CHENO'S WARS BASED ON GUALADALUPE-HIDALGO BROKEN TREATY

El Rrun-Rrun graphic

By Juan Montoya

We have long been accustomed to historians – both local and academics – calling Juan Nepomuceno Cortina a cattle rustler, a murderer, the scourge of the Rio Grande, and at most, a social bandit sticking up for the rights of the Texas Mexicans in the newly-conquered territory of South Texas.

But a closer reading of his second pronunciamento reveals that he was seeking much more than personal vengeance. He was demanding that the conquering U.S. authorities  honor the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo which gave Texas Mexicans in the disputed territory the choice of renouncing their Mexican citizenship and being naturalized as full-fledged American citizens and guaranteed all the rights afforded them by the U.S. Constitution.  

In other words, he was accusing the new arrivals and authorities of breaking treaties, just as Native Americans have complained that the U.S. government has not observed the treaties they signed with the tribal nations.

In his first pronunciamento issued from his mother's ranch at El Carmen (Santa Rita) after he and perhaps 75 to 80 horsemen raided and took over Brownsville on September 28, 1859, Cortina – or Cheno, as his chaparral followers called him – let it known that he had raided the town seeking to "chastise the villainy of our enemies" who "form, so to speak, a perfidious inquisitorial lodge to prosecute and rob us, without any cause, and for no other crime on our part than that of being of Mexican origin."

Specifically, he had singled out several men, including Texas Mexican killer William Peter Neale, Sheriff Bob Shears, and Adolphus Glavecke for killing defenseless Mexicans and some lawyers who unjustly dispossessed Texas Mexicans of their land.

"As we have mentioned, they – with a crowd of lawyers – have made a secret conclave, with ramifications, to dispose Mexicans of their lands and seize them immediately. This is proven by the behavior of a one (Adolfo) Glavecke, who, empowered by his role of congressman and in collusion with such attorneys, has spread terror among the unwary, making them believe that he will hang Mexicans using any allegation; that he will burn their homes, etc., etc., so that he could force them to abandon the land and thus achieve his purpose."

And, as if anticipating that his enemies would label him a common bandit, he wrote in his first proclamation that: "If my dear compatriots, I am honored with that name, I am ready for the combat, " but he added that only if offered with an explanation of its qualities.

In Alberto Varon's treatise contained in "The Latino Nineteenth Century," edited by Rodrigo Lazo and Jesse Aleman (New York University Press, 2016) titled "Pronouncing Citizenship: Juan Nepomuceno Cortina's War to be Read,"  the author quotes extensively from the second pronunciamento issued Nov. 23 to establish the fact that Cortina was demanding that the new American authorities honor the treaty commitments they made with Mexico to protect the rights of its new citizens.

"Cortina makes abundantly clear the racial prejudice that dominates the Texas social structure but excuses his use of violence as the state's inability to meet its obligations to its own citizens, stating bluntly, 'inasmuch as justice, being administered by their own hands, the supremacy of law has failed to accomplish its object.' He elevates democratic values above national affiliation in efforts to make them legible across national borders...

"The failure of the nation-state animates his position as a U.S. citizen, and Cortina's proclamation is as much as declaration of U.S. citizenship as it is a declaration of racial injustice. Cortina imagines himself within the ideals of emancipatory citizenship, 'as part of  confederacy' that champions the rights of its citizens, calling on the government 'for the sake of its own dignity, and in obsequiousness to justice' to come to the aid of Texas Mexicans.

In fact, he castigates Brownsville officials during his raid for seeking assistance from a foreign power, and for allowing the Mexican military detachment in Matamoros to enter U.S. sovereign territory to protect them.

In the second proclamation, Cortina writes how Texas Mexicans gave up their Mexican citizenship and became  naturalized to be citizens of the new country, only to find that the new authorities would not respect the promises made in the treaty:

 

"And how can it be otherwise, when the ills that weight upon the unfortunate republic of Mexico have obliged us for many heart-touching causes to abandon it and our possessions in it, or else become the victims of our principles or of the indigence to which intestine disturbances had reduced us since the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo when, ever diligent and industrious, and desirous of enjoying the longed-for boon of liberty within the classic country of its origin, we were induced to naturalize ourselves and form part of the confederacy...

"...Flattered by the bright and peaceful prospect of living therein and inculcating in the bosoms of our children a feeling of gratitude toward a country beneath whose aegis we would have wrought their felicity and contributed with our conduct  to give evidence to the whole world that all the aspirations of the Mexicans are confined to one only, that of being freemen; and that having secured this for ourselves not withstanding their misfortunes, might have nothing to regret save the loss of a section of territory; but with the sweet satisfaction that their fellow citizens lived therein, enjoying tranquility, as if Providence had so ordained to set them an example of the advantage derived from  public peace and quietude."

Varon succinctly states that for "diligent and industrious" Cortina "it is the failure of the Mexican nation-state that led Texas Mexicans, perhaps with regrets, to "abandon" Mexico to become U.S. citizens. This shift was not taken lightly, but a calculated risk lest Texas Mexicans become the victims of "our principles, the victims of national loyalty over self-preservation."

"In Cortina's words, Texas Mexicans worked diligently to prosper and uphold order, but when circumstances of fate required them to switch national allegiance, they did so willingly...His commitment to the U.S. nation-state would have been complete had Texas Mexicans not been 'defrauded in the most cruel manner' and left them no option other than to retaliate and 'destroy the obstacles of our prosperity,' echoing American revolutionary Thomas Paine more than Miguel Hidalgo.

In his Thoughts on Defensive War, Paine raises "a point to view this matter of superior consequence to the defense of property; and that point is Liberty in all its meaning."

Varon further states that "The proclamation makes clear that Texas Mexicans are separated by 'accident alone, from the other citizens of the city,' and that they act explicitly 'not having renounced our rights as North American citizens.'"