Facing the two Cortez brothers on their family front porch in Manor, Texas (northeast of Austin), Sheriff Morris shoots and kills Ramón.
Paredes also suggests that the "Lincoln's daughter" figure arose from one of the many mistresses that Cortez had in real life.
The chapter also explains how Cortez's deeds inspired much help and sympathetic emotions from Anglo and Mexican Americans after his imprisonment.
However, Paredes states that, for many Mexicans, the Cortez affair increased hatred toward their community, leading to many cases of violence and victimization.
Toward the end, the chapter analyzes how all these supports from society led to Cortez's pardon and how he eventually died shortly after being released.
Finally, he analyzes how Cortez embodies the inoffensive Mexican who defends his rights and eventually betrayed and self-sacrificed just like Jesus Christ.
He concludes that the image of a hero like Cortez has long existed in the Mexican Americans' imaginations, and his deeds manifested into this well-known story.
His reconstruction took lines from these variants and putting them together in chronological order in a fundamental narrative style and hence should be utilized in the missing original version.
Paredes underscores that he wishes for people to recognize the corrido of Gregorio Cortez as a prototype product born from the conflicts on the U.S.-Mexico border.
[1] After returning to the United States from Asia in the 1950s, Paredes enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin for his master's degree, with a primary focus on literature.
Paredes knew that others would not favor his ideas in the field of literary criticism, which did not recognize the importance of the context, yet the stubborn student persevered.
He further proved his assertion that contexts are essential by adding the corrido, a form of balladry he was familiar with from his Mexican American background.
After reading Paredes' assignment, the instructor advised him to have a conversation with another faculty member Robert Stephenson, who was teaching several courses in folklore at the time.
Being an associate professor in both English and Spanish, Stephenson also influenced him into eventually choosing "El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez" as his topic for the Ph.D.
The other problem was that it openly criticized another folklorist Walter Prescott Webb and the Texas Rangers for their biased opinions against the Mexican population.
Webb upheld the Anglo Americans' falsified view of border conflicts with the "tough" Rangers on one side valiantly fighting against the "cruel" Mexicans.
Paredes later described that Webb made him feel like "I didn't expect for him to like me, but if looks could kill, I would have been dead a long time ago.
Paredes quickly became acquainted with Thompson, who later showed great interest in his ongoing project, the study on Cortez and corridos.
Thompson found the work impressive after reading it, so he eventually handed the manuscript to the University of Texas Press and asked them to publish it.
[2] After finishing his Ph.D. program in 1956, Paredes went to El Paso to teach at the English Department of then-Texas School of Mines.
Frank W. Wardlaw, the University of Texas Press director told Paredes that he liked the draft of the Cortez book, but had a few revisions.
[2] To possibly avoid controversy, the Press decided not to stage the usual autograph party hold at the University.
Famous writer and scholar Tomás Rivera was one of these Chicanos who later told Paredes that reading the book made him feel empowered to write.
Many scholars wrote that they appreciated the book for its confrontation of misrepresentations of minority cultures in the United States in general.
Besides creating a model of mixing the fiction with the theory in one work of literature, the book also establishes a way for others to discuss the border objectively.
"[5]In contrast, Margie Montañez argues in her dissertation that "What Paredes does not tell us is the different ways these border men deal with injustices beyond open resistance.