Villa, Pancho

Villa, Pancho

 orig. Doroteo Arango

(born June 5, 1878, Hacienda de Río Grande, San Juan del Río, Mex.—died June 20, 1923, Parral) Mexican guerrilla leader. He was orphaned at a young age and spent his adolescence as a fugitive, having murdered a landowner in revenge for an assault on his sister. An advocate of radical land reform, he joined Francisco Madero's uprising against Porfirio Díaz. His División del Norte joined forces with Venustiano Carranza to overthrow Victoriano Huerta (1854–1916), but he soon broke with the moderate Carranza and in 1914 was forced to flee with Emiliano Zapata. In 1916, to demonstrate that Carranza did not control the north, he raided a town in New Mexico. A U.S. force led by Gen. John Pershing was sent against him, but his popularity and knowledge of his home territory made him impossible to capture. He was granted a pardon after Carranza's overthrow (1920) but was assassinated three years later. See also Mexican Revolution; Alvaro Obregon.

---

Villa, Pancho

(1878–1923) notorious Mexican bandit and revolutionary. [Mex. Hist.: EB, X: 435–436]

See : Outlawry