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Cortina Troubles | |||||||
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United States Army Confederate States Army Texas Rangers Brownsville Tigers Matamoros militia | Unknown precisely | ||||||
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31 killed and wounded [1] | 216 killed [1] |
The Cortina Troubles is the generic name for the First Cortina War, from 1859 to 1860, and the Second Cortina War , in 1861, in which paramilitary forces led by the Mexican rancher and local leader Juan Cortina, confronted elements of the United States Army, the Confederate States Army, the Texas Rangers, and the local militias of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Tamaulipas.
According to author Robert Elman, Juan Cortina and his followers were the first "socially motivated border bandits," similar to the Garzistas and the Villistas of later generations. The fighting took place in the Rio Grande Valley area, which straddles the international border of Texas and Mexico. [1] [2]
The First Cortina War began at Brownsville on July 13, 1859, when Cortina shot the town marshal, Robert Shears, in the arm for his brutalizing of Cortina's former employee, Tomás Cabrera. Tension increased between Cortina and the Brownsville authorities, and on September 28, he raided and occupied the town with a posse of between forty and eighty men. His enemies, however, had fled. During the occupation of Brownsville, Cortina issued a proclamation to reveal his intentions to both communities, quoting from Proverbs 22:24:
"(...) There is no need of fear. Orderly people and honest citizens are inviolable to us in their persons and interests. Our object, as you have seen, has been to chastise the villainy of our enemies, which heretofore has gone unpunished. These have connived with each other, and form, so to speak, a perfidious inquisitorial lodge to persecute and rob us, without any cause, and for no other crime on our part than that of being of Mexican origin, considering us, doubtless, destitute of those gifts which they themselves do not possess. (...) Mexicans! Peace be with you! Good inhabitants of the State of Texas, look on them as brothers, and keep in mind that which the Holy Spirit saith: "Thou shalt not be the friend of the passionate man; nor join thyself to the madman, lest thou learn his mode of work and scandalize thy soul."[ citation needed ]
Cortina retained control over Brownsville until September 30, 1859, when he evacuated the town at the urging of influential residents of Matamoros. In the following days, the townsfolk of Brownsville formed a twenty-man group to fight Cortina called the "Brownsville Tigers". In November, the Brownsville Tigers learned that Cortina was at his mother's home, called Rancho del Carmen, five miles west of Brownsville. They immediately launched an attack, only to be sent into retreat in disarray by the "Cortinistas", as they were called.[ citation needed ]
Later the same month, the Brownsville Tigers were joined by a group of Texas Rangers, and Cortina decided to attack them. The offensive was unsuccessful. In December, a second group of rangers led by Captain John "Rip" Ford arrived, larger and better organized. Because of appeals from Brownsville residents, the United States Army sent troops from San Antonio to the nearby Fort Brown, which had been abandoned a few years ago. The fort's new commander, Major Samuel Heintzelman, united and coordinated all armed groups to put an end to the Cortina threat.
Cortina retreated up the Rio Grande until on December 27, 1859, Heintzelman and Ford engaged him in the Battle of Rio Grande City. Cortina's forces were decisively defeated, losing sixty men and all their equipment. Pursued and defeated again by Ford a few days later, Cortina retreated with his men into the Burgos Mountains. The First Cortina War was mostly finished. With increasing pressure from the United States and Mexican Governments to cease all hostile activities, Cortina remained away from the scene for more than a year. The final engagements of the war were the Battle of La Bolsa, on February 4, 1860, and the Battle of La Mesa, on March 17. The Texas Rangers, under Ford, successfully defended their riverboat in the first engagement and routed the Cortinistas across the river at La Mesa, Tamaulipas. [2]
In May 1861, the much shorter Second Cortina War occurred. The American Civil War had just begun, and Cortina, who had aligned himself with the Federal government of the United States, invaded Zapata County, Texas. Defeated by Confederate Captain Santos Benavides at the Battle of Carrizo and losing 18 men, Cortina retreated into Mexico. Cortina no longer conducted any large-scale military incursions within the United States. However, he was accused several times of promoting guerrilla actions against the richer Texan landowners in the area throughout the following years.[ citation needed ]
Mexican author Carmen Boullosa published the novel Texas in 2013, which presents a fictionalized account of the First Cortina War. The novel was translated into English by Samantha Schnee in 2014. [4]
Matamoros, officially known as Heroica Matamoros, is a city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, and the municipal seat of the homonymous municipality. It is on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas, United States. Matamoros is the second largest city in the state of Tamaulipas. As of 2016, Matamoros had a population of 520,367. In addition, the Matamoros–Brownsville Metropolitan Area has a population of 1,387,985, making it the 4th largest metropolitan area on the Mexico–US border. Matamoros is the 39th largest city in Mexico and anchors the second largest metropolitan area in Tamaulipas.
The Battle of Palmito Ranch, also known as the Battle of Palmito Hill, is considered by some criteria the final battle of the American Civil War. It was fought May 12 and 13, 1865, on the banks of the Rio Grande east of Brownsville, Texas, and a few miles from the seaport of Los Brazos de Santiago, at the southern tip of Texas. The battle took place more than a month after the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee to Union forces at Appomattox Court House, which had since been communicated to both commanders at Palmito. In the intervening weeks the Confederacy had collapsed entirely, so it could also be classified as a postwar action.
King Ranch is the largest ranch in the United States. At some 825,000 acres it is larger than the land area of Rhode Island and the European country Luxembourg. It is mainly a cattle ranch, but also produced the Triple Crown winning racehorse Assault.
Santos Benavides was a Confederate colonel during the American Civil War. Benavides was the highest-ranking Tejano soldier in the Confederate military.
Fort Brown was a military post of the United States Army in Cameron County, Texas, during the latter half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. Established in 1846, it was the first US Army military outpost of the recently annexed state. Confederate Army troops stationed there saw action during the American Civil War. In the early 20th century, it was garrisoned in relation to military activity over border conflicts with Mexico. Surviving elements of the fort were designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1960.
Juan Nepomuceno Cortina Goseacochea, also known by his nicknames Cheno Cortina, the Red Robber of the Rio Grande and the Rio Grande Robin Hood, was a Mexican rancher, politician, military leader, outlaw and folk hero. He was an important caudillo, military general and regional leader, who effectively controlled the Mexican state of Tamaulipas as governor. In borderlands history he is known for leading a paramilitary mounted Mexican Militia in the failed Cortina Wars. The "Wars" were raids targeting Anglo-American civilians whose settlement Cortina opposed near the several leagues of land granted to his wealthy family on both sides of the Rio Grande. Anglo families began immigrating to the Lower Rio Grande Valley after the Mexican Army was defeated by the Anglo-Mexican rebels of the Mexican State of Tejas, in the Texas Revolution.
John Salmon Ford, better known as "Rip" Ford, was a member of the Republic of Texas Congress and the Texas Senate. He was also the mayor of Brownsville and Austin. Ford was a Texas Ranger, a Confederate colonel, a doctor, a lawyer, and a journalist and newspaper owner. He commanded men during the Antelope Hills expedition and later led the Confederate forces in what was arguably the last engagement of the American Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Ranch on May 12–13, 1865. It was a Confederate victory, but as it occurred more than a month after Robert E. Lee's surrender, it did not affect the war's outcome.
Leander Harvey McNelly was a Confederate officer and Texas Ranger captain. McNelly is best remembered for leading the "Special Force", a quasi-military branch of the Texas Rangers that operated in south Texas in 1875–76.
Charles Stillman was the founder of Brownsville, Texas, and was part owner of a successful river boat company on the Rio Grande.
The origins of today's Texas Ranger Division trace back to the first days of Anglo-American settlement of what is today the State of Texas, when it was part of the Province of Coahuila y Tejas belonging to the newly independent country of Mexico. The unique characteristics that the Rangers adopted during the force's formative years and that give the division its heritage today—characteristics for which the Texas Rangers would become world-renowned—have been accounted for by the nature of the Rangers' duties, which was to protect a thinly populated frontier against protracted hostilities, first with Plains Indian tribes, and after the Texas Revolution, hostilities with Mexico.
The Battle of Brownsville took place on November 2–6, 1863 during the American Civil War. It was a successful effort on behalf of the Union Army to disrupt Confederate blockade runners along the Gulf Coast in Texas. The Union assault precipitated the capture of Matamoros by a force of Mexican patriots, led by exiled officers living in Brownsville.
José María Jesús Carbajal (1809–1874) was a Mexican Tejano who opposed the Centralist government installed by Antonio López de Santa Anna, but was a conscientious objector who refused to take up arms against his own people. Mexican conscientious objectors paid a price for their refusals, in that Texan Brigadier General Thomas Jefferson Rusk confiscated the homes of those who wished to remain neutral in the war. In July 1836, Rusk ordered the Carbajal and other Tejano families of Victoria escorted off their own land. They took refuge in New Orleans.
The Battle of La Ebonal was fought in December 1859 near Brownsville, Texas during the First Cortina War. Following the Brownsville Raid, on September 28, and a few skirmishes with the Texas Rangers, rebel leader Juan Cortina led his small army into the hills outside of town and dug in near a series of cattle ranches. The United States Army responded by sending an expedition into the area, under the command of Major Samuel P. Heintzelman, with orders to pacify all resistance. A minor battle began on December 13, at a ranch called La Ebonal, and continued for a few hours as the Americans routed and then pursued the retreating Cortinistas.
The Battle of Rio Grande City was a military engagement during the Cortina War between pro-Mexican Cortinistas and a group of US Army regulars supported by Texas Rangers.
Manning Marius Kimmel was a military officer who served on both sides of the American Civil War. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1853 and graduated in 1857. After initially fighting for the Union, he switched sides to the Confederacy, one of four West Point graduates to fight on both sides during the war. In the Confederate Army, he served as adjutant general and assistant adjutant general on the staff of generals Benjamin McCulloch and Earl Van Dorn, and as inspector general on John Magruder's staff. He was the father of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, who commanded the United States Pacific Fleet during the Attack on Pearl Harbor.
Adrián J. Vidal was a Mexican soldier who fought in both the American Civil War and the Mexican War against France in the 1860s. He served the Confederate States of America Army from October 1862 to 1863, when he and his troops defected. He was branded a traitor, having killed one Confederate soldier, wounded another, and killed as many as ten or more individuals. He was said to have planned an attack on Brownsville after defecting from the Confederate Army. In the end, General Hamilton P. Bee ordered that Fort Brown and Brownsville be set on fire, destroying large quantities of cotton and military goods under the watchful eyes of 400 Union troops as well as Juan Cortina and his soldiers on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande. The next month, he enlisted in the Union Army, serving just six months. During that time he captured an Army tugboat and its crew. He then fought under General Juan Cortina during the Second French intervention in Mexico. Vidal was captured by the French who executed him by a firing squad in June 1865.
The Battle of La Bolsa was a major event in the Cortina War, a series of armed confrontations between the milita of Mexican rancher Juan Cortina and elements of the United States Army and the Texas Rangers. The battle occurred on February 4, 1860, when Cortina's forces attacked the steamboat Ranchero on its way to Brownsville.
Mifflin Kenedy (1818–1895) was a rancher, steamboat operator, and investor who settled in Texas. He began his steamboating career on the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers. He then went to Texas and northern Mexico, where he helped get many steamboats to the Rio Grande area during the First Cortina War (1859–1860). Using the Corvette, he transported General Zachary Taylor and his soldiers on the Rio Grande and then overland to Camargo, Mexico. He became successful during the Civil War when he transported goods along the Rio Grande. Kenedy operated ranches and invested in railroads in Texas, some of them in partnership with Richard King. He was among the first ranchers to fence in his ranches, starting with the 36-miles of fencing around Laureles Ranch. Kenedy was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners.
The Brownsville Raid was the opening act of the Cortina Troubles, a series of raids by Mexican rancher Juan Cortina into Texas. The raid was precipitated by Brownsville sheriff Robert Shears attacking a Mexican man named Thomas Cabrera and in turn being shot by Cortina. The incident was a culmination of growing discontent between Mexicans and Texan settlers.
The Battle of Carrizo was an 1861 battle, the only engagement of the Second Cortina War, and the final engagement of the wider Cortina Troubles. Juan Cortina, a Mexican rancher who had previously attacked American settlements in Texas' Rio Grande valley, sacked Carrizo, a settlement that was then the seat of Zapata County on May 22 with about thirty Cortinistas. In a forty-minute battle, Confederate Captain Santos Benavides decisively defeated Cortina, killing or capturing many of his soldiers and driving him back into Mexico.