Louis Cardis was an American politician.

He was born in the Piedmont

Piedmont

Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...

 region of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. He served as a captain in Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...

's army before immigrating to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1854.

Cardis moved to El Paso, Texas

El Paso, Texas

El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...

 in 1864. He quickly learned the Spanish language

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 and established a political power base with the Mexican American

Mexican American

Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States...

 citizens of the area.

He became involved in a dispute involving salt deposits

San Elizario Salt War

The San Elizario Salt War, also known as the Salinero Revolt or the El Paso Salt War, was an extended and complex political, social and military conflict over ownership and control of immense salt lakes at the base of the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas...

 and the shifting of influence and political power from the Hispanic population to the Anglo

Anglo

Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to the Angles, England or the English people, as in the terms Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-American, Anglo-Celtic, Anglo-African and Anglo-Indian. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British Isles descent in The Americas, Australia and...

. He was elected to the State Legislature

Texas Legislature

The Legislature of the state of Texas is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Texas. The legislature is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The Legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin...

  with the help of Charles H. Howard.

Cardis had a falling out with Howard after Howard staked an exclusive claim to the salt deposits. Cardis had his allies imprison Howard, and Howard retaliated by shooting Cardis to death with a shotgun on October 9, 1877.

Two months later Howard was killed by Cardis' former supporters.

External links

• http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/fca49.html
• http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/aa_Vignettes/event_el_paso_salt_war.htm