In 1859 Juan Nepomuceno Cortina led a small band of men into Brownsville, Texas, killing four men and leaving the rest of the town’s residents upset and fearful. That event led to intervention by the Texas Rangers and, finally, by the U.S. Army, and is the climax of Cortina’s career as far as most histories of the region are concerned. It is the contention of Charles W. Goldfinch and J. T. Canales, however, that the event has been wrenched from its historical and cultural context by Anglo-American historians, thereby misrepresenting not only Cortina but the entire situation along the Rio Grande border of Texas and Mexico.
Beginning his work, which was presented to Professor J. Fred Rippy of the University of Chicago as an M.A. thesis in 1949, Goldfinch delves into Cortina’s background and points out the difficult situation that Mexicans in Texas faced after the United States took control of south Texas after the war with Mexico. By virtue of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo they became citizens of the United States and their land titles were protected, hut in actual fact Anglos poured into the area, contested land titles, and in many cases were successful in taking choice land away from its rightful owners. Further, racial discrimination, which ultimately ignited Cortina’s 1859 raid, acerbated every contact between Chicano and Anglo.
Goldfinch and Canales insist that Cortina is best understood from the cultural perspective of the Chicano who has been robbed of his land by lawyers, discriminated against by merchants and lawmen, and relegated to second-class citizenship in a land that he formerly ruled. Cortina’s actions do not become legal in this situation, but they do become understandable in terms other than those of “a bandit,” “a thief,” “the red robber of the Río Grande,” and “the black sheep of his Mother’s otherwise commendable flock,” as Cortina has been called by different historians. Cortina’s actions are those of a natural leader totally frustrated in his attempts to secure equality and honorable treatment for his people.
These two works are a beginning. They only suggest the interpretation through which more serious and complete research should now be carried out. Both Goldfinch and Canales suggest that historians need to take another look at Cortina, and while Goldfinch admits the impossibility of finding the “truth” while working with the documents at hand—government reports from both the Mexican and American sides of the river—their suggestion is one that historians should take seriously even today.
