Name Date Lone Star Legends: Unit 4 CHAPTER 13 Section 2 The Changing Face of 13.2B

Juan Cortina Pupil’s Edition, Mexican Folk Hero pp. 290–293

Known as the Robin Hood of the , Juan Nepomuceno Cortina (1824–1894) stands as a champion of Mexican civil rights in Texas.

uan Cortina was born in Camargo in , ranch, where he issued a proclama- JMexico, to an aristocratic family in 1824. His tion of rights for Mexican Texans. mother inherited a large cattle ranch in the Rio The proclamation called on the “sacred right of self- Grande Valley around Brownsville, where he moved preservation” and demanded justice for the oppressed as a young boy. and abused Mexican residents in the Rio Grande The War with In his early twenties, Cortina Valley. fought in the War with Mexico against the United Hot Pursuit In the following months, Cortina and States, serving as a cavalryman. After the war, he his army were pursued by forces, including the Texas moved to the north side of the Rio Grande, where he Rangers and a joint Mexican-Anglo force of militia- was charged at least twice by Texas authorities as a men. Cortina quickly defeated the latter group, cattle rustler. He was not arrested, though, and he though one of his closest lieutenants, Tomás Cabrera, remained popular with the Mexicans in the area. was captured by a town posse. Hero of the Poor After the signing of the Treaty of When the Texas Rangers got involved, they Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), which established the quickly hanged Cabrera, fueling the fire that drove Texas boundary at the Rio Grande, Cortina rose in Cortina. On December 27, the U.S. Army dealt prominence as a leader of poor Mexicans along the Cortina’s forces a harsh defeat in Rio Grande City. river whose lands were being taken by the U.S. gov- His army was eventually forced to dissolve. ernment. He also acted as a political boss for the The Fighting Spirit Endures Cortina didn’t stop South Texas Democratic Party. fighting. He returned to Mexico, where he fought Making of an Outlaw Then, on July 13, 1859, Juan against the French in the 1860s. He also took part in Cortina witnessed an act that would be the start of the , fighting for the Union in “Cortina’s War.” In Brownsville, he saw Anglo mar- Texas. He was later promoted to general in the shal Robert Shears pistol-whipping one of Cortina’s and proclaimed himself the governor ex-employees. Cortina demanded that the marshal of Tamaulipas, the state in which he was born. stop abusing the man. When Shears refused to stop, In 1876, largely because of American diplomatic Cortina shot the officer in the shoulder and carried pressure, Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz put Cortina his friend to safety on horseback. In those moments, in prison in , where he was held until Cortina officially became a legend and an outlaw. 1890. He returned to Tamaulipas and died in 1892. Two months later, Cortina returned to Review Questions Brownsville with 40 to 80 armed men. He released several Mexicans from jail and killed four Anglos, 1. Why do you think Cortina is called the Robin each of whom he claimed had killed Mexicans and Hood of the Rio Grande? had not been punished. Cortina and his men seized control of the town and rode through the streets cry- 2. What event sparked “Cortina’s War”? ing “Viva Mexico!” and “Death to the gringos!” Cortina raised the Mexican flag above Brownsville Critical Thinking

Copyright © Lone Star Publishing J. V. and proclaimed it the Republic of the Rio Grande. 3. Summarizing What was Cortina’s major A Call for Rights Two days later, a Mexican official contribution to Mexican Texans in the mid- convinced Cortina to take his troops to his family nineteenth century?

Life in the State of Texas ✯ 41