(Ed.'s Note: These interviews of Juan N. Cortina and of Mexico President Porfirio Diaz were conducted January 1 and published January 14, 1878, two years after Diaz had imprisoned Cortina in a Mexico City prison. Diaz removed Cortina from the border and was trying to get recognition for his government from the United States after he led the military overthrow of elected president Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, who went into exile in New York. Cortina was to die in Mexico City and never return to the border or to his mother's ranch in San Pedro. Here the New York Herald reporter writes of his interview with him in 1878, six years before his death in Mexico City.)
The great American public has heard much and at frequent intervals of Juan N. Cortina, the terror of the Rio Grande border, the reputed author of numerous murders and the champion cattle thief of America.
An account of his waning fortunes may therefore prove interesting; particularly so to the Texans, who have put a prize of $10,000 upon his precious head.
An enterprising newspaper reporter in New Orleans pretended to have recently seen and interviewed the great robber chief in that city, representing him to be on his way to Texas.
The story was published in one of the New Orleans papers, but the truth is that Cortina was at that time - and is still - lingering in the the prison of Santiago Tlaltelolco in the City of Mexico and that the Cortina story palmed off upon a credulous public in New Orleans was a spurious one.
To the prison aforementioned I drove through clouds of dust, and after a half hour's ride alighted before the main entrance. The building from outside looks like an old Spanish convent and is now used us a prison for political political offenders, Cortina's wholesale murders and cattle thefts apparently being considered by the authorities as offences of a political nature.
"Why do you want to shake hands with old Cortina!" exclaimed the military officer in charge of the prison, adding that I could only do that with special permission of the superior authority. When I had explained to him how anxious the American public, and especially the people of Texas were to have the latest authentic news as regards the whereabouts and well being of their old friend Cortina, he yielded to my appeals and finally consented that I should have a short interview with that interesting old gentleman in the presence of one of his officers.
The latter, a young lieutenant, took me in tow and leading the way through long corridors, well guarded by fixed bayonets, he finally showed me into a large apartment where Cortina stood at the barred windows surrounded by some friends. The General received me cordially. He felt flattered at being the object of the Herald's attention. He did not at all look ferocious.
Dressed in his best broadcloth, and with a new black slouched hat on his head, he looked like a lately prosperous merchant now under a cloud. He appeared to suffer from his confinement, although his room was large, airy and furnished with more comforts that one expects to see in a prison.
His dark face is set off by a lengthy beard in which the gray predominates over the black. He looks to be over 60 although he informed me that he was only 54. A man of medium height and slight build, he appears to the general observer like a respectable old gentleman; but catching, now and then, a glance from those small, sharp, snappy, restless eyes, one is apt to feel less comfortable in his presence.
His curved upper lip, too, although covered with a closely-cut mustache and overshadowed by a
long. flat nose, is indicative of anything but mildness and fair dealings.
I expressed a delight at meeting so famous a man as the General who has been no doubt so basely slandered.
"Yea, 'slandered' is the word," replied the General.
He was accused of all sorts of crimes, but his accusers had failed to specify time, or place, or circumstances in support of their accusations. Bad men had, under his name, committed crimes which were now laid at his door.
Old charges were raked up against him dating back to as remote a period as 1848, when he was acting as military commander in the line of duty. It was absurd to bring up now what happened so long ago. He thought he would be set at liberty in a short time, say two or three weeks. Of course he was as comfortable as he could be under the circumstances but he would prefer to walk about the streets.
I inquired whether he intended to go back to Texas and whether be knew that his friends there had put a large prize upon his head.
Well, he did not think be would go back to Texas He had no business interests there. As for the prize
upon his head he did not care that much (snapping his finger) for it. He had a great many enemies, but had also some good friends in Texas who knew he had been lied about and he charged me to tell the truth about him in the Herald.
It was useless to prolong an interview with a man so persistently innocent and so grossly slandered, so 1 shook hands with the General expressing the hope that a good and great man as he may yet get his just deserts.
Before concluding my account of the interview with President Porfirio Diaz, it is necessary here to mention that 1 had previously paid a visit to Cortina...in the prison...in Mexico City. I mentioned to the President that 1 had found Cortina to be quite an interesting old gentleman, who did not appear to black as be was painted.
1 added that the interesting old gentleman aforesaid expected to be set at liberty in a week or two.
President Diaz replied, with a smile:"It is just possible - indeed it is very probable - that Mr. Cortina may be too sanguine in his hopes of liberty. Of course, 1 cannot tell now near or how far that hoped-for event will be. The machinery of justice is very slow and I think it's better for all concerned that he should remain where he is. He may seem a mild interesting old gentleman when you contemplate him in his present quarters, but I fear his old nature would return it be were permitted to go back to his former haunts on the frontier."
1 might have elicited more interesting information from President Diaz, as he did not regard my visit or my questions as intrusive, but not wanting to occupy more of his valuable time I concluded our interview.
So, with a cordial handshake and an invitation to call again, be bade me goodbye.
President Diaz replied, with a smile:"It is just possible - indeed it is very probable - that Mr. Cortina may be too sanguine in his hopes of liberty. Of course, 1 cannot tell now near or how far that hoped-for event will be. The machinery of justice is very slow and I think it's better for all concerned that he should remain where he is. He may seem a mild interesting old gentleman when you contemplate him in his present quarters, but I fear his old nature would return it be were permitted to go back to his former haunts on the frontier."
1 might have elicited more interesting information from President Diaz, as he did not regard my visit or my questions as intrusive, but not wanting to occupy more of his valuable time I concluded our interview.
So, with a cordial handshake and an invitation to call again, be bade me goodbye.
18 comments:
The people fleeing to the U.S. border are a threat neither to American economic prosperity nor to public safety, there is not a great surge of border crossers requiring an extreme response. There are a variety of options for dealing with them short of amnesty, and the separation of families is not legally required.
The policy’s cruelty is its purpose: By inflicting irreparable trauma on children and their families, the administration intends to persuade those looking to America for a better life to stay home. The barbarism of deliberately inflicting suffering on children as coercion, though, has forced the Trump administration and its allies in the conservative press to offer three contradictory defenses.
First, there’s the denial that the policy exists: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen declared, “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.”
Not so, the administration’s defenders in the media have insisted. The policy is both real and delightful. The conservative radio host Laura Ingraham called the uproar “hilarious,” adding sarcastically that “the U.S. is so inhumane to provide entertainment, sports, tutoring, medical, dental, four meals a day, and clean, decent housing for children whose parents irresponsibly tried to bring them across the border illegally.” She also described the facilities as “essentially summer camps.” On Fox News, the Breitbart editor Joel Pollak argued that the detention facilities offer children both basic necessities and the chance to receive an education. “This is a place where they really have the welfare of the kids at heart,” he said.
Others in the administration — such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his former aide, the White House adviser Stephen Miller — offer a third defense. The policy exists, they say, and it’s necessary to uphold the rule of law. Sessions told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that the measures in question are routine. “Every time somebody … gets prosecuted in America for a crime, American citizens, and they go to jail, they’re separated from their children,” he said. Miller has presented family separation as a “potent tool in a severely limited arsenal of strategies for stopping immigrants from flooding across the border.”
It is not an accident that these three defenses — the policy does not exist, the children are better off under the policy, and the policy is required by law — are contradictory. The heart of Trumpism is both cruelty and denial. The administration and its supporters valorize cruelty against outsiders even while denying that such cruelty is taking place.
In the three decades after World War II, members of the white working class had grown accustomed to securing jobs and expanding opportunities. Yet as the 1970s ended, they began to feel they were falling behind, no matter how hard they worked. That is the genesis of Trump.
Dat Hasse
Bizarro
Que pendejo esta este cerdo rosa TRUMP cree que esta con el bisexual de PENA no sabe que AMLO ya tiene el plan B T reactivar el campo y el mercado interno y trer la inversion de CHINA con su tecnologia y PUTIN encantado invertiria en MEXICO AY que dejarlo que se envarque todavia no se da cuenta que Mexico ya desperto! Cabron!!
Cortina was a very bad evil man!
Blogger at 11:10 - how interesting! Were you around when Cortina was here? Did you know him? Have you bothered to read both sides of the story? What caused him to rebel? Who was responsible for irritating him to the point they did every time he rebelled. Get to the library and read the whole history that is printed, because a good research compares all sources before he or she make comments like you. And as you read, remember that your reading teacher always told you to read between the lines and to make inferences on your own because an author will try to express his point of view. Only a primary source is believable and even then, it is not so sure.
An American citizen is shot and killed on American soil (in Brownsville!). Why has this not been covered? Whybis this not a major international incident?
Interesting story. It is sad to read comments like Anonymous 11:10 who lacks the discipline to study history and the value it represent to future generations. I applaud anonymous 4:52 for expressing his opinion of negative comments in this blog.
A message to Mr. Montoya: Please continue posting historical stories in your blog. Perhaps, people can learn to appreciate them.
Ditto at 10:41pm
Lots of Mexican Cortina worship going on here.
Lots of trump idolizing going on here by the hillbillies...and some cocos
Ah yes, he old ignorant hillbilly insult again. They are of pure Scotch-Irish make up and as an ethnic groups have made a greater contribution to the founding of American than any other group. They have fielded more soldiers to go to war by far, than the Mexicans have. They are the ethnic group spread through out the entire South and not just in the mountains. They are and were the backbone of American.
Makes me proud when an ignorant Mexican calls me a hillbilly. Que vivan los Hillbillies!
typical gringo lies and fairy tales now tell us they are at the moon and mars estupido...pinche hillbilly now tell us how the rest of your white friends came up with the name hillbilly guay!!
Idiota hillbilly talking spanish use google to translate? You idiots barely speak english
an unsophisticated country person, associated originally with the remote regions of the Appalachians.
and your cracker face friends scotish or whatever call you that and that's because they are your friends idiot...
"The people fleeing to the U.S. border are a threat neither to American economic prosperity nor to public safety,"
Bullshit...Around 3% if the Border States prisons are filled with illegal aliens who committed felonies in the US. That is a significant threat, considering all the others that were not caught, convicted and put in prison.
Lots of Mexican hurachero lies and fariy tales around here. Sheeeeit, talk about poor language skills, the Tex/Mex jibbirish around here is like listening to brown cockroaches.
Nothing but hillbilly white trash can't understand anything they say no teeth and the cockroaches originated in europe and brought over here by the so-call Scotch-Irish (hahahahahaha).
Language skills this is a blog idiot google it pendejo
scotch-irish HA HA HA HA HA HA pinche pendejo...
The white cockroaches are a rarity the pinches gringos ate them all on the trip to the new world. After that they started on pigs and turkeys
They are of pure Scotch-Irish that's like saying I'm a monkey when in reality you're a white cockroach from europe
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