Juan Nepomuceno Cortina was bon on May 16, 1824, by a wealthy cattle ranching family in Camargo, Tamaulipas. At the age of 3, his mother Estéfana inherited land surrounding Matamoros and Brownsville. The family decided to travel north, and acquire their rightful land, known as the Rio Grande Valley. In 1846, at the age of 22, Juan joined the Mexican Army to fight for his land that was currently on Texas soil due to the annexation. Juan Cortina did not really come to America, in a way America came to him by redrawing the borders of Mexico and America. In order to keep his land, he had to fight in the Mexican-American War.
Juan fought under the orders of General Mariano Arista, and devised a plan together to arrive at Matamoros in an attempt to stop the advancing forces of General Zachary Taylor. “Arista asked Cortina to form a force from local Vaqueros and gather as much as possible for war. This irregular cavalry regiment was known as the "Tamaulipas" was placed under …show more content…
The incident that ignited the first so-called Cortina War occurred on July 13, 1859, when Cortina saw the Brownsville city marshall, Robert Shears, brutally arrest a Mexican American who had once been employed by Cortina. Cortina shot the marshall in the impending confrontation and rode out of town with the prisoner. Early on the morning of September 28, 1859, he rode into Brownsville again, this time at the head of some forty to eighty men, and seized control of the town. Five men, including the city jailer, were shot during the raid, as Cortina and his men raced through the streets shouting "Death to the Americans" and "Viva Mexico." Many of the men whom Cortina had sworn to kill, however, escaped or went into hiding.”
Juan Cortina was known as the “Rio Grande Robin Hood” due to him helping the poor, stealing from the rich and giving to the