TRANSLATION OF CORTINA PRONUNCIAMENTO 162 YEARS AGO

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

If you had been a resident of Brownsville on November 26, 1859, you would have been able to pick up one of these fliers off the street or tacked on to the walls of the main buildings in the city.

The fliers – a pronunciamiento calling for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans to arise against their anglo enemies in the police, courts and local lawyers – was issued from Rancho El Carmen upriver from Brownsville by local rancher Juan N. Cortina.

It was translated and printed by the newspaper American Flag 162 years ago which was published in Matamoros and later, in English, in Brownsville. 

Cortina, just two months earlier on September 28, had been joined by between 50 to 75 followers and held the town for two days looking for his enemies and those he called "vampires in the guise of men" who killed Mexicans and – with the support of  the local courts and anglo law enforcement –  dispossessed them of their land.

His pronunciamento stated:

"There is no need of fear. Orderly people and honest citizens are inviolable to us in their persons and interests. Our object, as you have seen, has been to chastise the villainy of our enemies, which heretofore has gone unpunished.

"These have connived with each other, and form, so to speak, a perfidious inquisitorial lodge to persecute and rob us, without any cause, and for no other crime on our part than that of being of Mexican origin, considering us, doubtless, destitute of those gifts which they themselves do not possess. (...)

"Mexicans! Peace be with you! Good inhabitants of the State of Texas, look on them as brothers, and keep in mind that which the Holy Spirit saith: "Thou shalt not be the friend of the passionate man; nor join thyself to the madman, lest thou learn his mode of work and scandalize thy soul." (Proverbs 22:24-25)

In his war with the Texans, Cortina defeated the Texas Rangers, the Brownsville Tigers, evaded Robert E. Lee, and was only driven into Mexico by the U.S. Army under Major Samuel Heintzelman. John "Rip" Ford, his longtime nemesis and a Texas Ranger and Confederate commander, spent his life chasing Cortina without success.  

The Cortina Wars continued for years to come until Cortina – at the urging of U.S. and Texas authorities – was removed from the border by Mexican president Benito Juarez and, when he died his successor Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada and later by Porfirio Diaz who was seeking recognition from the United States. 

During his lifetime he was a military governor of Tamaulipas, a brigadier general in the Mexican army and was a major contributor to the Juarez constitutionalist government in internal exile using the proceeds from the customs house in Puerto Bagdad.  

He died in home arrest in Mexico City on October 30, 1894, at the then-ripe age of 70.

Efforts to bring his body back to his half brother's ranch Sabas Cavazos in San Pedro were stymied by World War I and the Great Depression. He is buried in El Panteon de Dolores in Mexico City.