\u201cGregorio Cortez\u201d was recorded by Pedro Rocha & Lupe Martinez in 1929. This song is a two part song, however you can hear the change from part one to part two. The style of \u201cGregorio Cortez\u201d is Corrido. At first since this song is in Spanish, I assumed that Corrido meant \u201cthe run of\u201d. But after doing research, I was able to find out that Corrido is also the name of Spanish Ballads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writers tell the story of Gregorio Cortez, who was a Tejano living in Manor, Texas. Gregorio Cortez was considered \u201c\u2026 a folk hero among Mexican Americans in the early 1900s for evading the Texas Rangers\u2026\u201d. This song relates to Texas history due to the talks about Texas Rangers. The Texas Rangers were considered \u2018border patrol\u2019 between Mexico and Texas. This song holds a great amount of history. It was known for the Texas Rangers to be racist towards Tejanos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part one of the story of Gregorio Cortez starts because of a lot of mistranslating. On June 12, 1901, Cortez was encountered by a Karnes county sheriff and 2 deputies, one being a translator, due to needing information on a horse thief. The thief was described as a \u201cmedium-sized Mexican\u201d. The sheriff approached Cortez and his brother because they were medium-sized Mexicans. The translator incorrectly translated Cortez respond of \u201cYou can\u2019t arrest me for nothing.\u201d To \u201cNo white man can arrest me.\u201d Since the sheriff heard, \u201cNo white man can arrest me\u201d, he felt the need to shot his gun. The gun shot wounded Cortez\u2019s brother and missed Cortez. He responded by shooting and killing the sheriff. Cortez then fled the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part two of the story talks about how the Texans go about surrounding Cortez at a ranch. There were about 300 Texans, shots were exchanged and another sheriff died. Towards the end, Cortez makes his way to the Texan Rangers, they automatically take him and the song ends with \u201cWith this I say goodbye, with the shadow of a Cypress, here it ends up singing, the Cortez tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The moral of this song is Cortez is a hero because he evaded the Texas Rangers. Tejanos saw him as a hero because he was able to not get caught for a long time. I think this song plays a big role in showing the divide between Mexicans and Texans. Although there was not a lot of information on the songwriters, I was able to find a lot about the story. Which leaves me wanting to find more articles about the songwriters to add to my final draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n