Pancho Villa
Mexican Revolutionary, d. 1923 A.D.
"Constitutionalist Army" of Pancho Villa, state of Chihuahua, Mexico
Copper 5 centavos, 25 mm.
1914 AD
"Army of the North" of Pancho Villa, state of Chihuahua, Mexico.
Silver 1 Peso, 39 mm.
1915 AD
These coins helped Villa recruit soliders, because he was paying in silver
while others were paying in worthless paper.
Francisco "Pancho" Villa was born Doroteo Arango in 1878, the son of a field laborer. A Mexican bandit and revolutionary, he became a folk hero as both a Robin Hood and an advocate of social reform.
After killing a man in defense of his sister around 1894 he fled to the mountains, where he became a bandit leader. He backed the revolution of Francisco Madero against dictator Porfirio Diaz and contributed to Diaz's fall.
In 1912, Villa was condemned to death by Gen. Victoriano Huerta, but Villa soon escaped from prison, and in 1913 he and his followers joined Venustiano Carranza in a revolt against Huerta, who had toppled Madero and become dictator. As provisional governor of Chihuahua and the most powerful general in northern Mexico, Villa supported the poor of that region in their demands for basic reform.
After Huerta's ouster in 1914, Villa broke with the more conservative Carranza and occupied Mexico City with Emiliano Zapata. Defeated in 1915 by Carranza's forces, Villa withdrew to Chihuahua, where he led guerrilla raids, including several into New Mexico in retaliation for U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's recognition of Carranza in October 1915. In the resulting invasion (1916) of Mexico by U.S. troops under Gen. John J. Pershing, Villa avoided capture and continued fighting against Carranza.
After Carranza was toppled and killed in 1920, Villa was given an amnesty and a hacienda in return for laying down his arms. He lived in retirement until assassinated by former supporters of Carranza.