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It is difficult to separate the history of Ojinaga from that of the region in the period before the Mexican Revolution, and during the revolution also. Part of the reason is that it was a part of - perhaps the center of - a geographical and cultural region that included both sides of the border, including the municipios of Ojinaga, Coyame, and Manuel Benavides (then San Carlos), and the counties of Presidio and Brewster in the state of Texas.
Another factor was that the dominant political personality in the region, in the final analysis, was Toribio Ortega, who was not from Ojinaga, but rather from Cuchillo Parado, in the municipio of Coyame. His dominance, in part, serves to underscore the degree to which Ojinaga was part of the regional and cultural entity which was the Conchos Valley, and the identity that the inhabitants felt to that "patria chica". By the same token, Ojinaga was also linked to communities that were centered more on the Rio Bravo, or just back from it on its tributaries, such as San Antonio and San Carlos. It was also the main center of population in the region that included the Occupied North Bank of the Rio Grande, which is to say, Presidio and Brewster counties, where the population was overwhelmingly Mexican, and the few anglos who had been there originally had married Mexican women, and their children grew up speaking Spanish, and in effect, became Mexicans with "American" surnames. At the same time, this demographic was now changing, and in Marfa and Shafter, for instance, there were Americans with American wives and American children, and these people were now bringing the region under their own economic and political control. Ranching was their main business, and they hired a lot of Mexicans as cowhands, especially once the expropriation of the lands of the people in the pueblos was under way, and these people felt the economic necessity to seek work outside of their villages.
One man who did a lot of this type of ranch work was Toribio Ortega. He both learned English and established a relationship with the Americans in Shafter and Marfa wherein his status as a political leader and person of respect in Cuchillo Parado was understood and recognized. As such, he was able operate on the American side of the border in support of his cause, and he actually received the help and the support of the Americans there, who were far more likely to be sympathetic of their neighbors than they would be of those who exploited them. This notion was reinforced by two important factors. One was that it was clear that all of the Mexicans living inside the United States occupied territories were in sympathy with Ortega and his fellow organizers, and that the welfare of the Mexicans on the Mexican side of the river was important to the economic strength of the Americans in the Big Bend region, for the matters of trade and of other activity that would affect their pocketbooks somehow. In addition, one has to assume that there was a lot of good will involved. The Americans were not necessarily scornful of their Mexican neighbors. Most likely, the majority of them were motivated by human feelings of sympathy for the Mexicans in Ojinaga and the other towns in the region, in the hardships they suffered as a result of the policies of Diaz, Terrazas, and Enrique Creel, Terrazas's son in law who became governor of the state and carried out Terrazas's policies as sort of his puppet.
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