Pancho Villa and the El Paso Connection
¡Ay Chihuahua! How this strategic U.S. town launched the Mexican Revolution.
By: Leon C. Metz 02/01/2009
Although Pancho Villa—whose real name was Doroteo Arango—is the best known figure of the Mexican Revolution, Villa would perhaps never have gained such recognition were it not for Porfirio Díaz.
In many respects, Díaz was an outstanding, accomplished president. To a large extent, he modernized the country, opened schools and encouraged business. One of his greatest achievements involved lacing the nation with railroads, which exposed the country to additional trade, particularly with its northern neighbor, the United States, a powerhouse otherwise known—and often feared—throughout Mexico as the “Northern Colossus.”
Despite his initial popularity, most historians today consider Díaz as corrupt as the government he led. Little economic improvement filtered down. While Díaz brought relative peace to Mexico, he also brought centralized tyranny.
Revolt Against President Díaz
As president of Mexico since May 1877 (aside from stepping aside for one term), Díaz found himself confronted by sporadic, northern Mexico revolutionary outbreaks in mid-October 1909. A year later, for Mexico’s celebration of its centennial of independence from Spain, President Díaz invited the world’s most powerful and wealthy to the capital, plying them with imported delicacies and pageantry. But this man, whose Mexican bloodline also was predominately Indian, ordered other Indians off the streets, lest their poverty offend visitors.
By early 1910, these outbreaks took place particularly across the Rio Grande from El Paso—the northern riverside neighbor of Juárez. From this Juárez borderlands would arise the intellectual and predominate storm center of the approaching Mexican Revolution.
But why would a revolutionary movement essentially commence so far north in Mexico, especially alongside the Rio Grande, a site where bullets might rain on El Paso? The answer was location, location, location. Neighboring El Paso offered refuge, transportation, weapons, communications, freedom of movement and a sympathetic population of Mexican exiles and American nationals. As the largest Mexican community leaning against the international border, El Paso became an uneasy haven for Mexican revolutionaries. Rebel clarion calls from there found listeners and advocates on both sides of the Rio Grande.
Rise of Francisco Madero
Díaz carried a heavy stick, retaining a relatively trained, well-equipped army. Still, it was an army rife with graft, with men serving not always because they wanted to, but because they were forced to. Díaz was not so much a president, as he was a dictator.
Poorly led but nearly impossible to suppress, the uprisings did little more than provide President Díaz’s army with an opportunity to drench portions of the nation in blood. Yet the federal army’s inability to ensure peace also meant it could not ensure national stability.
Comments (4)
A great article. Leon Metz is one of my favorite authors on history of the South West. Matt needs to stay off Western sites and get a life himself!
u guys are flippin stupid get a life
I love reading articles by Leon Metz. I wish he would write more!
I learned some things about El Paso, and enjoyed Mr. Metz's style of storytelling. Great article!
Missy Courtney
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