COUNTY HAS A WEALTH OF FORGOTTEN HISTORICAL SITES

By Juan Montoya
Cameron County commissioner precinct two – maybe more so than at least two other precincts – contains a wealth of historical sites that have shaped South Texas.
Were these assets in any other Texas or national location, they undoubtedly would have been pruned and groomed to attract the lucrative historical tourism.
There is, for example, the first ranch established in Cameron County – Rancho Viejo – within its boundaries.
It also contains the site of the original county seat at Santa Rita.
And one fo the descendants of the extended original family of De la Garza would be Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, a historical personage who strode mounumentally through the pages of Texas and Mexican history with the likes of Porfirio Diaz, Ignacio Zaragoza, John Rip Ford, and the Emperor Maximilian.
The website of the Texas Historical Association describes the settling of what is now Cameron County in this way.
"In 1772 Salvador de la Garza applied for a large tract of land in this vicinity, title to which was granted him in 1781. The grant, known as the Potrero del Espíritu Santo (Pasture of the Holy Ghost), or simply as the Espíritu Santo grant, comprised 59½ leagues (284,416 acres) now in Cameron County. The ranch that Salvador de la Garza established on the grant was known as Rancho Viejo, and its headquarters were situated west of the site of present-day Brownsville. A state historical marker commemorating the ranch was placed beside U.S. Highway 77 five miles north of Brownsville in 1936.
After her husband's death, Doña Gertrudis became the owner of all the Espíritu Santo grant, with its cattle, horses, mules, sheep, and goats. Through her hands it passed to numerous descendants. In 1849 some of the family filed suit to recover the land on which the town of Brownsville was located, claiming that holders of faulty titles had improperly conveyed the land to Charles Stillman and the Brownsville Town Company. Although the Garza heirs won their case in January 1852, they sold the Brownsville tract the following April for one-sixth of its appraised value to the lawyers who had represented Stillman, and Stillman subsequently acquired the property. This litigation and the struggle of other Hispanics to retain their land in the face of mounting pressure, formed part of the social background for the activities of Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, a great-grandson of Gertrudis."

It would take many books to describe the historical events Cortina was involved in.

Suffice it to say that he was in both the Palo Alto and Resaca de la Guerra battles which ignited the war with Mexico. 

The Rio Grande River was a geographical feature then, and not a border. So Cortina fought against Zachary Taylor's army as the leader of a force of local irregulars.

After the battles were over and Taylor followed up by invading Monterrey, Corina remained actively resisting the new settlers. During the French invasion in 1862, Cortina fought with Ignacio Zaragoza in the Battle of Puebla celebrated now every 5 de Mayo. This colorful character was also present when Maximilian was shot at Queretaro by the Mexican army.

But even before that, the Cortina underground movement culminated in the occupation of Brownsville in September 1859 for three days and did not leave until a delegation from Matamoros convinced him to go.

The Cortina Troubles would continue on and off until the 1870s. Many cortinistas like the three men hung above, were loyal to Cortina and were hunted down by U.S. Army forces and Texas Rangers.

Some historians say that the future president of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz, received a large monetary contribution from the citizens of Brownsville in order to remove Cortina, under the pretext that he was rustling cattle across the border. In July 1875, Cortina is arrested and taken to Mexico City where he would remain under house arrest until his death in 1894.

He also became military governor of Tamaulipas and fought on both sides of the French-Mexican war. At the Battle of Palmetto Hill, Cortina fought the French, the Confederates and the Texas Rangers undere John RIP Ford.

Central to the area' development of this area was the sale of livestock and cattle hides to buyers in the East Coast. Cattle then, became the prime source of income across South Texas. The Chisolm Trail actually had its beginnings in Brownsville. Cowboys from neighboring states and from Texas would often round up "unbranded" cattle and form large cattle drives to the rail heads in Kansas. Many of these "unbranded" cattle belonged to large landowners whose land formed part of huge land grants such as Salvador de la Garza and other large extended families.

It is easy to see that the wealth of historical material available in Cameron County has gone largely untapped as a tourism potential.