THE SABAS CAVAZOS LOAN TO PORFIRIO DIAZ NEVER REPAID

By Juan Montoya
When Porfirio Diaz was fomenting revolution in northern Mexico against the democratically-elected government under Benito Juarez, he came to Brownsville and met with many leading men of the time.
Diaz met with several U.S. supporters of hs "revolution," including James Stillman and other bankers who promised to help him with men, money and arms in return for concessions in Mexico's railways, electric grid, and other public services.
In fact, the Stillmans let Diaz stay at the family home, now the Stillman House Museum while he planned his insurrection against the Mexican government.
When Juarez died in 1871, Lerdo assumed power and then won the election of 1872. Lerdo was to finish his four-year term in 1876, and it was then, when Lerdo’s reelection was confirmed by the Mexican Congress, that Diaz launched his revolution in earnest.
Diaz had initially called for revolution against the Lerdo government in January, 1876, in the village of Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. The Plan de Tuxtepec called for the “non-reelection” of Lerdo, and mentions vague assurances of universal suffrage. The plan names Diaz as general of the “regeneration army” which was to return the popular liberties to the people of Mexico.
Sensing that his revolution would be crushed by federal government troops, Diaz seized the moment and fled to Veracruz where he wrote a government official that he was fleeing because the government was attempting to arrest him “without any reason.”
Diaz left Veracruz on a ship to the United States and arrived in Brownsville and set up his new headquarters. Historian John Mason Hart contends that U.S. industrialists – including the Stillmans – gave Diaz financial and moral support to wage his revolution for promises of concessions in the Mexican economy. Hart says the Stillmans loaned Diaz the use of their home to use as his military headquarters.
Among some of the local leaders of the Mexican-American community who met and supported Diaz was Sabas Cavazos, the half brother of Juan Cortina, the colorful character in local history who was the bane of the newly arrived U.S. settlers and military.
The Cavazos portion of the Espiritu Santo Grant encompassed more than one-quarter million acres of land and included the future sites of Fort Brown and the City of Brownsville. Sabas' mother established Rancho Viejo, the first settlement in the Brownsville area. The communities of San Pedro, El Carmen, La Gloria, and La Puerta were established by her. A cemetery named after him dates back to 1878.
Family lore – later confirmed by historians – is that Cavazos gave Diaz a sizeable loan totaling about $50,000 in gold. Cavazos' cash contribution is listed in the Porfirio Diaz papers in the Universidad Iberoamericana files dated August 30, 1877, Document 001000. General Placido Vega is also listed among the donors to Diaz.
P.G. Cavazos, a descendant of Cavazos, the son of land-grant recipient Doña Estefana Goseascochea Cavazos de Cortina, said family lore and tradition tells of his ancestor Sabas supporting the Diaz rebellion by providing him the loan .
“Our grandfathers and grandmothers used to tell us that Sabas Cavazos loaned the money to Diaz and considered him his friend,” said Cavazos.
At that time, his half-brother Juan (Cortina) was waging a guerrilla war against the Americans in Texas.
“My ancestor visited Porfirio Diaz in Brownsville and Diaz visited him at his ranch in Santa Rita,” said Cavazos. “That’s where they became friends and he lent him the money to further his revolution.”
Diaz, along with Gen. Manuel Gonzalez, captured Matamoros on March 1876 after federal troops deserted the city plaza.
Diaz and his army went on to invade Tamaulipas and issued the Plan de Palo Blanco named after small town in northern Tamaulipas close to the Rio Grande. The new plan, except for a few changes, was, “the same pig with very small changes.”
That change was the omission of Article 6. Where the Plan de Tuxtepec offered Vicente Riva Palacios, Mexican Supreme Court Chief Justice and the succession to the presidency, the Plan de Palo Blanco permits Riva Palacios to retain his post but for it to function only as an “administrative” post.
Diaz continued inciting his revolution through April and May of 1876 in northern Tamaulipas. His revolt was basically in suspended animation, since those months went by without the revolt making any appreciable gains in territory or conversions of the population.
Toward the end of May, Mexican General Mariano Escobedo defeated the Diaz forces in Tamaulipas, and Gen. Carlos Fuero, military commander of the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon, dealt a crushing defeat to the remnants of Diaz’s forces at the Battle of Icamole, a town near the city of Monterrey.
Diaz fled back to Brownsville, and from here he left aboard a ship to New Orleans.
Thus ended Diaz’s attempts at revolution in northern Mexico. But a postscript to this story is that when Diaz finally overthrew Lerdo later in 1876, he invited Sabas Cavazos to an official ceremony in Mexico City to celebrate his great victory. Lerdo by then was in exile in New York, vowing never to return until the dictator had died.
“The story goes that when Sabas Cavazos attended the banquet to toast to Diaz’s victory, he had two glasses of wine and that after he drank them he became violently sick and later that night he died,” Cavazos said. “Many of his relatives thought that Diaz had poisoned him so he wouldn’t have to pay him back the 50,000 gold pesos.”