Gregorio Cortez
Gregorio Cortez Lira was a significant figure in early 20th-century Texas, known for his dramatic life story and the tensions he embodied between Mexican Americans and Anglo settlers. Born in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and later relocating to Texas, Cortez worked as a farmer and family man. His life took a fateful turn in June 1901 when a misunderstanding with law enforcement led to a violent confrontation that resulted in the death of a sheriff. This incident sparked a pursuit across southern Texas, during which Cortez became a fugitive.
Cortez's subsequent trials highlighted judicial biases of the era, resulting in multiple court cases and a life sentence, though he was eventually pardoned. Despite his criminal conviction, he became a folk hero among Mexican Americans, celebrated for his resistance against oppression. The contrasting perceptions of Cortez reflect broader cultural divides in Texas at the time. His legacy continues to be honored in literature and film, showcasing the complex narratives surrounding identity, justice, and resistance in the borderlands of the United States and Mexico.
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Subject Terms
Gregorio Cortez
Mexican-born outlaw and folk hero
- Born: June 22, 1875
- Birthplace: Near Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico
- Died: February 28, 1916
- Place of death: Anson, Texas
After killing a Texas sheriff in self-defense, Cortez became both a fugitive from justice and a symbol of resistance against the Anglo occupiers of land that had once belonged to Mexico. As a result, Cortez is a Latino folk hero whose exploits have been celebrated in legends, ballads, and film.
Early Life
Gregorio Cortez Lira (greh-GOH-ree-oh cohr-TEHZ LEE-rah) was born on a ranch in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, just south of the Rio Grande. He was the seventh of eight children born to Román Cortez Garza and Rosalía Lira Cortinas. When Cortez was twelve years old, he moved with his family to Manor, Texas, east of Austin. Two years later, in 1889, Cortez and his older brother Romaldo began working seasonal jobs on farms and ranches in Karnes and Gonzales counties, east of San Antonio. During this time, Cortez married Leonor Díaz, with whom he raised four children, the eldest born in 1891. Romaldo also married, and the brothers and their families settled in 1900 on rented farm land roughly ten miles west of Kenedy, in Karnes County.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Texas cattle barons and businessmen ruled the borderlands in which Cortez lived and worked. County sheriffs and deputies, as well as the vaunted Texas Rangers, enforced the law, frequently discriminating against Mexican Americans who worked on farms and ranches. Conversely, Mexican Americans often were suspicious of the Anglos who controlled the lands that had not long ago belonged to Mexico. Tensions between the two groups were ever-present, especially when members of one group did not speak the other’s language.
Life’s Work
On June 12, 1901, W. T. Morris, the Karnes County sheriff and a former Texas Ranger, came to the farm of Gregorio and Romaldo Cortez in search of a horse thief. Accompanying Morris was one of his deputies, Boone Choate, who spoke some Spanish but apparently did not understand the important difference between caballo (horse) and yegua (mare). Cortez had recently traded a yegua, and thus answered truthfully in Spanish when he denied trading a caballo. Hearing only the word no, Morris believed Cortez was lying and started to arrest him. In the ensuing struggle, Morris shot Romaldo in the mouth, wounding him critically; Cortez shot and killed Morris in self-defense; and Choate escaped unharmed.
For the next ten days, Cortez crisscrossed roughly five hundred miles of southern Texas, on foot and by horse, skillfully avoiding capture, even though he was pursued by an estimated three hundred lawmen. When a posse of eight men attacked the house where he was hiding on June 14, Cortez shot and killed Gonzales County sheriff Robert M. Glover. Cortez finally was captured on June 22 in a sheep camp just north of the Rio Grande by one Texas Ranger and one former Texas Ranger, who had been informed of Cortez’s whereabouts by a Mexican American hoping to receive the reward money.
From July, 1901, to April, 1904, Cortez was tried in court six times. The results were one acquittal, one hung jury, three convictions that were overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and one conviction for the murder of Glover, which the appeals court upheld. Cortez was sentenced to life imprisonment but received a pardon from the state governor on July 7, 1913, after serving just over eight years in the state penitentiary at Huntsville. Cortez then moved to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where he fought briefly on the losing side of the Mexican Revolution. Wounded in battle, he returned to Texas to convalesce at the home of one of his three sons. He died three years after his release from prison, probably of natural causes, although some family members contended that he was poisoned by enemies who did not want to see him free.
Significance
Cortez sought neither fame nor infamy but found both because of misunderstandings and circumstances beyond his control. While many Anglos in southern Texas vilified Cortez as a fiendish desperado, the Mexican population on both sides of the border celebrated him as a folk hero who fought the Anglos skillfully and daringly. Almost immediately after Cortez was captured, various corridos (ballads) were composed and sung in his honor. That same tradition continued with the release of the television film The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982), featuring Edward James Olmos in the title role.
Bibliography
Alonzo, Juan J. Badmen, Bandits, and Folk Heroes: The Ambivalence of Mexican American Identity in Literature and Film. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009. Examines several literary and cinematic expressions of Cortez’s life, noting how each reflects a different ideological point of view.
Noriega, Chon A. “No fue mi culpa, or, You Should be Dead.” Aztlán 34, no. 2 (Fall, 2009): 1-7. Examines the influence and timeless appeal of the many versions of Cortez’s life,including the film, the corrido, and even the academic study by Paredes.
Paredes, Américo. “With His Pistol in His Hand”: A Border Ballad and Its Hero. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1958. This seminal study still is the most authoritative source on Cortez’s life and the corrido sung about him.
Peña, Manuel H. “Folksong and Social Change: Two Corridos as Interpretive Sources.” Aztlán 13, nos. 1-2 (Spring-Fall, 1982): 13-42. Places the corrido of Gregorio Cortez in the context of other ballads and folk songs that express the reactions of oppressed people to historical events.
Sommer, Doris. Proceed with Caution, When Engaged by Minority Writing in the Americas. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. Uses the case of Cortez to explore issues of mistranslation and problems of intercultural communication.