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 Editorials | Issues | March 2007 
The Day Pancho Villa Raided the US
 Daniel González - Arizona Republic
| | United States regulars prepare to resist attack during Mexican Gen. Pancho Villa's raid on the border town of Columbus, N.M., on March 16, 1916. (Deming Luna Mimbres Museum via Deming Headlight) |
They torched buildings, stole horses and looted guns and ammunition. They also killed 18 Americans.
An army of 500 soldiers, led by Mexico's notorious, mustached revolutionary Pancho Villa, overwhelmed the border town of Columbus, N.M. The raid, 91 years ago this week, was the last time the continental United States was invaded.
It was the mother of all border incursions, part of a chaotic political era in northern Mexico and the American Southwest.
But the cross-border attack, which is being commemorated today in Columbus, also is a reminder that the U.S.-Mexican border has long been a source of tension and conflict. There are flare-ups and confrontations from time to time. In January, National Guard troops encountered armed men near Sasabe,in southern Arizona, and drew criticism for retreating.
"There are some good similarities in the sense that there was a lack of a rule of law on the Mexican side, and a lot of that spilled over into the United States. Now, you have major drug cartels fighting over corridors spilling into the U.S.," said James Carafano, a military historian at the Heritage Foundation.
Yet there are important distinctions between modern-day incursions by drug traffickers and immigrant smugglers and Villa's organized, military-style attack.
"I think it's completely different. This was a political event, not something carried out by bandits," said historian Friedrich Katz, an expert on Pancho Villa.
Through whichever lens, the event is more than just a historical footnote in the little border town and in U.S.-Mexican relations.
Act of retaliation
In the early 1900s, the United States was emerging as a world power, Mexico was in embroiled in bloody revolution and Europe was engulfed in World War I.
At first, the United States had sided with Villa in his fight against Mexico City. The former bandit, known for wearing wide-brimmed sombreros and ammunition belts criss-crossed on his chest, had risen to become the foremost leader of the revolution in northern Mexico.
But Villa felt betrayed after the United States, under President Wilson, cut off arms supplies and began supporting the regime of President Venustiano Carranza in hopes of returning stability to Mexico. Villa was further infuriated when the United States permitted Carranza's troops to travel on U.S. railways from Texas all the way to Douglas, Ariz. As a result, Villa suffered huge losses during a battle at Agua Prieta, across from Douglas.
Villa also had reason to believe the United States was trying to colonize Mexico. Less than 70 years earlier, the United States, driven by a popular belief in Manifest Destiny to expand from coast to coast, had taken half of Mexico's territory. The land later became the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Coloradoand New Mexico.
"(Villa) was probably pretty justified in not being trustful, in not knowing what our goals were," said Jolane Culhane, a history professor at Western New Mexico State University. "We (the U.S.) were flexing our muscles and intervening in Latin America wherever we wanted."
Villa responded by attacking Americans in Mexico. In January 1916, the Villistas, as his men were known, raided a train in Chihuahua and killed 18 employees of the American Smelting and Refining Co. Tensions further escalated when a guard at a jail in El Paso lit a match while Mexican prisoners were being deloused with kerosene. The prisoners were burned alive.
The stage for Villa's raid on Columbus had been set.
Disastrous attack
To avoid detection, the Villistas crossed the border west of Palomas, across from Columbus.
Villista Gen. Ramon Banda Quesada used a spot near Cootes Hill on the southwestern corner of Columbus as a staging area. He divided the Villistas into four groups. Two advanced on the town from different directions. The other two attacked a detachment of the U.S. 13th Calvary stationed at Camp Furlong, one of a string of encampments to protect the border from bandits.
One of the first shots fired struck a clock at the train depot, stopping time at 4:11 a.m.
The Villistas broke into all but three businesses, looting guns and ammunition. They stole horses from the cavalry's stables. And they set fire to the Lemon and Romney Mercantile Store, which spread to the Commercial Hotel and two houses.
But the ill-advised raid was a disaster for the Villistas.
A lieutenant from the cavalry quickly assembled some troops and set up a machine gun on Broadway Street between the Hoover Hotel and the Columbus State Bank. Another officer, Lt. John Lucas and his men set up a machine gun on Main Street.
The Villistas were caught in the crossfire. At daylight, they retreated back to Mexico, chased by the cavalry.
"They were basically running for their lives across the border," said Richard Dean, president of the Columbus Historical Society. His great grandfather, James T. Dean, was killed in the attack.
At the end of the fighting, 18 Americans were dead. Villa lost 80 to 90 men in Columbus and an untold number more in Mexico during his retreat.
Woodrow Wilson's response was swift. Less than a week later, he sent 10,000 soldiers under the command of Gen. John J. Pershing to invade Mexico and hunt down Villa. Pershing remained in Mexico for 11 months. A confrontation with Mexican federal troops in the town of Carrizal brought Mexico and the United States to the brink of war. With war against Germany imminent, Pershing had to return to the United States empty-handed. Villa, who kept fighting, eventually negotiated peace and retired. He was later assassinated.
Commemorations split
In Columbus, some residents still are bitter over Villa's attack and resent the naming of a state park after him.
New Yorkers wouldn't name a park in Lower Manhattan after Osama bin Laden, said Dean, the historical society president. "So why should we do the same thing here when we had someone who came in and sacked the town?"
The private organization read the names of the 18 Americans killed in Villa's raid during a memorial service Friday, the actual anniversary of the attack on March 9, 1916.
Today, officials at the Pancho Villa State Park, will commemorate the event a different way. The park will hold a daylong fiesta and parade featuring a 100-rider cavalcade. The "friendship ride" commemorates the cultural and historical ties between the United States and Mexico, not the destruction of Villa's attack, said Sylvia Brenner, a park educator.
"We are very, very linked to Mexico," she said. |
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