The Villista Prisoners of 1916-1917 (review)

The Villista Prisoners of 1916-1917. By James W. Hurst. Las Cruces: Yucca Tree Press, 2000. Photographs. Illustrations. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. x, 112 pp. Paper, $12.95.

On 9 March 1916, Francisco "Pancho" Villa led 485 men in a raid upon Columbus, New Mexico. Six days later General John J. Pershing led troops of the U.S. army into Mexico to disperse or capture the Villistas. Although historians have analyzed the event in dozens of books and articles, Hurst's work discusses a topic not included in these studies and, thus, fills a gap in our knowledge of the attack on Columbus. Using primarily the 184-page transcript of the trials of Villistas whom the U.S. army captured during and after the raid, he relates the fate of these men. The army captured seven Villistas in or near Columbus at the time of the raid and later apprehended approximately 20 others in Mexico. By early fall these captives were in local jails awaiting civilian trial. Hurst specifically identifies captured Villistas, describes the indictments and legal proceedings against them, and discusses the consequences that they suffered as a result of their participation in the raid.

The New Mexico court system first indicted and tried the seven men captured at Columbus for the murder of Charles D. Miller. Although no witness could certify that any of these men had killed Miller, the Villistas had admitted being present during the raid. The trial, held in Deming soon after the Columbus raid, was marked by serious legal irregularities, even for that day. The jury convicted six of the Mexicans, although the prosecutor did not prove that these men had committed the crime. The presence of the subjects in Columbus on the morning of the attack was enough to merit a conviction and a death sentence for the six. Authorities hanged the first two on 9 June 1916, and four others on 30 June. The judge sentenced the other Villista to life in the state penitentiary. After this trial, 15 of the remaining men were sent to the state penitentiary; one was sent to be held in another location, and three others evidently disappeared, as no records surfaced during Hurst's research to explain what happened to them. As a consequence of negative publicity and criticism of the fate of the men still in prison and pressure from local citizens and federal authorities, the state of New Mexico retried the 16 Villistas in Deming on 12 February 1921. The jury acquitted them after deliberating 25 minutes. They returned to Mexico on 30 April 1921.

The questions with which the jurors struggled during the second trial focused on the difficulty of specifically identifying the men who committed the murders in Columbus, whether they were soldiers following orders or whether they were only bandits, and whether the Villistas knew before and during the attack that they were in U.S. territory. The way local authorities conducted the new trials of all the captives raised legal and moral questions about the earlier proceedings. Hurst shows that previous legal improprieties, incompetence of local juridical authorities, trial inconsistencies, the emotional climate in the area soon after the raid, and local politics all had precluded a fair trial for the captives. By the time the remaining men were retried, the emotional climate had changed in the region, and New Mexican citizens did not like the image that the previous hasty frontier justice had created for their new state.

This is an interesting and useful study of the Villista raid on Columbus. Additional research in the Centro de Estudios de Historia de México, Archivo de Venustiano Carranza, Condumex, and in the Archivo "Genaro Estrada" de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, both in Mexico City, might have provided more insight into how this event influenced U.S.-Mexican relations. Woodrow Wilson and Venustiano Carranza were aware of the trials of the Villista prisoners, and Wilson was especially...