BROWNTOWN RACISM: ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK; AND MONEY TAKES A HOLIDAY, NO JUNETEENTH OBSERVANCE

 By Juan Montoya

It took 92 years for the City of Brownsville to finally remove the Jefferson Davis monument from Washington Park after three years of a campaign by local progressives to remove the large rock.

“This is an artifact of white supremacy, because that’s what it is. This is an artifact of white supremacy,” said Mark Kaswan, an activist with Frontera Progressives as he turned and looked at the 92-year-old monument that when he was interviewed in 2020 still memorialized Davis, the only president of the confederate states.

“""He was a strong proponent of white supremacy and the United Daughters of the Confederacy really were calling him a martyr. Really reflects their purpose which is to promote this idea of white supremacy,” he told the local daily.

Under cover of darkness, city employees removed the huge boulder and placed it in storage, probably never to see the light of day.

But while the city removed the offending monument, with one hand, it also spent thousands to bring a shack that used to belong to Brownsville "founder" Charles Stillman, listed as a slave owner in the 1850 census.

And then, just a few years later, it allotted $190,000 to restore the home of William Neale, a former Brownsville mayor whose claim to fame was that he was a runaway slave catcher who hunted down his prey in northern Mexico to return them to their owners, for a fee, of course.

First, the city signed a "Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Transporting Charles Stillman House" through then-City Manager Charlie Cabler and Brownsville Historical Association Director Priscilla Ann Rodriguez in Nov. 9, 2012 that stated that "the city has been given a house once occupied by Charles Stillman known as Los Laureles Ranch House..."

Under the terms of the MOU, the city estimated that the cost of moving the
house from Corpus Christi would be about $65,000.

"Because of the historical, educational, and general public importance of having the home of the founder of Brownsville in the city he founded, City is willing to contribute $25,000 to the BHA to (solely and exclusively) assist in relocating the house to Brownsville," the MOU stated.

About three months later, during a presentation by then-Assistant City
Manager for Finance Pete Gonzalez he disclosed that the city had already spent $39,000 without bothering to go to the city commissioner for approval of the funds although it had gone over the $35,000 discretionary limit.

That money was part of the $3 million awarded to the city from its share of a settlement with American Electric Power Texas Central Co. And – perhaps more importantly – there had been no item on a city agenda asking the commissioners to approve the outlay from those funds.

Well, the city is up to its bad habit of spending money on dilapidated homes of the former city "founder," who used legal chicanery with his lawyer friend Samuel Belden to steal the land from its land-grant holders. It set aside another $190,000 to move the Neal House who was an officer in the confederacy who supported slavery and gained a reputation for being a good hunter of runaway slaves who escaped into Mexico.

In "The Twin Cities of the Border," Lt. W. H. Charfield wrote in 1893 that Neale discussed his slave catching with some pride and said that Neale sought them in their "lairs" like beasts and fancied that the recaptured slaves were somehow grateful to Neale for returning them to their master and to bondage in their "Old Cabin Home."

In fact, when Juan Cortina and his followers took over the city in September 1859, they sought out William Peter Neale Jr. openly naming him as the perpetrator off multiple murders of local of Mexican victims in his Las Rusias ranch.

District 1 commissioner Nurith Galonsky announced that the city will use the $190,000 of taxpayers' money to move the Neale House to the linear park alongside slave-owning buddy Stillman's Laureles Ranch Love Shack and restore it. But that was put on hold when some commissioners – notably Roy de los Santos – argued that it should not go into the linear park and vowed to stop the move. A committee was formed to study the issue and make recommendations for its eventual placement.

If the city stays true to form in its history of moving and restoring historical buildings, the house will probably be converted to some fantasized version that is nothing like the original structure. The Neale House was given to the Brownsville Art League in 1950 and at one time the building served as the canteen for the American Legion where vets told lies and drank the night away.

The local Cowen family has continued efforts to keep the glorious memories of the "Lost Cause" alive and stretch across the centuries. One of the descendants – city commissioner John Ford Cowen – bears the confederate officer's name (John Rip Ford). Cowen voted to award the $190,000 in public money to restore the home of one of his family's ancestors.

Look at how the city got the Stillman shack and – after pouring thousands into the restoration – how it looks now. The same will probably happen to the Neal structure, which is literally rotting where it stands.

Polyester tarpaulins have been draped over the holes on the roof and the patio overhead has caved in, requiring a complete restoration at a considerable cost to the local taxpayer who have no ties whatsoever to this obscure racist.

This latest effort to glorify the concepts of treason, white supremacy, robber barons, the confederacy, and slavery, has no place in the spending of public funds.

We have glorified the men who stole the land from their rightful owners (Stillman and Belden) by naming one a
founder and restoring his ranch whore house, the other by naming a bike and hike trail after him.

This, ironically, on the very land they stole and where descendants of their dispossessed victims still live.

And now we are spending $190,000 to praise the memory of a traitor to our country, a man who profited by denying human beings their freedom for money, and his son who was a murderer and making them out to be spiritual and historical pillars of our community.

And both the city and the Cameron County commissioners cited fiscal concerns on giving employees the day of to celebrate Juneteenth, the emancipation of Texas slaves. City officials said at the time that they would try to use the money (they didn't say how much) to try to get employees pay raises, raises that never materialized. Cameron County Pct. 3 commissioner David Garza led the charge against the holiday citing the cost.

Pct. 1 commissioner Sofie Benavides saw her proposal had no chance of passing and withdrew it.

So they don't think twice about handing out themselves pay raises at the county or dishing out $100,000s for slavers at the city rather than celebrate the liberation of the slaves?

Then there's the Robert E. Lee Youth Center named after the top general in the confederacy owned by Texas Southmost College that has declined so far to remove its name...

Let the rotting structure, treason, white supremacy, slavery, and the confederacy and robber barons stay where they belong: in the dust bin of history.

Brownsville racism, one step forward, two steps back...