Blog Post, Line in the sand, St. John

Rachel St. Johns narrative visualizes how the border changed overtime, simply from a line in the sand to a heavily guarded boundary. She focuses mainly on the border west of the Rio Grande giving us a detailed time line of the origins and major components of the border. St. John paints the picture of contributions from both sides of the border, whether good or bad such as minors, immigrants, ranchers, government, Native Americans and smugglers. These groups developed strategies to maneuver the systemized border which increased power on both sides. After the Mexican-American war in 1848 began the gradual restrictions of movement of people, animals, goods and drugs. the main goals of each nation state relative to the border was the production of capitalism, economy and power. The goals changed over time with the changes in technology with the railroads, ranching, smuggling, trading became different . In chapter 1 St. John explains the history the surveying of the border with that native American Raiders used the border to elude US soldiers and Mexican posses. Soon after the Apaches the European filibusters railroad tried to redraw the line through their areas of powers along with many others. With all the greed and desire surrounding the border government officials had to regulate who and what could cross the borders restricted certain activities which they were looking to benefit from.