This fact has weighed on the global historical judgment of the revolutionary, based on the suspicion that he was alien to the social movements of the countryside and the labor movement of the time.
This perception is noticeable in the different types of legends that arose around town, from which he is presented as a victim of the despotism of the big landowners and the political authorities; which has perpetuated the idea of a violent bandit, even that of the epic image that portrays him as a modern Robin Hood.
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, such the real name of Francisco “Pancho” Villa, was born in San Juan del Rio, Durango, on June 5, 1878. Eldest son of the peasants Agustín Arango and Micaela Arámbula, residents of the Rancho de la Coyotada (today the Pancho Villa House Museum), he received some education at the school of the local church, which he left after his father’s death to become a sharecropper.
At age 16 he moved to Chihuahua, but soon returned to Durango to search for a landowner named Agustín Lopez Negrete, who had raped his sister. After shooting and killing Negrete, he stole a horse and headed for the territory of Sierra Madre Occidental, where he traveled the hills with the group of bandits led by Ignacio Parra, at the time, one of the most famous bandits in Durango.
In 1902, Arango was arrested for mule theft, and assault, while town he was spared the death penalty due to his connections to the powerful Pablo Valenzuela (to whom he sold the stolen merchandise), but was forced to enlist in the federal army. Several months later he deserted and fled to the neighboring state of Chihuahua. In 1903, after killing an army officer and stealing his horse, he was no longer known as Arango, but as Francisco “Pancho” Villa, in honor of his paternal grandfather, Jesús Villa. He was also known to his friends as “Cockroach“).
According to some historians, until 1910 town he would alternate episodes of banditry with more legitimate activities. The perspective of town about banditry he would change after meeting Abraham González. A local representative of Francisco Madero, a politician who opposed the dictator Porfirio Díaz, González convinced Villa that he could fight for the people.
He then took part in the revolution from 1910 to 1911 against the thirty-year dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, organizing and leading peasant guerrilla bands in the state of Chihuahua, thus contributing to the victory of the liberal-progressive Francisco Madero. The participation of town in the first revolution in Chihuahua it was attributed to a natural predisposition of men of popular extraction without political ambitions or democratic aspirations, but capable of forging ties with the leaders of local farmers. However, his participation in 1912, in the defense of the Madero government, was at the express request of the local governor, Abraham González.
Finally, his military campaigns in the North during the second revolution of 1913, made him a charismatic leader, and a political leader when, in December of that year, he became revolutionary governor.
town He came to a confrontation with Carranza himself, considering him too moderate, then supporting, together with the revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, the project of a great agrarian reform (Plan de Ayala, November 25, 1911), until he conquered the entire northern region of Mexico. Taking advantage of the confusion in the country, he was finally able to occupy Mexico City itself (1914-1915); but he was defeated by Commander Obregón, in Celaya in 1915, and later also by the constitutionalist Calles, a former Obregón supporter.
These events marked the beginning of the period of his guerrilla activities (1916-1920), but also that of his “rebirth”, derived from general political factors largely due to the positions adopted by the United States against the problems of Mexico. revolutionary.
Wilson responded by sending General John Pershing to Mexico in order to capture town. Despite Carranza’s support to capture town, the two missions against him, in 1916 and 1919 did not give any results. In 1920, Carranza was assassinated and Adolfo De la Huerta became the president of Mexico. In an effort to restore peace to the unstable nation, De la Huerta negotiated with town his retreat from the battlefield. The latter agreed and, laying down his arms, retired to a ranch in Durango.
town He was assassinated on July 20, 1923 in Parral (Chihuahua). His assassination obviously marked a turning point for the Mexican political system. The version of a “personal revenge” was immediately established, the classic scenario that is almost always established in relation to state crimes. It was not Villa that the powerful feared, but what he represented, his people, the ranchers and the peons, who could pursue the dream of rising up and overthrowing the bosses’ regime.
The Mexican Revolution has long been considered the first social revolution of the 20th century due to its popular, agrarian and nationalist character, although some scholars have advanced the interpretation that it was a political revolution aimed at building a state capable of promoting capitalist development, nevertheless giving rise to a populist regime, due to the fear of the new political class of facing the strength acquired by the popular movements.
The judgment on the movement of town, remains controversial, since, on the one hand, it had differences with respect to the more ethnically cohesive movement of Zapata and, on the other hand, it seemed to have similarities with other movements that were limited to confiscating the property of the land, to finance the revolution.