STILLMAN-PAID STUDY: CORTINA COULD HAVE DESTROYED BROWNSVILLE, BUT SOUGHT ENEMIES, REIGNED IN HIS MEN

(Ed.'s Note: In 1942, Harvard graduate student Leroy Graf wrote his dissertation financed by a grandson of Charles Stillman depicting his ancestors' commercial ventures in the Rio Grande Valley and northern Mexico. The collection is now open for research, although a note  found in the original Stillman boxes stated: "The Stillman papers have been placed in Harvard College Library for the use of Mr. Leroy P. Graf in preparing an historical account of the family's early activities in Texas. While Mr. Graf is at work on this project the papers should be considered private, to be consulted by no one except with his permission. T. Franklin Currier. November, 1939." [LeRoy P. Graf, The Economic History of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, 1820–1875 (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1942)]

There is a special section where Graf examines the role of Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, the son of

Doña Estefana Goseascochea de Cortina, granddaughter of Salvador de La Garza, the largest landowner in Cameron County whose ranch, Rancho Viejo was established in 1770 and the King of Spain gave him the royal grant in 1781. 

Unlike most Texas historians and apologists, Graf's characterization is not one that brands him as a bandit and killer after he occupied Brownsville in September 28, 1859, but rather takes a dispassionate overview of the maligned heir of the Espiritu Santo Grant. Some excerpts follow below.)

Cortina, in a proclamation issued immediately after the raid (Sept. 30), reiterated that he and his men, as North American citizens, sought merely to punish those six or eight oppressors who were taking advantage of Mexicans, terrorizing them and compelling them to abandon their property, to give up their land for little or nothing...

It is, however, significant that this first declaration, published in Matamoros and probably not written by by Cortina, carried no cry of "Death to the North Americans!" Instead, it carefully singled out the oppressors of the Mexicans, and, incidentally, the enemies of Cortina.

(Footnote: A Presbyterian missionary [Melinda Rankin] in Brownsville at this time has revealed her own reactions to conditions immediately following the Cortina raid: "For two weeks after the assault of Cortina I remained in my house and continued my school, as I knew his murderous designs were only against his enemies. As long as he had his own ban of men, who were fully instructed upon whom to commit violence, I felt no apprehensions that any harm would befall me. But when he was reinforced by desperadoes from all parts, I became convinced I should be in danger in case they succeeded in getting into town.")

Conflicting stories reached the distant federal authorities, who were not entirely convinced that the blame was all on one side. It is unfortunate that the citizens of the Valley in their enthusiasm to secure federal assistance circulated stories grossly exaggerating the state of affairs.

One of these stories reported the taking and burning of Brownsville. When these reports proved false, the authorities in Washington concluded that the entire episode was over-dramatized in an effort to regain the lost largess of the military post.

The report of the consul at Matamoros, accurately reporting that a personal dispute was the origin of the trouble, was typical of those received in Washington.

During the night of September 28, 1859, after the celebration in Matamoros on national holiday in which a number of Americans from the Texan side of the river had taken part, the people of Brownsville were aroused by the surprise "attack" of a band estimated at between 60 to 100 men led by Cortina. Taking his headquarters in vacant Fort Brown, he sent men to hunt those whom he intended to kill.

As a matter of course, he freed the prisoners, all  Mexicans, although in so doing it was necessary to kill the jailor because he resisted. Others killed were young (Bob) Neale, a blacksmith named George Morris, and two Mexicans, in each case for reasons which seem to be entirely personal. Although they searched widely, Cortina's men were unable to ferret out (Adolphus) Glaevecke and the city Marshall (Robert Shears). The former had taken refuge in Samuel Belden's store.

Belden would not give him up, and on account of the friendship Cortina felt towards Belden and his partner (Charles Stillman), he use no violence in getting possession of is greatest enemy.

Such forbearance is not the mark of the ruthless raider who respects no rights but his own and who holds no hope that he will ever again resume his place in normal life of the community. If this were an isolated instance, one might with justice discount it as the creation of those seeking to minimize the gravity of the attack, but in other respects he did not behave like atypical raider.

To add to the skepticism of the federal authorities, close upon the heels of the original attack came the report of the Grand Jury which took the extreme position that, "they do conclude, without hesitation, that the entry upon the city of Brownsville, on the 28th of September, 1859, was an invasion of American territory by armed Mexicans under the Mexican flag, with hostile intentions against the constituted authorities of our State and country."

From the very first, Cortina had interrupted the mails, but not in order to plunder them. Five days after the foray into Brownsville, the mail from Rudyville was delayed for some three hours, but the mail bag was not opened.  Such a delay, however, was enough to render the mails unreliable for any important communication. Men were cautions of their correspondence and spoke not at all of the disturbances, for they feared the wrath of Cortina if he discovered their opposition.


Up to the time of leaving they did not attempt to plunder or rob. They appeared to be after those persons who volunteered to accompany the sheriff on his former expedition to arrest him, which never started, and those who could be witnesses against him for his former offenses.

Although Cortina ruled his men with an iron hand, it was inevitable that as they continued to hold the city and get into liquor, they should become disorderly.

Major excesses were prevented, however, by Cortina's decision to withdraw, in accordance with the advice of his friends Don Miguel Tijerina and Don Agapito Longoria, aided by his cousins General Jose Maria Carvajal, in command of the Mexican forces in Matamoros, and Don Manuel Trevino, Mexican consul in Brownsville.

The important point, in view of the later absurd charges made by the Americans, is that when Brownsville was completely in his control, he did not take advantage of it to permit to plunder at will. It would certainly have been easier for him, since it is hard to believe that a number of his men were not motivated largely by the hope of plunder. That he prevented such disorders is another evidence that he did not regard himself yet as totally outside the legal and social pale of his former life (Memoirs of John Rip Ford).