Pancho Villa: Mexican Revolutionary, Bandit, and Folk Hero

Introduction

In the history books there are many records of revolutionary characters. Some stories are wholly embellished beyond the truth of what really happened, and others — like the stories about Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa — are part accurate and part legend, and sometimes incomplete or vague. Whether all the tales told of Villa's escapades are factual is beside the point; by any measure, Villa was truly a revolutionary character in the history of Mexico. This paper delves into the life and times of Pancho Villa, who was a Mexican folk hero, a bandit, a charismatic leader of fighters, and indeed a revolutionary figure.

The late professor Friedrich Katz was considered the foremost scholar of Mexican history, best known perhaps for his knowledge of the Mexican Revolution. Katz writes that there are three "basic versions" of the life of Pancho Villa. One was called the "white legend," and this legend is based for the most part on the reminiscences that Villa himself recounted. Villa depicted himself as a "victim of the social and economic system of Porfirian Mexico," Katz explains in his Prologue to his highly respected book, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa.

The White Legend, Black Legend, and Epic Legend

The white legend — some of which history tends to support — depicts Villa as a young man who was driven to become an outlaw against his will. Katz explains that the white legend is reflected in the memoirs that Villa put together. The "black legend" portrays Villa as an "evil murderer, with no redeeming qualities," and the "epic legend" is based largely on "popular ballads and traditions that seem to have emerged mainly in the course of the revolution" (Katz, 2).

The epic legend shows Villa as a personality that was much more prominent in pre-revolutionary Chihuahua than he is portrayed in either the white or black legend, Katz continues. The truth about all three legends, Katz explains, is that they are not based on solid original documents but rather on "reminiscences, popular ballads, rumors, memoirs, and hearsay" — and moreover, none of the three is consistent even within itself.

Pancho Villa was actually born Doroteo Arango on June 5, 1878, in the northern Mexican state of Durango, in the small village of Rio Grande. His parents — Agustín Arango and Micaela Arambula — were very poor sharecroppers who worked for a rich landlord. Doroteo had two brothers and two sisters, and it is believed that he had little if any formal schooling, according to Outlaws, Mobsters & Crooks (1998).

The Early Life of Pancho Villa

After his father died in 1893, Doroteo became the man of the house as the oldest son. The story of what happened when he turned sixteen has several versions. The Outlaws, Mobsters & Crooks article asserts that when he came home from working in the fields one day, he found the landlord of the property his family worked threatening one of his sisters. Enraged, Doroteo went to a cousin's house and got a pistol. The story goes that Doroteo then "shot the owner three times, wounding him seriously. Immediately afterward, Doroteo escaped on a horse, a fugitive at the age of sixteen."

That is not quite the same story Villa told. "The tragedy of my life begins on September 22, 1894, when I was sixteen years old," Villa wrote in his memoirs, which were dictated to his secretary, Manuel Bauche Alcalde, when Villa was at the height of his power in 1914, according to Katz. That day, Villa explained, the "Master, the owner of the lives and honor of us the poor people" — Don Agustín Lopez Negrete — was standing in front of Doroteo's mother, who was telling him, "Go away from my house! Why do you want to take my daughter?" (Katz, 1998, p. 3).

In Villa's version, he got the gun from a cousin and shot Lopez Negrete in the foot — only once. Lopez Negrete then called for his armed guards; they appeared with rifles drawn and were about to shoot Doroteo, but Lopez Negrete told them not to. "Take me home," Lopez Negrete reportedly said to his guards. At that point, fearing arrest, the young man jumped on a horse and "from that moment on led the life of an outlaw in the mountains of Durango, relentlessly pursued by the authorities" (Katz, 3).

In his account, Villa claims he was captured, jailed, and put to work grinding Mixtamal dough before running away again, only to be caught a few months later in October 1895. His second escape was orchestrated through a clever ruse, and from that point he decided to join up with other outlaws for his own protection (Katz, 4). He changed his name to Francisco Villa and transformed his lifestyle from that of a hunted fugitive to a "successful outlaw" (Katz, 4).

During the late nineteenth century Villa was not only robbing and killing and seizing money and shipments of silver and gold from the mines of northern Mexico — reportedly giving stolen goods to family and friends — he also tried to settle into more conventional roles, working as a miner, stonemason, and butcher. But each time he was about to adjust to a productive life as a peaceful employee, the authorities would discover him and he would flee to the mountains again, the Outlaws, Mobsters & Crooks article noted.

During this period in Mexican history, Porfirio Díaz was president of Mexico and was not at all concerned about the horrific living conditions many Mexican citizens endured. In fact, Díaz "favored the owners of the large farming estates, or haciendas," and as a result ordinary Mexicans were drifting deeper into poverty, had no voice in their government, and watched the rich hacienda owners seize their land (Outlaws, Mobsters & Crooks). By 1910, Francisco Madero — whose father was a wealthy rancher in northern Mexico — was calling for a revolution to rid the country of the despotic Díaz. Villa, who had deep empathy for the poor having been raised in poverty and at the mercy of Lopez Negrete, was eager to join Madero's cause.

How Pancho Villa Became a Revolutionary Figure

According to the Dictionary of Hispanic Biography (DHB), Madero formed a political party and brought in Abran González as a running mate. When González met with Villa in Chihuahua City and shared the party's goals, "Villa was impressed with González and with Madero's courage and idealism" (DHB). Villa therefore "enthusiastically joined the revolutionary army with the rank of captain" (DHB). Villa's own group of rebels included about five hundred men from all walks of life, including wealthy hacienda owners and poor peasants (DHB).

Díaz quickly realized that Madero's movement was gaining credibility and clout, so he had Madero arrested and thrown into prison and won the election of 1910, the DHB explains. After the election, Madero was released and escaped to San Antonio, Texas, where he resumed his opposition to Díaz. On November 20, 1910, Madero officially called for the armed uprising that came to be known as the Mexican Revolution. Villa's group captured San Andrés in Chihuahua, but Madero's army was beaten at Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, by Díaz's forces, leading Díaz and his men to conclude that "the revolution had been effectively thwarted" (DHB). Díaz was wrong. When Villa, considered a "daring and ingenious leader," and Madero combined their troops, they had enough firepower to take Ciudad Juárez on May 10, 1911 (DHB).

Meanwhile, Emiliano Zapata, another revolutionary leader, led his forces to several victories in southern Mexico while Villa — promoted to colonel for his "brilliant performance" — and Madero held control in the north. That proved to be the final blow for dictator Díaz, who resigned on May 21, 1911, and headed into exile. In October of that year, Madero and Villa and their army marched into Mexico City, and Madero was elected president of Mexico (DHB).

The revolution had ended, the rebels were in charge, the dictator had been ousted, and all seemed peaceful as Villa returned to his home in Chihuahua City and attempted to settle into the life of a peaceful, ordinary citizen (DHB). He took up the trade of a butcher, but his new career was short-lived and his career as a fighter and revolutionary soon resumed.

On February 22, 1913, President Madero was killed in office and General Victoriano Huerta became the new dictator of Mexico. Although Villa and Huerta had once fought for the same cause, after Huerta assumed power, Villa refused his orders and was sent before a firing squad (DHB). Just before he was to be shot, Villa was rescued by Madero's brother Raúl; nonetheless, Villa was imprisoned. While in prison he was educated by a young clerk who "helped the outlaw improve his reading and writing" (DHB). Eventually Villa escaped and fled to Texas, to El Paso.

According to Alejandro Quintana's book Pancho Villa: A Biography, Huerta had the support of the Roman Catholic Church, the Mexican upper class, and the United States ambassador (Quintana, 2012, p. 58). At that time Villa was still out of the country, but a "relatively obscure leader, Venustiano Carranza," took up the cause against Huerta and "called on all revolutionary leaders to join him against the new dictator" (Quintana, 58). Villa eventually heeded the call and crossed the Rio Grande in March 1913. Before long, "thanks, in part, to his charisma and his reputation for taking good care of his soldiers," he amassed a large army and supported his troops by confiscating property from wealthy hacendados. His new army numbered 6,000 men and was called the La División del Norte (Division of the North). In effect, Villa was leading the second major revolution of his lifetime.

Eventually Villa commanded an army of 10,000 men. His forces seized military hardware — guns, ammunition, and "even whole trains" — from government supply centers in the north. In time Villa had an estimated 40,000-man army and occupied Mexico City for two months in December 1914 (Quintana, 59). He then returned north to Chihuahua and hoped to become a political leader as well as a military one. However, when Venustiano Carranza, a former ally, became provisional president, the two men had a falling out. When the United States recognized Carranza as the official president of Mexico and supported his army with supplies, Villa was once again cast in the role of bandit.

Conclusion

There can be no doubt that not only was Pancho Villa a bona fide revolutionary, he was an archetypal Mexican revolutionary in that his passion depicted the rich landowners as oppressors of the peasants. There has been a plethora of misinformation about Villa, and an alert reader can move from one supposedly accurate account to another and note vast differences. In other reference material, the information is simply vague or incomplete. For example, The New York Times noted the death of Villa's widow, Soledad Seanez Holguin, on July 12, 1996, reporting that her husband had "entered Mexico City in December of 1914 in alliance with the revolutionary land reformer Emiliano Zapata"; the very next sentence stated, "Villa was assassinated in 1923" (The New York Times). The gap between 1914 and 1923 in that account may be the most glaring omission in the biography of any important figure in journalistic history.