This Is How You Kidnap a Child: An American History

From creating orphans to trafficking children, the United States is not new to family separation

Image of a black infant being dangled up by a slave auctioneer, to be sold separately from their mother. (Credit: NYPL Digital Collections/Public domain, 1853.)

The white residents of Morenci, Arizona — or “Hell Town,” as it was known — had their pistols to the heads of the New York City nuns. The nuns had escorted to town 40 Irish-Catholic orphans, who were there to meet their new foster families. The nuns from New York came to Morenci — and the neighboring town of Clifton — because there were Mexican-American families there who were willing to foster, families who shared a religion with the orphans (if not a language).

But in the time between their arrival on October 1 and their hasty departure four days later, 19 of the 40 children were kidnapped, wrenched from the arms of Mexican mothers who had been deemed “unfit” by the white community. The nuns managed to flee with the remaining 21 children, but the loss was still palpable.

Morenci, Arizona circa 1910. Morenci is a “company town” and home to the largest Copper Mining operation in North America. The author’s father grew up here. (Public domain)

Thus began, and ended, the Great Arizona Orphan Abduction of 1904 — a brief but brutal mass-kidnapping in the tiny mining towns of Morenci and Clifton. Enraged by the sight of dark mothers with white babies —…