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The raid by Pancho Villa on the town of Columbus, New Mexico, is a much celebrated event because it is supposedly the only raid led by a military unit into United States since the end of the War of 1812, and prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However, four such raids, three of them led by Carrancista officers, took place during the revolution, into United States territory in the Big Bend region, and these were followed by raids by the Americans into Mexico in pursuit of the "bandits", and they were described. Another so-called "bandit" who was pursued all over the countryside for a rather lengthy period of time by an American military contingent was Chico Cano, who was actually a revolutionary officer. Cano, like Villa, was never caught. In fact, an airplane used to chase him ran out of gas when its pilot mistook the Rio Conchos for the Rio Bravo and headed off in the wrong direction. Cano, rather than being captured by the Americans, sold the pilot to them for ransom.
After 1915, the United States government began a policy of helping Carranza and withholding aid for Villa. This was a decision made in Washington, and it did not have a lot of effect on local policies. The population of Ojinaga, which had, in the first place, contributed a lot of men to Villa's army, and whole surrounding district on both sides of the border, continued to support Villa right up until the bitter end. In fact, after Villa's support had actually dried up in other areas which had formerly been his strongholds - such as Namiquipa - Ojinaga still held on, stubbornly, to his cause.
In 1917, towards the end of the period when Villa still had the resemblance of a real army, the Villistas actually took the town from the Carrancistas. Carranza's forces were able to gain control afterwards, but there was resurgence of Villista activity in 1917, 1918, and 1919 in the Ojinaga region, even though Villa's army had been defeated and largely disbanded, and all he had left was a guerrilla force that his partner, General Felipe Angeles, described as "vaqueritos" (cowboys). It can be assumed that a lot these "vaquerito" holdouts were from Ojinaga, and from Cuchillo Parado and the other villages of the region.
In the meantime, the Carrancistas who administered the region in the name of the central government were all outsiders, and their rule was hostile and predatory towards the population. A report from 1919 describes how the Carrancista boss of Ojinaga, Colonel Caballos, had set himself as a traditional cacique there, "monopolizing all commerce and bars, conducted all affairs of the municipal government, controlled the affairs of the church, and was hated throughout the region, even by his troops." In Cuchillo Parado, according to the priest in Presidio, Texas, Manuel Roux, the inhabitants had trained their dogs to protect and hide other animals, such a chickens, from marauding "carrancista changos", and he makes the wry comment that "even the animals know who their enemy is".
The importance of this information lies in its demonstrating how important Ojinaga and the surrounding region, particularly Presidio, Texas and Cuchillo Parado, have been in the saga of the Mexican Revolution since before the first shots were fired (the first shots were fired, by the way, in Cuchillo Parado on November 14, 1910, by Ortega's faction) right up until the end of the Villa guerrilla movement, long after the "official" end of the revolution in 1917.
We will be working at expanding this report and in adding more information on events subsequent to the end of the revolution at a later date. |
