WANDERING ISLANDS IN THE RIO GRANDE 



By Mrs. Albert S. Burleson 



THE migratory habits of certain 

 small bodies of land inhabiting 

 the Rio Grande and known as 

 "cut-offs." or "bancos," have been the 

 occasion of protracted diplomatic corre- 

 spondence and discussion between the 

 L'nited States and Mexico. 



Their refusal to remain permanently 

 attached to one or the other of the river's 

 banks deprived them of a fixed legal 

 status as either [Mexican or American 

 territory and brought about their partici- 

 pation in many illegal and unrighteous 

 adventures, which in turn led to mis- 

 imderstandings between the two coun- 

 tries. 



Inherently weak by reason of a loose, 

 sandy soil, they are an easy prey to the 

 power of the Rio Grande, a river of un- 

 usual and striking characteristics and 

 revolutionary action. 



Xo one with an intimate knowledge of 

 a great river will wonder at the homage 

 so frequently offered it by early peoples. 

 Its personality is so real to those who 

 have lived by it and on it and know some 

 of the many things it can do that they 

 come to have a feeling akin to the blind 

 fear and admiration expressed toward 

 certain rivers in many acts by primitive 

 races. 



A RIVER OF UXSF.TTLKD H.KCITS 



In no river is spirit more evident than 

 in the Rio Grande. From its birthplace 

 in the snows of Colorado to where its 

 flood meets the tides of the Gulf of 

 Mexico, it seems a sentient intelligence, 

 laden with messages for the country 

 through which it passes. 



Its power to do good or to withhold it 

 is ajiparent in the creation of rich allu- 

 vial valleys, or when it plunges through 

 rock-boimd canyons, leaving the country 

 for miles on either side a voiceless desert. 

 Throughout its length it seems to brood 

 over the land for good or for evil, .\long 

 its sinuous route below Rio Grande City 

 it i)ushes its way through miles of level 

 sand in its final reach to the Gulf, twist- 



ing and doubling upon itself like a great 

 sea serpent. 



For centuries it had coiled and un- 

 coiled and straightened it.self again in the 

 yielding sands of the semi-arid region, 

 with none to heed its vagaries, until 

 Mexico and the United States, by the 

 Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, in the 

 year 1848, fixed upon it as the boundarv 

 line between the two countries and there- 

 by brought it under international super- 

 vision. Its unsettled habits were recog- 

 nized, however, and in the earliest con- 

 vention on the boundary question every 

 effort was made to provide against future 

 misunderstandings arising between the 

 two countries because of them. 



The boundary was to be the "middle 

 of the river, following the deepest chan- 

 nel." This seemed clear, and took practi- 

 cal note of the river's shifting current, 

 and neither side foresaw that it would not 

 prove broad enough to cover the good 

 intention of each to the other. 



But the Rio Grande possessed char- 

 acteristics that had not impressed them- 

 selves upon the framers of the conven- 

 tion as possible causes of friction between 

 the people living along its banks. In ad- 

 dition to its eroding power, exercised 

 through long months of low and mean 

 water, it could during flood periods leap 

 with torrential force across a narrow 

 neck of land at the base of one of its 

 long loops and cut for itself a new 

 channel. 



WHAT .\. l'..\XCO IS 



Through such avulsive action of the 

 river, Texas soil would sometimes be- 

 come [Mexican, and on occasions a plan- 

 tation occupied by jacals and Mexican 

 citizens would over night find itself a 

 part of Texas — and behold a banco !* 



To meet this condition a new conven- 



*A banco is the non-descriptive term — elud- 

 ins? translation, but whose nearest Enghsh 

 equivalent is cut-off — applied to those portions 

 of the territory thus separated from the main- 

 land bv the river. 



381 



