Juan Cortina

Juan Nepomuceno Cortina Goseacochea (May 16, 1824 – October 30, 1894), also known by his nicknames Cheno Cortina, the Red Robber of the Rio Grande and the Rio Grande Robin Hood, was a Mexican rancher, politician, military leader, outlaw and folk hero. He is known for leading a paramilitary mounted Mexican Militia in the failed Cortina Wars. These "Wars" were raids targeting Anglo-American civilians, which Cortina didn't want settling near the several leagues of land granted to his wealthy family on both sides of the Rio Grande. Anglo families began immigrating to the Lower Rio Grande Valley after the Mexican Army was defeated by the Anglo-Mexican rebels of the Mexican State of Tejas, in the Texas Revolution. From 1836 to 1848 when Cortina was 12-24 years old, parts of the Cortina Grant North of the Rio Grande River was in the disputed territory between the Rio Grande and the Nueces Rivers, claimed by both Mexico and the Republic of Texas. The situation had a big impact on Cortina, and his perspective on government and power. When the United States defeated Mexico in the Mexican-American War in 1848, Mexico was forced to concede the disputed territory to Texas. Cortina opposed this concession. However, Cortina's Mexican Militia was easily defeated and forced to flee in to Mexico when the Texas Rangers, the United States Army and the local militia of Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Tamaulipas. According to Robert Elman, author of Badmen of the West, Cortina was the first "socially motivated border bandit," similar to Catarino Garza and Pancho Villa of later generations. His followers were known as the "Cortinistas."