RANCHERO: CORTINA IN MIDST OF 1866 NORTH MEXICO CHAOS

By Juan Montoya

We were pleasantly surprised when we got a call from an old friend from our ink-stained-wretch days who said he had something interesting to show us.

Apparently, our friend had found a newspaper account dating back to March 25, 1866 – almost a year after the Civil War – that he though might be of interest to us. He said it had something to do with the dissolution of one of the armed bands that governed northern Mexico during the French occupation of northern Mexico during the reign of Emperor Maximilian.

The scene then, was one of chaos, with pro-imperialist armies fighting off liberal armies under Benito Juarez and region chieftains – themselves divided – and the Union armies watching from across the Rio Grande in Brownsville.

Many Confederates had fled to Mexico when the Union prevailed in the Civil War and they joined the pro-imperialist forces occupying northern Mexico.

It wouldn't be until 1867 that the French left Mexico, but they left Matamoros late in 1866 (See graphic, click to enlarge).

The stories concerning local "libero-outlaw" Juan Cortina and someone named Jesus Palacios occurred earlier in March and apparently was a grudge killing among those forces opposed to the french imperialist occupation.

(The Daily Ranchero, our friend says, was a Confederate newspaper.)

In the first account in the Palacios killing blamed on Cortina, the newspaper states that one of its "couriers" confirmed the death of one Jesus Palacios by Cortina and then the execution of his sons which resulted in the breakup of the pro-liberal forces.

The second account is merely a follow up indicating Cortina had eluded his enemies (Click on graphics to enlarge).

The elder Palacios was said to be a supporter ot Cortina's nemesis Jose Canales and led an army in his support. The newspaper says that as a result of the Palacios killing, the armed groups in San Fernando broke up and started deserting the groups.

All were looking for Cortina and ordered that he be shot on sight.

The flare-up among the various regional chieftains indicates that the upcoming void when the French left. Jesus Maria de Jose Carvajal, for example, was scheming to become the "George Washington of Tamaulipas" and had launched a revolution at the same time that the warring bands were fighting to defeat the French.

"The rupture, as was to be expected from such an infernal combination," the paper wrote, "has resulted in the bitterest hostility among the liberal factions."

In many cases, when they were defeated by another faction in Tamaulipas, they fled into South Texas and south refuge here.

We thank our buddy for calling attention to this little-known piece of local history. The more we read, the more interesting those times get.