Vásquez, born in Monterey in 1835, were
also tied to the anger of Mexican
Americans at Anglo abuses. He claimed
to have developed a “spirit of hatred and
revenge” as a teenager, when he saw
Anglos push their way into Californio
parties and force Mexican-American
women to dance with them. Said
Vasquez, “Given $60,000, I would be able
to recruit enough arms and men to revo-
lutionize Southern California.” In fact, he
seems to have devoted his life not to
organizing revolt but to stealing livestock
and robbing stores and stagecoaches.
Accounts vary of how outlaw Juan
Nepomuceno Cortina, known as
“Cheno,” began his career, but many
trace it back to an incident in Brownsville,
Texas, in the summer of 1859, when
Cortina saw an Anglo marshal pistol-
whip a Mexican-American laborer.
Outraged, Cortina shot the lawman and
gathered a group of raiders who attacked
Brownsville in September, killing several
Anglos. His rebellion grew as he organ-
ized to defend Tejano rights at a timewhen his people had become, according
to Cortina, “strangers in their own coun-
try.” Cortina called on Mexican
Americans “to mak[e] use of the sacred
right of self-preservation... because the
supremacy of the law has failed to accom-
plish its object.”
In 1860 U.S. troops forced Cortina
and his followers to retreat across the
Mexican border, but Cortina carried on
sporadic raids for the next two decades,
ever eluding Anglo pursuit even as he
gained political power in Mexico. His
legend grew larger than life: the mere
rumor of his presence sent Texas towns
into panic, and he was blamed for nearly
every cattle theft along the border. His
career ended in 1875 when, at the request
of the United States, Mexican president
Porfirio Díaz at last put him in prison.
By the 1870s, posses, soldiers, vigi-
lantes, and old age had hunted down
most of the Mexican desperadoes. But
they survive in legend as memorials of a
time of lawlessness, bigotry, and rage at
social injustice.106 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY