Cortina Troubles

The Cortina Troubles is the generic name for the First Cortina War, from 1859 to 1860, and the Second Cortina War, in 1861, in which Mexican paramilitary forces, led by the local leader Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, confronted elements of the United States Army, the Confederate Army, the Texas Rangers, and the local militias of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Tamaulipas. According to author Robert Elman, Juan Cortina and his followers were the first "socially motivated border bandits," similar to the Garzistas and the Villistas of later generations. The fighting took place in the Rio Grande Valley area, which straddles the international border of Texas and Mexico.