Francisco Pancho Villa, born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, (5 June 1878-20 July 1923) was a Mexican revolutionary general and one of the most prominent figures of the Mexican Revolution.
As commander of the División del Norte, in the Constitutionalist Army, he was a military-landowner of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. The area's size and mineral wealth provided him with extensive resources.
Villa was provisional governor of Chihuahua in 1913 and 1914, and can be credited with decisive military victories leading to the ousting of Victoriano Huerta from the presidency in July 1914. Following Huerta's ouster Villa fought the forces of his own erstwhile leader, First Chief of the Constitutionalists Venustiano Carranza; in so doing he was in alliance with southern revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who remained fighting in his own region of Morelos.
The two revolutionary generals briefly came together to take Mexico City after Carranza's forces retreated from it. Later, Villa's hitherto undefeated División del Norte engaged the military forces of Carranza under Carrancista general Álvaro Obregón and was defeated in the 1915 Battle of Celaya. Villa again was defeated by Carranza on 1 November 1915 at the Second Battle of Agua Prieta, after which Villa's army collapsed as a significant military force.
Villa subsequently led a raid against a small U.S.-Mexican border town resulting in the Battle of Columbus on 9 March 1916, and retreated to escape U.S. retaliation. The U.S. government sent U.S. Army General John J. Pershing on an expedition to capture him, but Villa continued to evade his attackers with guerrilla tactics during the unsuccessful nine-month incursion into Mexican sovereign territory. The mission ended when the United States entered World War I and Pershing was recalled to other duties.
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In 1920, Villa made an agreement with the Mexican government to retire from hostilities, following the ouster and death of Carranza, and was given a hacienda near Parral, Chihuahua, which he turned into a military colony for his former soldiers. In 1923, as presidential elections approached, he re-involved himself in Mexican politics. Shortly thereafter he was assassinated.
In life, Villa helped fashion his own image as an internationally known revolutionary hero, starring as himself in Hollywood films and giving interviews to foreign journalists, most notably John Reed.
After his death he was excluded from the pantheon of revolutionary heroes until the Sonoran generals Obregón and Calles, whom he battled during the Revolution, were gone from the political stage.
Villa's exclusion from the official narrative of the Revolution might have contributed to his continued posthumous popular acclaim. He was celebrated during the Revolution and long afterward by corridos, films about his life, and novels by prominent writers. In 1976, his remains were reburied in the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City in a huge public ceremony.
Villa told a number of conflicting stories about his early life, and his early life remains shrouded in mystery. According to most sources, he was born on 5 June 1878, and named José Doroteo Arango Arámbula at birth.
In 1902, the rurales, the crack rural police force of President Porfirio Díaz, arrested Pancho for stealing mules and for assault.
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The Mexican Revolution began when Francisco Madero challenged incumbent President Porfirio Díaz in the 1910 elections. Díaz arrested Madero and staged fraudulent elections, but Madero had united a broad base of pro-democracy, anti-reelectionists who sought an end to the Díaz regime. In his Plan de San Luis Potosí, Madero called for revolutionary action against the Díaz regime on 20 November 1910, and declared himself provisional president of Mexico. In Chihuahua, the leader of the anti-re-electionists, Abraham González, reached out to Villa to join the movement.
Villa captured a large hacienda, then a train of Federal Army soldiers, and the town of San Andrés. He went on to beat the Federal Army in Naica, Camargo, and Pilar de Conchos, but lost at Tecolote. Villa met in person with Madero in March 1911, as the struggle to oust Díaz was ongoing.
Villa was a brilliant tactician on the battlefield, which translated to political support. In 1913, local military commanders elected him provisional governor of the state of Chihuahua against the wishes of First Chief Carranza, who wished to name Manuel Chao instead.
Villa's war tactics were studied by the United States Army, and a contract with Hollywood was made whereby Hollywood would be allowed to film Villa's movements and 50% of Hollywood's profit would be paid to Villa to support the Revolution.
On Friday, 20 July 1923, Villa was killed while visiting Parral. He frequently made trips from his ranch to Parral for banking and other errands, where he generally felt secure. Villa was usually accompanied by his large entourage of armed Dorados, or bodyguards, but for some unknown reason on that day he had gone into the town without most of them, taking with him only three bodyguards and two other ranch employees. He went to pick up a consignment of gold from the local bank with which to pay his Canutillo ranch staff. While driving back through the city in his black 1919 Dodge touring car, Villa passed by a school, and a pumpkinseed vendor ran toward his car and shouted Viva Villa!, a signal to a group of seven riflemen who then appeared in the middle of the road and fired more than 40 rounds into the automobile.
In the fusillade, nine dumdum bullets, normally used for hunting big game, hit Villa in the head and upper chest, killing him instantly.
Villa was buried the day after his assassination in the city cemetery of Parral, Chihuahua, rather than in Chihuahua city, where he had built a mausoleum.
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that has oppressed her and given the people
a chance to know what real liberty means.
And if I could bring that about today by giving up my life,
I would do it gladly.
Pancho Villa
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