We visited the border city of Columbus,
New Mexico. Very briefly. The Pancho Villa Museum and State Park was
closed for lunch. Returning, we were stopped by a checkpoint, about
10 miles out. Four or five border guards and a dog. Are you US
citizens? Yes. While we are distracted by the questioner, another
guard swung the dog over briefly to our car. "Mesquite Curtain," said
Agapi, as we drove away.
Are we US citizens? Is this the U.S.?
S.R?
Before it was founded as Deming in 1881
the town served as the port of entry from Mexico during the years
1848 to 1900, when that responsibility shifted south 33 miles to
Columbus, NM. The old custom house, a museum itself, now sits across
Silver Street from the Luna-Mimbres Museum, formerly an armory built
only two months after Francisco (Pancho) Villa's infamous incursion into
Columbus on March 9, 1916.
For two hours until just before dawn,
400-500* Villistas rampaged through town, looting, shooting, and
burning buildings. The local commander Herbert Slocum's soldiers were
caught completely off-guard -- though Slocum himself had been warned
earlier by a local businessman of a possible raid. At the time of the raid, he was in Deming
on his way to El Paso for an "officers call."
The Camp Furlong soldiers'
weapons had been locked away, and so their response was delayed. Once
they set up their Howitzer machine gun though, the battle quickly went in
their favor -- the light from the burning buildings silhouetting the
invaders made them easy targets. Eight US soldiers and ten
townspeople died in the attack, but Villa lost 80* men in the retreat
from Columbus, many of whom reportedly had been recruited by Villa's
forces at the point of a gun. Six Villistas, who were taken prisoner
during the raid, were tried in Deming two months later, and five
were hung in the jail yard beside the Luna County Courthouse.
As Pancho Villa may have appeared as he readied to attack Columbus...
No one is sure why Villa had his men
attack Columbus, the only invasion of US territory by a foreign
aggressor since the War of 1812. He had been having setbacks in his
battles with rivals in Mexico after dictator Profirio Diaz was
deposed and did blame the US and President Woodrow Wilson for not
supporting him militarily. One story is that he felt he had been sold
bad ammunition by a Columbus merchant and sought revenge. He himself
may not have entered Columbus but directed the assault from Palomas
on the Mexican side.
Villa had been in the good graces of US
government prior to this event and, with a color guard of US
infantrymen, had even toured the border cities of the Southwest by
train, stopping in Deming in August 27, 1914. He was treated to a
laudatory celebration, feted with martial music by a 90-piece
military band, dined with the mayor and other local dignitaries, and
gave a speech from the train, urging ex-pats to return to Mexico now
that victory for the Revolution was imminent.
All dressed up for his stateside visit in 1914...
Soon after, with the breakdown of
alliances with his old comrades, Obregan, Carraza, etc., he reverted
to the gangster ways of his past: theft, rape, unprovoked attacks,
forced recruitment, and indiscriminate killings, such as the
slaughter of over 300 Chinese civilian inhabitants of Torreon,
Coahuila, Mexico. After the Columbus raid, US President Wilson sent
General John J. Pershing with 12,000 troops into Mexico with the
intent of capturing or at least punishing Villa for the incursion.
The so-called "Punitive Expedition"ended eight months later
without the desired result; Pershing's army languished in the
Chihuahua Desert while the US and Mexico wrangled over
the legality of this undeclared invasion.
Pershing's return to Columbus in
February was met with great victory parades and other demonstration
of patriotism, however. The town of 400 residents quickly but briefly
grew to 2,100 as a result of the economy generated by the increased
number of troops stationed in Columbus. Interest generated by
journalists also contributed to an increase in the number of
tourists, who flocked to the area to partake of the excitement. In
the 1920s it reverted to the sleepy, dusty, little town it is today.
Pancho Villa remains a kind of romantic
Robin Hood figure and icon of Mexico's revolution. His image is to be
found in just about every Mexican restaurant in Deming -- and home, I
presume. His life ended violently on July 20, 1923 in a
gangland-style hail of bullets in Hidalgo del Parral,
Chihuahua, Mexico. Seven Mexican men had formed a society
specifically for this purpose, seeking revenge on behalf of female
relatives who had been raped or otherwise dishonored by Villa. The
image of his bloody and bullet-riddled cadaver, which I decline to
post here, was and is available on a postcard that was published immediately
after the event.
Better this picture... as hero of the Revolution!
* History is slippery and hard to pin
down. Numbers vary according source and reputation of historian or
carelessness of history buff. The figure for the number of Villistas
attacking Columbus ranges up to 1,000; equally the number of Mexican
dead, mostly Yaqui recruits according to one source, has been as high
as 225. I tend to like the liquid nature of historical research, the
eking out of what is mostly likely the case.
Don't take my word for it.
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