Francisco Pancho Villa

 

      Francisco Pancho Villa, better known as "Pancho Villa", but born  Doroteo Arango, and was a famous Mexican revolutionary leader from 1910 to 1911. Before he was a leader of the Mexican Revolution he was a very skilled bandit that lived in the mountains as the leader of a bandit group. Many Mexicans looked up to him as the modern day Robin Hood because he would steal from the wealthy and give most of the profits to the poor. He was very skilled at attacking swiftly and not getting caught which was one of his great attributes.
      His actions caught the attention of a group of men who were planing a revolution to overthrow the current Mexican president Porfirio Diaz. After some convincing he finally decided to become a leader of the new revolution. The idea was to get Francisco Madero to take Diaz's place as president, Madero said that he was going to improve the living for the lower classes in Mexico. After the first two years of fighting, Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco (another commander) got into a fight and that caused Pancho Villa to resign from the cause. After he resigned in 1911 Madero became president, but he did not change a thing for the people of Mexico. 
      A year had passed and Orozco, being left out of the government plans, started a new revolution to get himself a place in office. Madero called for Villa and another commander Victoriano Huerta to assist him in bringing down the revolutionaries. In June 1912 Huerta accused Villa of stealing a horse and sent him to be executed, Madero made it so he did not have to die but could not prevent him from going to prison. By the time Villa escaped from prison it was late December and Huerta had become a Madero adversary, killing Madero and taking presidency for himself. 
      When Villa escaped he allied  with Venustiano Carranza to try and bring down Huerta. After fighting with him by his side, Pancho Villa left Venustiano Carranza and declared him, his enemy. These now two huge military forces started to fight over Mexico. The United States seeing this would not stop decided to assist Carranza's cause to bring down Villa. Pancho Villa led an army to attack the US town of Columbus, New Mexico on March 9, 1916; this being the only attack on the US since 1812, the US sent  a couple thousand soldiers in the search for him. They searched over a year for him with no sucsess and during that time period Carranza was assassinated by Adolfo De la Huerta who became president. In 1920 Pancho Villa, now out of hiding, retired by an order from Huerta and also for some other promises. Villa was later gunned down wile in his car on July 20, 1923. 

By Cordel Bever

Source: http://history1900s.about.com/cs/panchovilla/p/panchovilla.htm