remainder of the Valley.
Considering the low Valley population at the time this number is horrific. It
is likely exaggerated. Depending on accounts not a house was left standing at
Bagdad and only two remained at Clarksville while another states that ten
houses survived at Bagdad.
The hurricane of September 3,1874 lasted 60 hours over three
days. It moved across the area in a north-northwesterly direction. Longtime
Brownsville publisher, Paulino S. Preciado, stated in a reminiscence that 1000 had died in Bagdad. Pilot James
Baker of the river steamer San Juan was to quickly deliver supplies to
the area and remove people to Matamoros. Mr. Van Ripper, the telegraph
operator, also offered aid to the dispossessed. The storm totaled what little
number of habitats remained in Bagdad. No attempts to rebuild were made by
survivors. Father Periot was to call the storm "El Castigo de Dios"
(The Punishment of God.) Mother Nature had reclaimed what was once desolate,
salt-sprayed sand dunes and marshland. Bagdad had been physically obliterated
to live on only in history, tales, and memory.
