Social bandits in the American Past: Juan Nepomuceno Cortina and Tiburcio Vasquez
Host Richard Goodman discusses the lives of two famous Chicano Bandits, Juan Nepomuceno Cortina and Tiburcio Vazquez, as examples of two Mexicans who impacted United States history. Using Rudolfo Acuña’s Occupied America, Goodman explains how many Mexican-Americans in the 1850s were very poor and oppressed by Anglo society. He explains that they revered bandits who broke Anglo laws because they attacked the same law enforcement structures that oppressed them. While Anglo historians have tried to discredit these figures, many Mexican Americans recognize them as the precursors of the Chicano Movement.
Juan Nepomuceno Cortina was an upper class Mexican landowner and cotton merchant living near Brownsville, Texas active in politics on both sides of the Rio Grande after the American civil war. One day he shot a marshal who was pistol-whipping a Mexican. From then on, he committed himself to defending Mexicans against Anglo abuses. He condemned the oppression of Mexicans and called for the extermination of their oppressors, lawyers, merchants and Anglo settlers. Only captured once for cattle rustling, he was revered as a hero on the Mexican border. Tiburcio Vazquez operated in California in the 1850, raiding towns and robbing hotels and stores during the California gold rush. Mexicans admired him for anti-establishment activities. He was captured and hung, but. Before he died, Vasquez explained that his activities were driven by the hatred and anger he felt towards the Anglos who deprived Mexicans of their rights, and took away the honor of Mexican women.
KEYWORDS
Anglo hostilityBorder Violence
Brownsville
California
Californios
Cattle Rustling
Chicano Movement
George Beers
Gold Rush
Governor
Hanging
Honor
Juan Nepomuceno Cortina
Landowner
Las Aguilas Negras
Los Angeles
Los Fieles de Cortina
Lynching
Masculinity
Matamoros
Monterey, California
Monterrey
Occupied America
Porfirio Diaz
Rangers
Red Robber of the Rio Grande
Resistance
Robert E. Lee
Rodolfo Acuña
Secret Societies
Social Banditry
Tamaulipas
Texas
Tiburcio Vazquez