The Sundarban
“His reckless and romantic bravery is the subject of countless poems,” wrote journalist John Reed about the man who became, for many Americans, the face of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). In one such poem about Pancho Villa, recounted by Reed in 1913, the outlaw-revolutionary saunters into a town to take revenge on a man who had betrayed him—but before doing so, he unhurriedly eats ice cream in the town square.
Villa’s significance in Mexican history is indisputable, but his legacy is contested. To some he was a violent opportunist who exploited the revolution for his own advancement. To many others he was a hero. “He fed whole districts,” Reed wrote. “Everywhere he was known as The Friend of the Poor. He was the Mexican Robin Hood.”
(Mexico’s Independence Day marks the beginning of a decade-long revolution)
Peasant rebel
Doroteo Arango Arámbula was born in 1878 in the state of Durango, Mexico, and was later baptized as José Doroteo. The future revolutionary’s father worked as a hired hand on a hacienda (estate), but he either died or abandoned his family when Doroteo was a child. After this, the young Doroteo felt a deep sense of responsibility toward his mother and four siblings. At age 16, he attacked and injured—some sources say shot—a young overseer from the hacienda who had tried to rape his sister. He later fled to the mountains, where he joined a gang of cattle rustlers.
A pistol that belonged to Pancho Villa, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City.
MARIO GUZMÁN/EFE
For the next few years Doroteo lived as an outlaw, until his arrest for cattle rustling and his forced enlistment in the Mexican Army. Following his desertion in 1902, he settled in the state of Chihuahua, where he adopted the name Pancho Villa, possibly taking the name from a relative. An excellent horseman, Villa gained a reputation for his marksmanship and built up a wide network of contacts that would later become invaluable in the looming revolution.
By the early years of the 20th century, northern Mexico had become a hotbed of dissent against the corrupt government of President Porfirio Díaz. Through electoral fraud, Díaz retained power for more than 40 years and favored the landed oligarchy, the church, and foreign investors. In 1910 reformist Francisco Madero, supported by a swath of Mexicans, ran for president against Díaz but was jailed. When Díaz was reelected, yet again by fraudulent means, Madero called for an armed uprising.
Charismatic commander
As political tensions rose, Abraham González, who was a confidant of Madero’s, contacted Villa. The two had gotten to know each other, allegedly, when Villa had sold him stolen cattle. González urged Villa to join the revolution and entrusted him with the task of forming a party to challenge the Díaz government in Chihuahua.
Villa agreed and became a guerrilla chief at Madero’s service, although not one of the most prominent. By this time Pascual Orozco had emerged as a resistance leader in the north; in the south, Emiliano Zapata and the Figueroa brothers were the key figures. But Villa quickly distinguished himself for his courage in decisive battles (such as the taking of Ciudad Juárez in 1911, where he fought alongside Orozco), for his charisma, and for his ability to mobilize others to support his cause.
Torreón, in the Mexican state of Coahuila, at the beginning of the 20th century. Villa took the city, a railroad hub, by April 1914 in a major defeat to President Huerta.
ALAMY/ACI
Following the fall of the city, Díaz resigned, with the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez, and went into exile. After elections, Madero came to power. But the new government soon disappointed some of the revolutionary caudillos when the agrarian reforms Madero had promised did not materialize. In March 1912 Orozco, supported by Zapata, launched a revolt. Villa, meanwhile, remained loyal to Madero and fought under the orders of Victoriano Huerta, a former military officer of Díaz whom Madero had commissioned to crush the rebellion. Villa’s forces were decisive in defeating Orozco at the Second Battle of Rellano.
Despite Villa’s success, Huerta was suspicious of him, and following an incident had him arrested for contempt of court and ordered him to be shot. Madero’s brother, a member of Huerta’s general staff, intervened on Villa’s behalf and secured him an eleventh-hour stay of execution. Villa was sent to Mexico City, where he was tried for insubordination and robbery, found guilty, and imprisoned.
Since Villa had received minimal formal education, handwritten letters he sent from prison were full of basic spelling mistakes. But he took advantage of his time in jail to improve his reading skills by devouring history books lent to him by a Zapatista prisoner. Villa later claimed he had read chapters of the 17th-century Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote. In December 1912 Villa managed to escape from prison and fled to El Paso, Texas. In February 1913 Huerta led a violent coup in Mexico City that ended with Madero’s assassination. Huerta, not backed by the United States and denied international legitimacy, was proclaimed president and set up a military dictatorship.
In response, Constitutionalist opponents immediately formed a resistance led by Venustiano Carranza, governor of the northern state of Coahuila, with the support of the other revolutionary leaders. Among the key players in this resistance was Villa, who, after returning from the U.S., took on leadership of a military unit that would become legendary: the División del Norte (Northern Division). Initially formed of 3,000 men, it grew to 30,000 combatants. In 1913 and 1914 they played a central role in the most memorable battles of the Mexican Revolution.
(Meet Emiliano Zapata: hero and martyr of the Mexican Revolution)
Viva Villa
Villa,
