Pancho Villa Military Leader - Born June 5, 1878 in San Juan del Rio, Durango, Mexico

Died July 20, 1923 in Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico (assassination)

Birth Name José Doroteo Arango Arámbula

Mini Bio (1) Francisco "Pancho" Villa was born Doroteo Arango to rural peasant parents in San Juan del Rio, Mexico, on June 5, 1878. He later took several aliases, the most popular and well-known being "Pancho Villa". Raised in poverty in Durango, he turned to cattle rustling and robbery as a young man. The turning point in his life, however, was the day his sister was attacked and raped by Mexican army troops. Villa wanted revenge against the whole world and soon turned from being simply a bandit leader into a full-fledged revolutionary with the aim of overthrowing Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz. To that end Villa became an ally of another revolutionary, the urbane and educated Francisco I. Madero, and although the two were about as opposite from one another as it was possible to be, Villa soon became a diehard supporter of the diminutive Madero, whom he affectionately called "the little man". Madero appointed Villa a colonel in the revolutionary army. On May 11, 1911, Villa led a daring raid against the federal stronghold of Juarez, soundly defeating the government forces and securing Madero's position as the new president. After Diaz was driven from power and Madero installed as president, Villa went home. His stay there was not to be very long, however. Two years later Madero was overthrown and executed by renegade Gen. Victoriano Huerta. Enraged, Villa re-formed his army, now called the Army of the North, and became an important member of a coalition of anti-Huerta forces, among whom were such legendary Mexican figures as Emiliano Zapata and Venustiano Carranza.

Villa's mounted troops, called "Villistas", were highly mobile and seasoned by years of fighting against the Diaz regime. They inflicted a decisive defeat on Huerta's army in northern Mexico at the Battle of Zacatecas on June 23, 1913, then began a campaign to drive Huerta's forces south to their stronghold of Mexico City. By December, in conjunction with the armies of Carranza and Zapata, Villa captured Mexico City, forcing Huerta to flee and placing control of the government in the hands of the three rebel leaders. However, the following spring Villa was forced out of the triumvirate when he lost a power struggle with Carranza. In the ensuing conflict his troops were badly defeated by Carranza's army and Villa was forced to withdraw to his headquarters in Durango. There he resumed his life as a bandit, raiding isolated American border towns and mining camps as well as Mexican villages.

On March 9, 1916, troops under Villa's command raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico, looted it, burned down much of it and caused the deaths of more than a dozen residents, although about 30 of their own men were killed by American soldiers and civilians defending the town (supposedly Villa was angered by the U.S. authorities allowing elements of Carranza's army, which was pursuing him, to cross through American territory as a shortcut in an attempt to get ahead of Villa and ambush him, and the raid was in retaliation for that). The U.S. government sent an expeditionary force into Mexico under Gen. John J. Pershing to capture Villa. However, Villa's maneuverability and superior knowledge of the terrain enabled him to elude the pursuing American troops, and Pershing's forces withdrew from the area the following year.

In 1920 the Carranza government struck a deal with Villa in which he agreed to halt his raids in exchange for settling down on a ranch in Canutillo and being appointed a general in the Mexican army. However, on June 20, 1923, Villa was ambushed and murdered in Parral by followers of Álvaro Obregón, a former army general, who feared that Villa would oppose their leader's candidacy for president in the upcoming elections. Immediately following his death the name of Pancho Villa was eliminated from all history books, children's books and all monuments in Mexico. It wasn't until 1975 (more than a half-century after his death) that both the Mexican and American governments felt safe enough to exhume his body, and when they did, they discovered that someone had stolen his head. After a large parade was held in his honor in Mexico, Pancho Villa's body was sent to the cemetery where many Mexican revolutionary heroes were buried, and he was finally given the proper burial he deserved.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: frankfob2@yahoo.com

Austreberta Rentería (1921 - 20 July 1923) his death 2 children M1. Francisco M2. Hipólito

Soledad Seañez Holguin (1919 - ?)

María Luz Corral (29 May 1911 - ?) F1. daughter (Died in Infancy)

Manuela Casas 1 child M1. son

Juana Torres 1 child F1. daughter

M1. José Trinidad Villa M2. Ernesto Nava (1915 - 31 December 2009)

Mexican bandit and revolutionary.

Signed a contract in 1914 with Mutual Films of New York for the screen rights to his guerrilla war (dramatized in And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (2003), with Antonio Banderas as Villa).

Acted as a "Producer" and consultant in the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. film Life of Villa (1912), in which he also portrayed himself.

Father of José Trinidad Villa.

Personal Quotes (1) [last words, as he lay dying from assassins' bullets] Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.

Francisco "Pancho" Villa (UK: /ˈviːə/, also US: /ˈviːjɑː/; Spanish: [ˈbiʎa]; 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.

Personal life As Villa's biographer Friedrich Katz has noted, "During his lifetime, Villa had never bothered with conventional arrangements in his family life," and he contracted several marriages without seeking annulment or divorce. On 29 May 1911, Villa married María Luz Corral, who has been described as "the most articulate of his many wives." Villa met her when she was living with her widowed mother in San Andrés, where Villa for a time had his headquarters. Anti-re-electionists' threatened the locals for monetary contributions to their cause, which the two women could not afford. The widow Corral did not want to seem a counter-revolutionary and went to Villa, who allowed her to make a token contribution to the cause. Villa sought Luz Corral as his wife, but her mother was opposed; however, the two were married by a priest "in a great ceremony, attended by his military chiefs and a representative of the governor." A photo of Corral with Villa, dated 1914, has been published in a collection of photos from the Revolution. It shows a sturdy woman with her hair in a bun, wearing a floor-length embellished skirt and a white blouse, with a reboso beside a smiling Villa. After Villa's death, Luz Corral's marriage to Villa was challenged in court twice, and both times it was upheld as valid. Together, Villa and Luz Corral had one child, a daughter, who died within a few years after birth.

Villa had long-term relationships with several women. Austreberta Rentería was Villa's "official wife" at his hacienda of Canutillo, and Villa had two sons with her, Francisco and Hipólito. Others were Soledad Seañez, Manuela Casas (with whom Villa had a son), and Juana Torres, whom he wed in 1913 and with whom he had a daughter.

At the time of Villa's assassination in 1923, Luz Corral was banished from Canutillo. However, she was recognized by Mexican courts as Villa's legal wife and therefore heir to Villa's estate. President Obregón intervened in the dispute between competing claims to Villa's estate in Luz Corral's favor, perhaps because she had saved his life when Villa threatened to execute him in 1914.

Rentería and Seañez eventually were granted small government pensions decades after Villa's death. Corral inherited Villa's estate and played a key role in maintaining his public memory. All three women were often present at ceremonies at Villa's grave in Parral. When Villa's remains were transferred in 1976 to the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City, Corral refused to attend the huge ceremony. She died at the age of 89 on 6 July 1981.

An alleged son of Pancho Villa, the lieutenant colonel Octavio Villa Coss, reportedly was killed by Juan Nepomuceno Guerra, a legendary drug lord from the Gulf Cartel, in 1960.

Villa's last living son, Ernesto Nava, died in Castro Valley, California, at the age of 94 on 31 December 2009. Nava appeared yearly in festival events in his hometown of Durango, Mexico, enjoying celebrity status until he became too weak to attend.

Villa is often depicted as a "womanizer" in pop culture, but his history also includes rapes and femicides, e.g., the gang rape of Namiquipa. Namiquipa is a small town in the mountains between the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora. It is there that Villa ordered his troops to put all the women in the animal pen and rape them. Many of them died. This event is included in the second volume of the book The Life and Times of Pancho Villa by Friedrich Katz, in A Thread of Blood by Ana Alonso, in Spent Cartridges of Revolution by Daniel Nugent, and others. Some historians have commented that crimes that he never committed have been unfairly attributed to him, in addition his enemies always told false stories to increase his status as an “evil person” since there were cases of bandits who were not part of the revolution and committed crimes which were later attributed to Villa. Paco Ignacio Taibo II In his research tells in the book "Pancho Villa: Una Biografia Narrativa" that Villa did not commit any rape and also punished the soldiers who were causing misdeeds in Namiquipa.

Assassination in 1923 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 usually was 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.:393 In the fusillade, nine dumdum bullets, normally used for hunting big game, hit Villa in the head and upper chest, killing him instantly.:766

Claro Huertado (a bodyguard), Rafael Madreno (Villa's main personal bodyguard),:393 Danie Tamayo (his personal secretary), and Colonel Miguel Trillo (who also served as his chauffeur):393 were killed. One of Villa's bodyguards, Ramon Contreras, was wounded badly but managed to kill at least one of the assassins before he escaped; Contreras was the only survivor. Villa is reported to have died saying "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something," but there is no contemporary evidence that he survived his shooting even momentarily. Historian and biographer Friedrich Katz wrote in 1998 that Villa died instantly.:766 Time also reported in 1951 that both Villa and his aide (Tamayo) were killed instantly.

Telegraph service was interrupted to Villa's hacienda of Canutillo, probably so that Obregón's officials could secure the estate and "to prevent a possible Villista uprising triggered by his assassination."

The next day, Villa's funeral was held and thousands of his grieving supporters in Parral followed his casket to his burial site while Villa's men and his closest friends remained at the Canutillo hacienda armed and ready for an attack by the government troops. The six surviving assassins hid out in the desert and were soon captured, but only two of them served a few months in jail, and the rest were commissioned into the military.

Although there is a theory that the family of Jesús Herrera, which had been feuding with Villa, was behind the assassination, a more plausible theory (?) is that Villa was assassinated because he had talked publicly about re-entering politics as the 1924 elections neared. Obregón could not run again for the presidency, so there was political uncertainty about the presidential succession. Obregón favored General Plutarco Elías Calles for the presidency. In Villa's opinion, his agreement to withdraw from politics and retire to a hacienda indicated he might reenter politics. That would complicate the political situation for Obregón and the Sonoran generals.

While it has never been proven who was responsible for the assassination, most historians attribute Villa's death to a well-planned conspiracy most likely initiated by Plutarco Elías Calles and Joaquín Amaro with at least tacit approval of the then president of Mexico, Álvaro Obregón.:393

At the time, a state legislator from Durango, Jesús Salas Barraza, whom Villa once whipped during a quarrel over a woman, claimed sole responsibility for the plot. Barraza admitted that he told his friend, who worked as a dealer for General Motors, that he would kill Villa if he were paid 50,000 pesos. The friend was not wealthy and did not have 50,000 pesos on hand, so he collected money from enemies of Villa and managed to collect a total of 100,000 pesos for Barraza and his other co-conspirators. Barraza also admitted that he and his co-conspirators watched Villa's daily car rides and paid the pumpkinseed vendor at the scene of Villa's assassination to shout "Viva Villa!" either once if Villa was sitting in the front part of the car or twice if he was sitting in the back.

Despite the fact that he did not want to have a sitting politician arrested, Obregón gave in to the people's demands and had Barraza detained. Initially sentenced to 20 years in prison, Barraza's sentence was commuted to three months by the governor of Chihuahua, and Barraza eventually became a colonel in the Mexican Army. In a letter to the governor of Durango, Jesús Castro, Barraza agreed to be the "fall guy," and the same arrangement is mentioned in letters exchanged between Castro and Amaro. Others involved in the conspiracy were Félix Lara, the commander of federal troops in Parral who was paid 50,000 pesos by Calles to remove his soldiers and policemen from the town on the day of the assassination, and Melitón Lozoya, the former owner of Villa's hacienda from whom Villa was demanding payback funds he had embezzled. It was Lozoya who planned the details of the assassination and found the men who carried it out.:393 It was reported that before Barraza died of a stroke in his Mexico City home in 1951, his last words were "I'm not a murderer. I rid humanity of a monster."

Legacy Villa was buried the day after his assassination in the city cemetery of Parral, Chihuahua,:767 rather than in Chihuahua city, where he had built a mausoleum. Villa's skull was stolen from his grave in 1926. According to local folklore, an American treasure hunter, Emil Holmdahl, beheaded him to sell his skull to an eccentric millionaire who collected the heads of historic figures. His remains were reburied in the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City in 1976. The Francisco Villa Museum is a museum dedicated to Villa located at the site of his assassination in Parral.

Villa's purported death mask was hidden at the Radford School in El Paso, Texas until the 1980s, when it was sent to the Historical Museum of the Mexican Revolution in Chihuahua. Other museums have ceramic and bronze representations that do not match this mask.[