In the mid-1800s, Doña Estefana Goseasocochea de Cavazos de Cortinas was one of the pioneer Latinas who came to South Texas bringing with them the civilizing agents of education and religion.
She was born in Camargo, Mexico, in 1782 (the Rio Grande wasn't a border then) and died in 1867 on her El Carmen ranch at 85.
Until the settlers came, the land was inhabited by wandering nomads who neither cultivated the land nor developed it. With the coming of Salvador de la Garza (her father and grantee of the Espiritu Santo Land Grant), all that changed.
P. G. Cavazos, her great-great grandson, from San Pedro, was instrumental in getting the Texas Historical Commission to erect a marker on Doña Estefana's family cemetery off Military Highway where she and her family once operated her ranching empire.
Hers was one of the first ranches established in Cameron County. El Carmen Ranch was named after Doña Estefana’s
daughter. Rancho Viejo was established by her father in 1770 and the King of Spain gave Salvador de La Garza the royal grant in 1781.El Carmen Avenue connected these two ranches. Santa Rita (now Villanueva, and the first seat of Cameron County) was also founded by Doña Estefana.
Cavazos said Doña Estefana would always make sure a chapel was built on every new ranch that was founded. Also, she made sure her children received an education, and they, in turn, would set up schools in the ranches for the sons and daughter of her ranch hands.
Thus, this pioneer woman, in fact, initiated the custom and culture of education long before the State of Texas, Cameron County, the City of Brownsville, or even the Brownsville Independent School District, existed.
One of her sons (Jose Maria) went on to become a tax-assessor collector for the eventual Cameron County and another (Sabas) would become a wealthy and successful rancher and livestock grower dominating the local agrarian economy.
Her deeds and accomplishments are often overshadowed by the activities and controversy surrounding her youngest son, Juan Cortina, who, angered at the Anglo settlers who in collusion with their military and law enforcement counterparts soon dispossessed most Mexican-Americans of their land, made unrelentless war against them.
He died in exile in Mexico as a result of the animosity he incurred from them and the pliant Mexican government under Mexican disctator Porfirio Diaz.
The new BISD Veterans Memorial High School built by the Brownsville Independent School District is literally in the old La Carmen ranch's front yard. Carmen Avenue is on the property’s west side.
Her son’s (Sabas) historical cemetery lies in San Pedro, on the north side of the school. Her historical cemetery lies on the school's southeast side. Rancho Viejo, her father’s ranch, lies to its north.
If you stop to read the historical marker off Military Highway just north of the river levee and now topped by the Border Wall, you will learn that vandalism, weather, the construction of the river levee and now the wall, have obliterated what once was one of the first cemeteries in Cameron County.
In this fashion, Anglo officials' animosity, the levee, the Wall, and our own neglect of history have erased the memory of the first settlers here and an important part of local Hispanics' heritage.
1 comment:
It is about time that someone writes about the real owners of the Espiritu Santo Land Grant. Juan, you need to take up a project on all these local land grants. A bunch of us were cheated from our land by lawyers hired by the high and mightly so-called founders of Brownsville.
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