Catarino Erasmo Garza

Catarino Erasmo Garza (November 25, 1859 – March 8, 1895) was a Mexican journalist, folk hero and revolutionary. He published Spanish language newspapers in the United States, founded mutual aid societies, and is perhaps best known for the unsuccessful Garza Revolution near the Texas Mexican border. Garza was born in Matamoros, Tamaulipas and moved to Brownsville in 1877. After his revolution's failure in Texas, Garza fled to Costa Rica, where he became a police captain. He ended up joining a group of Colombian democracy advocates in their struggle against state proponents. He was killed in Panama in an attack on a military barracks in 1895 at the age of 35.

Early life Catarino Erasmo Garza Rodríguez was born near Matamoros, Tamaulipas, on November 24, 1859. His parents were J. Encarnación and María de Jesús Rodríguez de la Garza. He attended Colegio San Juan de los Esteros in Matamoros and served in the National Guard. He moved to the U.S. in 1877, where he met and married a white woman named Carolina Connor. Garza lived in various cities, including Brownsville, Laredo, San Antonio, and St. Louis. Garza's newspaper and equipment were confiscated, he was charged with criminal libel, and served 31 days in jail. Garza was taken to Rio Grande City where he was shot and wounded by Sebree. The city erupted in violence at the news of Garza's wounding, and the Rio Grande City Riot of 1888 ensued. That year, Garza began writing his autobiography, La Lógica de los Hechos, where he detailed his life in the U.S. and the extreme violence Mexicans and Mexican Americans experienced in Texas.

Revolution

U. S. Cavalry Hunting Garza Men on the Rio Grande (c. 1890–94).

In 1891, Garza and his associates plotted the overthrow of the Porfirio Díaz regime. He recruited a multi-class army consisting of lower-middle-class professionals, poor farmers, landless ranchers, and wealthy landowners, with both Mexicans and Mexican Americans (as well as a few Anglo Americans who had married into Mexican families). Bourke, who had fifteen years experience in Arizona during the Apache Wars, led his armies to destroy all Tejano communities believed to support Garza. Garza then joined a revolutionary uprising in Colombia López Obrador has long had a fascination with Garza, and he even published a short history in 2016 entitled Catarino Erasmo Garza Rodríguez: ¿Revolucionario o Bandido? The commission spent at least 9.5 million Mexican pesos to find Garza's body. The mission was criticized in Mexico for spending too many resources to recover one nineteenth-century person when more than 100,000 Mexican people were reported disappeared as of 2024. The historian Elliott Young, who wrote a book about Garza's Revolution in 2004, wrote in an article in Time magazine, "Rather than repatriating Garza's bones, López Obrador should resurrect Garza's ideas."