Pancho Villa Francisco “Pancho” Villa (born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula) was a famous subversive figure of the Mexican Revolution that rose to legendary stature thanks to his unparalleled charisma. His superior leadership skills that enabled him to establish deep bonds with his fellow soldiers, and his extraordinary dexterity with both horses and all kind of weapons, bestowed upon him the image of an almost immortal gunslinger and general able to overcome all kind of hardships in the name of La Revolución. Pancho Villa started his life as a bandit very early: born on June 5, 1878, in San Juan del Rio, Durango, he shot Agustín Lopez Negrete, an hacienda owner who allegedly raped his sister, when he was just 16 year old. In a story that very closely matches a similar one whose protagonist was Billy the Kid, Villa stole an horse and hunted down one by one all the eight men that committed the atrocity. After the incident he spent his next 6 years living in the mountains with some fugitives until he joined a band of outlaws led by the infamous bandit leader Ignacio Parra. After escaping a forceful enlistment into the Federal army and becoming a deserter, Villa started robbing wealthier cattle herders and banks, often returning the money he stole to the poor and the needy, then settled his base in Chihuahua from where he ruled the territory with a firm hand. During this early period (1900-1909) the legend of Villa started to build up, portraying him as some kind of Mexican Robin Hood: according to tales he was an idol among the masses of peones (poor hacienda laborers), taking from the rich to give to the poor and feeding starving families with stolen cattle, and a charismatic general who often recruited his new gang members among the local population in the middle of towns, saving them from a life of quasi-slave labor for the hacendados (landowners). He was also a ruthless commander who showed no mercy for traitors. The stories say that he and his personal executioner Rodolfo “El Carnicero” Fierro (“The Butcher”) would hunt and kill all the other male family members of those who betrayed him, making him either greatly loved or deeply feared by peasants and soldiers. His anger could easily lead him to fury: in one story he forces a man to dig his own grave before shooting him (an image later borrowed many times by Hollywood movies), or cuts the feet of a wealthy man who refuses to pay his gang the large sum of money they require. In 1910 Villa joined his forces with the aristocratic revolutionary Francisco Madero, a politician who led a popular uprising against the brutal dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. Commanding a powerful army of cavalry guerrilla fighters called Division del Norte (Division of the North), Pancho Villa earned his reputation as one of Mexico’s best gunfighters with the nickname of El Centauro del Norte (The Centaur of the North). He led his men to victory many times thanks to his imaginative tactical wits, powerful cavalry charges, night-time surprise attacks and the fierce loyalty of his peers. Villa was deeply respected by his soldiers, and he commanded a strong presence among them: stories say that he often joined them at their campfires, sharing their same food and eating with them (ensuring at the same time that no one was going to poison him). Villa’s most elite fighters, the Dorados (Golden Ones), fought with the agility of Apache warriors, being able to fire accurately while on full gallop, and then to retreat before the enemy was able to retaliate. Their incredible skill and the charismatic aura of their commander attracted many U.S. Hollywood filmmakers and journalists, for whom Pancho Villa often organized staged battles and posed to be recorded and photographed. After Madero’s assassination by the usurping general Victoriano Huerta, Pancho Villa joined his forces with Venustiano Carranza and another legendary figure of the Mexican Revolution: Emiliano Zapata, leader of the “Ejército Libertador del Sur” (Liberation Army of the South). Together they were able to overthrow Huerta’s new dictatorship, and in 1913 Villa was named governor of Chihuahua. Here Villa gained much of the local population’s favor by setting in motion his personal social justice agenda. He started issuing his own money, confiscated money from the wealthy and from the banks to build mobile hospitals and railroads, and expropriated vast land holdings to distribute them among soldiers’ widows and dead revolutionaries’ orphaned families. In 1914 Villa refused to be elected President of Mexico, a title that ended in the hands of Carranza who rapidly began to impose his new dictatorship, promptly using his power upon the press to depict Pancho Villa as a monstrous and brutal bandit leader to alienate him from people’s favor. Yet again Villa confronted an opposing villainous figure against whom he battled with relentless zeal: the fight against such an evil and despotic ruler as Carranza contributed to build his reputation of poor men’s hero in popular folklore. Villa’s military campaign against the newly elected President Carranza was brutally interrupted in 1915 when Carranza’s best general, Álvaro Obregón, inflicted his army a terrible defeat during the Battle of Celaya. Fully entrenched machine gun nests fortified by barbed wires literally massacred Villa’s men, inflicting almost 4,000 casualties and capturing more than 6,000 soldiers. Obregón men were aided by the United States that gave them logistic support, because President Woodrow Wilson decided to support Carranza’s forces hoping to end the Mexican Revolution as soon as possible. Enraged by this act of betrayal (U.S. had supplied Villa’s armies for years with weapons and ammunitions), Villa decided to cross the border and attack Columbus, New Mexico, but President Wilson reacted by sending an army of 5,000 men to hunt him down forcing him to hide with a small contingent of soldiers still loyal to him. According to the legend, during his retreat, in order to expedite his escape from U.S. troops, Villa buried a large hoard of gold and silver bars in a secret location near Santa Cruz. Pancho Villa kept losing battle after battle, until in 1920 Carranza was assassinated by Obregón, who decided to give the bandit an amnesty and an estate of 250,000 acres in exchange for his retirement. Pancho accepted, but was killed three years later on July 20, 1923, in Parral, Mexico, when a group of seven commandos unloaded 150 big game rifle rounds on him and his Dorados bodyguards. Circumstances surroundings his death are unclear and filled with legendary elements, as the bizarre events that followed, such as his body exhumation and decapitation. Local rumors say that an American treasure hunter beheaded him to sell his skull to an eccentric millionaire who collected the heads of historic figures. Villa was a very controversial figure that keeps living in popular folklore, with tales about his life and his myth still pursued to this very day, like those surrounding his legendary buried treasure. See also: Tall Tales. Dr. Claudio Butticè, Pharm.D. Further Reading: Azuela, Mariano, 1915. The Underdogs: a novel of the Mexican Revolution. Translated by Sergio Waisman. New York: Penguin Books. Braddy, Haldeen, 1948. “Pancho Villa, Folk Hero of the Mexican Border.” Western Folklore 7 (4): 349-355. Katz, Friedrich, 1974. “Labor Conditions on Haciendas in Porfirian Mexico: Some Trends and Tendencies.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 54 (1): 1-47. Katz, Friedrich. 1998. The Life and Times of Pancho Villa. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press. Reed, John. 1914. Insurgent Mexico. New York: International. Sherman, Scott, 2000. “Living La Vida Grande.” Scott Sherman website. http://scottgsherman.com/mexico/livinglavidagrande.php. Accessed June 2015.