Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

586 • REPUBLIC OF TEXASREPUBLIC OF TEXAS. Group of antistate residents in Fort Davis,Texas, who claimed that the state of Texas was illegally annexed bythe United States and who declared their own “Republic of Texas” in1997. Led by Richard L. McClaren, this group of at most two dozenwas headquartered in a trailer home and an abandoned fire station 15miles outside Fort Davis in the Davis Mountains. Like the Freemanof Montana, they declared themselves independent of the UnitedStates after running afoul of authorities by creating bogus financialinstruments and filing bogus liens to harass Texas and federal authoritiesand whomever they deemed to be their enemies.On 27 April 1997 McClaren ordered the seizure of Joe Rowe andMargaret Ann Rowe, against whom McClaren had litigated unsuccessfully,after the local sheriff’s department had arrested one of hisfollowers, Robert J. Scheidt, on trespassing and firearms charges. Upto 300 Texas public safety officers and Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) agents besieged the McClaren compound. On 3 May 1997McClaren and all but two of his followers, who escaped into the DavisMountains, surrendered to authorities. On 31 October 1997 McClarenand his chief lieutenant, Robert Otto, were found guilty in state districtcourt for organized criminal activity and for the abduction of Joe andMargaret Ann Rowe, and on 4 November 1997 McClaren was sentencedto 99 years’ imprisonment and Otto to 50 years.Three factions lay claim to be the current Republic of Texas butnone of them have continued the bogus lien and harassment tactics ofMcClaren and since 1997 are no longer viewed as a threat to publicsecurity by Texas law enforcement. In 2003 the three groups mergedback into a single entity, but on 31 August 2005 unknown individualsburned down the group’s headquarters in Overton, Texas. In order toattract new members, the current Republic of Texas has been tryingto exploit the growing anti-immigration sentiment in Texas by formingtheir own citizen border partrols similar to those of the recentMinutemen movement. See also “COMMON-LAW COURTS.”RESURGENCE MOVEMENTS. Also called Revitalization Movements,attempts by a group to recover its cultural, political, or socialidentity through nonpolitical, political, violent, or nonviolent means.The various ethnonationalist political and military movements,identity politics within a nation-state, and fundamentalist religiousmovements, such as Islamic fundamentalism and Protestant Chris-