The attack on Columbus, NM


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On March 8, 1916 Pancho Villa led a raid north of the border into Columbus, New Mexico.   The reasons for this raid are still not all that clear.  Rumors said that a man living in Columbus had cheated Villa out of arms he had paid for.  Some people saw the raid as a response by Villa for the US arms embargo against him and allowing the troops of Venustiano Carranza, a former brother revolutionary, to be transported across the territory of the United States to surround Villa.

The destruction of personal property and the murder of innocent civilians led to the invasion of Mexico by General John Pershing in the Punitive Expeditions.  Though they did not succeed in capturing Villa, they further showed the United States' contempt of the man they had once thought a likely candidate for governing a post-Revolutionary Mexico.

With the preceding discussion as a reference, was Pancho Villa a legitimized bandit who robbed the people under the impression that he was being held down by the government?   Was Villa bloodthirsty or a man trapped by circumstance into a life he would otherwise have walked away from?


Was the Revolution of 1910 a true anti-caudillo Revolution?