Juan Cortina lives on in the lore of Texas and the borderlands. Beloved as “Robin Hood of the Rio Grande” by some, despised as “Red Robber of the Rio Grande” by others, how can we discern the historical truth about this colorful legendary figure?

Certainly, Cortina’s enemies have enjoyed the loudest voices and the brightest spotlight for the last 200 years since his birth. Some 20 historical markers—from the Rio Grande to Georgia, Ohio, and New Jersey—refer to Juan Nepomuceno Cortina or to the “Cortina Wars” of the 1859-60. The most important of these, Texas State Historical Marker #4762 erected in Rio Grande City, accuses Cortina of having “…laid waste the Lower Rio Grande Valley” until suffering a “crushing defeat” by U.S. Army and Texas Rangers.

As Texas commemorates the Bicentennial of the Texas Rangers in 2023, and as the bicentennial of Cortina’s birth approaches next year, 2024, it is finally time to reckon publicly with the reality behind this “Colossus of the Rio Grande.” Straddling both sides of the river, Cortina’s larger-than-life figure was erected by both his allies and his enemies. But what was Cortina’s own vision and contributions to both the United States and Mexico? How can we understand the actions and motives of this unlettered man?

Casa Navarro invited Dr. Teresa Van Hoy and her colleagues from northern Mexican borderlands to discuss Cortina, a contemporary of the Navarro family in their struggle to defend Texas during the 19th century. Dr. Van Hoy seeks to contribute to the work of top Cortina scholar, Jerry Thompson, whose judicious biography of Cortina published in 2007 redefined our understanding of this enigmatic figure.

Drawing on primary sources from as far away as Mexico City, France, Harvard, and Washington D.C., Dr. Van Hoy and her colleagues from Mexico offer Casa Navarro and its audience two contributions:

1) to present Cortina as one key leader of the hundreds of self-proclaimed “Sons of the Borderlands”/ Fronterizos who fought and died to help defend the United States and Mexico from expansionists for 25 years, 1842-1867.

2) to launch the bicentennial of Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, “Colossus of the Rio Grande,” who rose larger-than-life to prominence straddling a river and two countries, was felled catastrophically, yet whose prominence persists ever after, still larger than life.