Emil Kosterlitzky was born on November 16, 1853, in Moscow, to a German mother and Russian Cossack father. He was noted for his language ability; he spoke nine languages: Russian, Polish, Spanish, French, Italian, English, German, Danish, and Swedish.[1]
During the 1880s he fought in the Mexican Apache Wars. He also assisted American troops pursuing Apaches across the border under the 1882 United States–Mexico reciprocal border crossing treaty. Kosterlitzky became known to the American troops, who called him the "Mexican Cossack". In 1885, Kosterlitzky was appointed commander of the Gendarmería Fiscal, the customs guard for the Mexican government, by President Porfirio Díaz.[2]
Yaqui Wars and Nogales Uprising
In March 1896, the United States Government had arrested Lauro Aguirre and Flores Chapa, who were both revolutionaryinsurgents, for being accused of engaging in revolutionary actions since they had established an anti-Díaz newspaper that claimed Porfirio Díaz, the Mexican president, had violated the Constitution of 1857. It was later concluded that both men were innocent. The plan was signed by twenty-three other people, including Aguirre, and another man named Tomas Urrea, the father of revolutionary Teresa Urrea. Teresa Urrea was suspected to be a mastermind since he had many close relationships with the people involved in an uprising. Around sixty Yaqui, Pima, and Mexican Revolutionaries united in a rebel band called ''Teresitas'' to participate in a raid.
Kosterlitzky, his wife Francisca, and their two daughters, in Los Angeles as exiles form the Mexican Revolution.
In 1910, Kosterlitzky had clashed forces with Emil Lewis Holmdahl, who was an Americanmercenary. Holmdahl had previously worked for Díaz as a captain in the rurales, which Kosterlitzky was in command of, as a security guard for the American railway operating near Mazatlán. He had repelled a raid in late October of the same year.[8] Holmdahl had defected from the government forces to create his own faction.[9] Throughout most of January, 1911, Holmdahl, alongside an unknown number of men, had captured small towns and villages including a majority of Nayarit near the West coast. He had plans to capture Tepic, but failed after his men had betrayed him and was lure to an ambush.[10] Kosterlitzky had ended up executing 300 of his men.[11]
After Kosterlitzky had moved to Los Angeles with his family, he became a translator for the U.S. Postal Service. During World War I, he pretended to be a German physician. Later in 1917, he was appointed as a special employee within the FBI.[12] On May 1, 1922, he was appointed a Bureau special agent. Because of his unique qualifications he was assigned to work border cases and to conduct liaison with various Mexican informants and officials. He resigned from the FBI on September 4, 1926. He returned to Mexico in 1927, to investigate a plot against the government of the state of Baja California.
Kosterlitzky died in Los Angeles on March 2, 1928, and is buried in Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles.
^Vanderwood, P. J. (1972). Review: Emilio Kosterlitzky: Eagle of Sonora and the Southwest Border. by Cornelius C. Smith, Jr. The Hispanic American Historical Review, 52(2), pp. 304-306.
Samuel Truett, "Transnational Warrior: Emilio Kosterlitzky and the Transformation of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands", in Continental Crossroads: Remapping U.S.-Mexico Borderlands History, ed. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004, p. 241-70.
