Lomax, John A, Ruby T Lomax, and José Suarez. El Corrido de José Mosqueda. Brownsville, Texas, 1939. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/lomaxbib000075/.
El Corrido de José Mosqueda
A Train Robbery On January 19, 1891, José Mosqueda and a group of outlaws robbed the Rio Grande Railroad near Brownsville, Texas. They got away with about $75,000 in silver pesos along with some government mail. The general manager of the railroad, Simón Celaya, turned to the Brownsville City Marshall and Texas Ranger, Santiago Brito. Feuding with the local sheriff, Matthew L. Browne, Brito and his men did some solid detective work, interviewing witnesses and tracking clues to find the men who had robbed the train. Though Brito refused to hand the men over to Browne, the only nearby jail was in Brownsville, landing the men in Browne’s jurisdiction. Mosqueda was sentenced to life in prison and one co-conspirator was sentenced to 10 years. Very little of the money was ever recovered. Both Browne and Brito were shot within the next two years, while Mosqueda and his co-conspirator died in jail.
A Story for the Ages However, the story doesn’t end there. Only a few years later, a new corrido, or folk song ballad, appeared commemorating the incident. Though the song originally celebrated Brito’s capture of the Mosqueda gang, over the next 50 years the song morphed. Mosqueda and his men became folk heroes who distributed the silver they had stolen among the poor of the Rio Grande Valley, while Brito became a cowardly lawman who fled from an encounter with Mosqueda and his men. Some claim that Mosqueda also buried the silver along the river and that some is still waiting to be found.
The version of “El Corrido de José Mosqueda” at the top was recorded in 1939 as sung by José Suarez, a folk singer, but has also been recorded as recently as the 1990s by Oscar Chavez, a noted Mexican singer.
