In May and July 1916, six captured villistas were hanged outside the Luna County Jail at Deming following a hasty trial. A seventh, named José Rodríguez, was sentenced to life in prison. Despite calls from New Mexico Governor William McDonald and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to slow down the proceedings, many in Deming and Columbus felt that justice had to be served. Others, however, believed that the villistas' execution was unwarranted. In the days and months after the raid, the Lower Mimbres Valley was wracked by racial tensions and suspicions that reignited the cycles of violence that had characterized its development since the days of war against the Chihene (or Red Paint) band of the Chiricahua Apaches.
Background:
By late 1915, Pancho Villa had lost his reputation for invincibility after suffering a string of defeats at the hands of General Alvaro Obregón. The devastating losses at Celaya also caused his reputation in the United States to decline. In 1913 and 1914, he had worked diligently to construct a larger-than-life image of himself in an effort to gain the support of the new president, Woodrow Wilson. In October, 1915, however, Wilson recognized Venustiano Carranza, Villa's rival, as de facto president of Mexico. Wilson also approved Carranza's use of the Southern Pacific Railroad to move reinforcements to Agua Prieta, Sonora, adjacent to Douglas, Arizona. At Agua Prieta, Plutarco Elias Calles' forces routed Villa and his men on November 1. Following these events, Pancho Villa turned against Americans because he felt that Wilson had betrayed him. |
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The Raid:
At about 4:00 am on March 9, 1916, Villa followed up on his constant threats against Americans, as well as the earlier Santa Ysabel Massacre (January 1916) carried out by a group of his dorados, with a brazen attack on Columbus, New Mexico. The town's central business district was completely destroyed, as were the lives of many of its residents. Despite proclamations in favor of killing "all gringos," the villistas' primary target was not carnage. Instead, they specifically sought merchant Sam Ravel and simple plunder for supplies and ammunition. A series of tactical blunders, including firing on Camp Furlongs' stables instead of the barracks and setting the Commercial Hotel on fire, led to their defeat. In all, 18 Americans and nearly 100 villistas were killed. |
Following the raid, surviving villistas were rounded up and arrested. Several were summarily executed, as indicated by former Columbus Courier editor Perrow G. Moseley in a letter to his sister. As he recounted, "Most of our local Mexicans have been made to leave and many of them have died very unnatural deaths since the battle. Our people are very bitter and the soldiers are letting them (our people) do pretty much as they please—all the Mexican Prisoners were taken out of camp and turned loose—our citizens were informed of what was to be done and shot them as they were turned loose.” A military inspector corroborated such actions in his report and the March 24, 1916, Columbus Courier reported that "local old-timers" spoke in hushed voices "saying that many of the wounded villistas were wounded after fighting. Some were said to be relieved of their suffering by having their heads slammed against wagon wheels.” |
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During the trial of the seven villistas who survived the violence of the days immediately following the raid, the editor of the Deming Headlight consistently commented on their "backwardness." He called them "children of the desert" and contrasted their haggard clothing and hygiene with that of white Americans in the Lower Mimbres Valley. In his final characterization, he emphasized the injustice of their death sentence by comparing the trial to the crucifixion of Christ. When the guilty verdict was read, defendant José Rangel burst into tears. In the end, the district attorney had proven that the men had been present in Columbus during the raid. That fact alone was enough to convict them on the highly specific charge of murdering Charles D. Miller, who met his death outside the Commercial Hotel. Laura Ritchie, whose husband was also executed outside the hotel, had agreed to cut the rope at the hanging. At the last minute, however, she couldn't bring herself to do it.
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Jesús Páez:
Among the piles of shrapnel, rubble, wounded, and dead, Columbus residents discovered a twelve-year old boy from Chihuahua. His leg was badly wounded, and he was taken to the Deming Ladies' Hospital to recover. Many of the nurses were horrified that such a young boy smoked cigarettes (he apparently requested them on a regular basis). Jesús Páez recounted his story on several different occasions following the raid, including before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee investigations led by New Mexico Senator Albert B. Fall in 1920. Although the details varied depending on audience and whether or not an interpreter was involved, Jesús explained that like most of the other villistas, he and his father had been impressed into service at gunpoint. At the Fall hearings, he explained that Villa had not told the men that they were to attack Columbus--they thought that they were going to battle Carranza's forces in a Chihuahua town. Jesús remarked that he was surprised that the border was not marked off with a wall. He didn't realize that they had entered the U.S. until he heard the townsfolk speaking English, which he didn't understand at the time. His father had told him to wait at Cootes Hill while the men carried out the raid, but when he didn't return Jesús went into town to find him. As he searched, he was shot by a group of villistas. At the Deming Ladies' Hospital, his leg was amputated. Despite such major losses, young Jesús Páez survived and lived out the rest of his life in the United States. |
The stories of the villista prisoners and Jesús Páez underscore the reality that Villa's decision to raid Columbus in the spring of 1916 shattered the lives of those he had forced into service just as severely as it devastated the lives of the town's residents. Despite the violence and racial tension that immediately followed the raid, townsfolk, including G. E. Parks, J. R. Blair, and other village trustees, as well as Mexican Consul Antonio Landin, rebuilt their town and reinstated former cross-border connections that allowed some of the wounds to heal.