For Tejanos, the case of Gregorio Cortez may perhaps be the best-remembered early twentieth century act of police action and incompetence, as well as the best-known act of early twentieth century resistance by the Tejano community.*

On June 12, 1901, poor interpretation during Sheriff W.T. "Brack" Morris's questioning of Cortez concerning a case of horse thievery left Morris dead just outside of Kenedy and Gregorio's brother Romulo wounded. Romulo Cortez later died in the Karnes County jail from his wounds.

Following the event, many other Tejanos became the victims of retaliatory vilence in at least eight cities and four counties. Public reaction to the shooting of Morris was divided along ethnic lines. While the Tejano community banded together and raised funds to defend Cortez, many non-Tejano newspapers such as the San Antonio Express worried that he had not been lynched. The Seguin Enterprise stated flatly that Cortez was an "arch fiend." After several trials, Cortez was given a life sentence, but he served only approximately nine years. In July 1913 Francisco A. Chapa, the editor of San Antonio's El Imparcial, helped COrtez win a conditional pardon from Governor Colquitt.

* Cynthia E. Orozco, "Cortez Lira, Gregorio," NHOT, 2:342-343; also see Americo Paredes's classic With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero for a full account of Cortez.

Bibliography
Acosto, Teresa Palomo and Ruthe Winegarten. Las Tejanos: 300 Years of History. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2003.

From Historic Towns of Texas (Second in a Series) by Joe Tom Davis, 1996, pages 65-66

At the turn of the century, a renowned prisoner was held in the new Gonzales jail.  Gregorio Cortez was a small, wiry farmer of four who became a folk hero after killing two sheriffs and making an incredible flight to the Rio Grande.

In 1901 Cortez and his brother Romaldo were renting farm land ten miles west of Kennedy.  On June 12, W.T. “Brack” Morris, the sheriff of Karnes County, and a deputy approached Gregorio’s house looking for a horse thief who had been trailed from Atascosa County to Kenedy.  It seems that a local man named Villareal had wanted to question Cortez about the matter.  When the sheriff appeared at his house, Gregorio had a .44 revolver in his belt and his brother, Romaldo, was unarmed.

Deputy Boone Choate asked in shaky Spanish if Gregorio had recently traded a horse, and he honestly replied, “No.”  The deputy then thought he heard Cortez say, “No white man can arrest me.”  What the suspect probably said was, “You can’t arrest me for nothing.”  When the sheriff drew his gun, Romaldo lunged at him and was shot in the mouth.  Morris then whirled to face Gregorio but shot hastily and missed.  Cortez then shot the sheriff three times with his revolver.  One wound in the right arm severed an artery, causing Morris to slowly bleed to death.

After leaving his wounded brother in Kenedy, Gregorio started north on foot, covered eighty miles in forty hours, and hid at the home of Martin Robledo, who lived at Ottine in Gonzales County.  Sherriff Robert M. Glover, a good friend of Morris, had in the meantime pressured either Gregorio’s mother or wife into telling him where the fugitive was headed.  As a result, Glover’s posse of eight men reached Ottine shortly after Cortez arrived at Robledo’s house.

The lawmen were possibly drunk when they decided to rush the house.  As the mounted Sheriff Glover approached the southeast corner of the front porch, he and Cortez began to exchange fire.  Both men continued to blaze away until the sheriff fell dead from his horse.

Now the most wanted man in Texas, Cortez headed for Laredo using sorrel and brown mares to ride over 400 miles.  During a ten-day chase, he was pursued by posses numbering up to 300 men.  At noon on June 20, the exhausted Cortez walked into Cotulla.  Two days later, on his twenty-sixth birthday, he was betrayed by a Mexican informer and arrested by Texas Ranger Capt. J. H. Rogers at a sheep camp only thirty miles from the Rio Grande.

On July 24, 1901, Cortez stood trial at Gonzales for the murder of County Constable Henry Schnabel, who had actually been killed by one of his fellow possemen in the shootout at Ottine.  Nevertheless, Gregorio was found guilty of second-degree murder and given fifty years in prison.

On August 9, 1901, Romaldo Cortez died in the Karnes City jail.  Two days later Gonzales County Sheriff F. M. Fly thwarted an attempt by a mob of over 300 – most of them from Karnes County – who tried to take Gregorio from the jail and lynch him.

On January 15, 1902, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the Gonzales verdict.

In the meantime, on October 7-11, 1901, Cortez was tried at Karnes City for the murder of Sheriff Morris.  Although he was found guilty and sentenced to death, the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the verdict eight months later on grounds of prejudice.

After the case was first moved to Goliad and then Wharton counties, Cortez was tried again at Corpus Christi, April 25-30, 1904.  This time he was found not guilty of murdering Sheriff Morris.  The jury of Anglo-American farmers agreed with the claim of the defense that Cortez had shot the sheriff in self-defense and in defense of his brother.

Meanwhile, Cortez was found guilty of murdering Sheriff Glover in a trial at Columbus, mainly because the defense built its case around the contention that Cortez had not fired the shots that had killed the sheriff.  After being given a life sentence, Gregorio entered the Huntsville penitentiary on January 1, 1905. (18)

18.  Cortez was a barber during his years in prison.  Eventually, he won the esteem and personal friendship of prison officials, including the warden, who wrote the governorthat he “would very much like to see this man pardoned.”

On July 7, 1913, Governor O. B. Colquitt signed papers giving Gregorio Cortez a conditional rather than full pardon.  He first settled at Nuevo Laredo, on the Mexican side of the border.  In 1916 Cortez died at age forty-one at the home of a friend at Anson, Texas, north of Abilene.  He was buried in a little cemetery eight miles from Anson.

Today Gregorio Cortez is revered as a legendary folk hero by the Mexican population along the Rio Grande.  A well-know ballad “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez,” was written about him.  Many Anglo-Americans also see him as a victim of injustice and admire him for the extraordinary courage, skill, and endurance shown in his flight from Texas authorities.

Bibliography
Davis, Joe Tom. Historic Towns of Texas (Second in a Series). Austin, TX: Eakin Press, February 2000.

External Links
Bold Caballeros and Noble Bandidos
Handbook of Texas
TexasEscapes.com
Wikipedia

NOTE: Photo from Bold Caballeros and Noble Bandidos and their wonderful site!