The Rotary Club of Silver City, NM, in conjunction with Western New Mexico University and Silver Screen Society, have launched a film competition for the documentation of the invasion of Columbus, NM by Pancho Villa. The film documentation will take place during the Centennial in Columbus, NM, March 9-12, 2016. Participants are invited to join WNMU students, faculty and others for the Centennial events in Columbus, NM. A unique feature of the competition is the opportunity to create a film remotely without visiting the Village of Columbus. A video “pool” will be created from the Centennial events and other field documentation. The “pool” will be accessible via the Internet, allowing filmmakers far and wide to produce a submission. The final editing can be finished the following weekend at WNMU (optional).
There are three filmmaker entry categories: High School students, University students, and Independents. Prizes of $500 for each category will be awarded. Scholarships at WNMU will also be awarded. Maximum film length 15 minutes. Film deadline is April 15, 2016.
For more information please contact Assistant Professor Peter Bill at pbill23@gmail.com, or visit the website www.peterbill.us/invasion.html
INVASION
To set the stage for the Mexican Revolution, this account begins with a brief historical introduction. The following narrative has been excerpted and edited from The General and the Jaguar, by Eileen Welsome.
In 1521, Hernán Cortés conquered Tenochtitlán, the great center of the Aztec civilization and the site of what was to become Mexico City. For the next three centuries, Mexico lived under Spain’s rule, which could be harsh, benign, or indifferent, depending upon the financial needs of the mother country and the temperament of the monarch who happened to be in power at the time. When Mexico finally gained its independence, in 1821, political chaos, internal revolts and repeated clashes with foreign powers ensued. Texas was lost in 1836 to English-speaking colonizers who had been encouraged by Spain to settle the far reaches of its empire. A decade later, following a war with the United States, Mexico lost another chunk of territory to its hungry neighbor—millions of acres that one day would become New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah as well as parts of Colorado and Wyoming.
Exhausted and humiliated, struggling under a huge debt load, Mexico found itself in 1863 once again under the yoke of a European power. This time it was France and Napoleon III, who installed Ferdinand Maximilian von Hapsburg and his wife, Carlota, as emperor and empress of Mexico. The monarchy survived less than five years, defeated by an army led by Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Indian. Afterward, Maximilian was executed, Carlota went insane, the republic was restored, and Juárez was elected president. Juárez died of a heart attack in 1872, after winning a new term in office, and was succeeded by Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. Four years later, Porfirio Díaz toppled Lerdo from power and began a thirty-year authoritarian regime known as the Porfiriato.
In order to bring Mexico into the twentieth century, Díaz had opened the doors of his country to foreign investors and through them came the Guggenheims, Hearsts, and Rockefellers, Standard Oil and Phelps Dodge, and hundreds of other smaller land speculators, wildcatters, miners, ranchers and farmers. The Americans built railroads and sank mine shafts, the Spaniards opened small retail shops and the French established factories and banks. Vast cattle ranches emerged along the northern tier of states, and huge farms devoted to single crops such as sugar, cacao, coffee and rubber were carved from the tropical lowlands.
The modernization and prosperity that Presidente Díaz had presided over caused grave dislocation among the country’s peasants, factory workers and even Mexico’s elite ruling class. By the time the Mexican Revolution erupted, foreigners controlled most of the country’s vast natural resources, its railroads and businesses. “By 1910,” writes historian John Mason Hart in a penetrating economic analysis of the revolution, “American real estate holdings totaled over 100 million acres and encompassed much of the nation’s most valuable mining, agricultural and timber properties.” By contrast, he notes, 90 percent of the Mexican campesino population was landless. In the state of Chihuahua alone, the birthplace of the Mexican Revolution, U.S. investors owned more than fifteen million acres. As settlers poured in and put up fences on these lands, resentment increased and led to attacks on foreign-owned properties during the peak years of the revolution.
At first glance, Pancho Villa was just another member of the lower classes, thirty-two years old, five feet ten inches tall, thick through the middle, with a full head of kinky black hair and a bristly mustache. “His mouth hangs open, and if he isn’t smiling, he’s looking gentle. All except for his eyes, which are never still and full of energy and brutality,” wrote the journalist John Reed, whose articles would make Pancho Villa into an international hero. Villa would become an idol in his country and the hero of leftists and radicals throughout the world, but the fame would leave him curiously untouched. He was nearly always disheveled looking, as if he had just risen from a nap, and had no use for pomp or show of any kind. Villa seemed like an ordinary man, even a simple one, and such is what he often professed to be to journalists. In reality, he was extremely complex and volatile. He was a superb horseman, full of energy and possessing a genuine charisma, and on the battlefield, amid the dust and smoke, his galloping figure would so inspire his men that they would hurl themselves willingly into the withering machine-gun fire of their enemies.
On the cold, dark night of March 9, 1916, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa—el jaguar—and his band of marauders crossed the border and raided the tiny town of Columbus, New Mexico. It was a vicious surprise attack, ending with corpses piled in the streets and psychological wounds to last a lifetime. Suspects were rounded up, trials were held, and a virulent backlash against persons of Mexican origin erupted. General John “Black Jack” Pershing, once a genuine fan of Villa’s and now a burned-out case mourning the recent death of his wife and children, was told to assemble a small army, head into Mexico, and get Villa—dead or alive. The caravan of men and machinery Pershing assembled was unlike anything the world had ever seen. The last hurrah for the U.S. Cavalry, the “Punitive Expedition” marked America’s first use of armored tanks, airplanes and trucks against an enemy. As one of his deputies, Pershing would choose a recent West Point graduate named George Patton.
For eleven months, the Americans sank deeper and deeper into Mexico. As they descended south, Pershing, Patton and the American troops were followed by spies and picked off by snipers, scorched in the deserts, frozen in the mountains, and confounded by conflicting rumors about their wily prey. Some would be tested as never before. Some would see things they had never dreamed of. Some would never return home alive. The expedition would bring the United States and Mexico to the brink of war.
CENTENNIAL
A variety of activities are planned for the Centennial of Pancho Villa’s attack on Columbus, New Mexico, on March 9, 1916. The Columbus Historical Society will hold a memorial service Wednesday (3/9/16) morning at the Depot Museum. A walking tour of downtown Columbus will follow at 11:00 a.m. The premier of a film about the raid by Professor Williams, PhD of Abilene Christian University will be shown at 1:00 p.m. The commemoration features Camp Furlong 2016 in the Pancho Villa State Park. Columbus is the birthplace to American Military Aviation. The Punitive Expedition led by General Pershing in chasing after Villa into Mexico was the last 20th Century battle with horsemen and was the first 21st Century military action using motorized equipment. Pancho Villa State Park Museum will also be open daily through the weekend.
In Mexico, the cabalgatta begins in Guerrero, Chihuahua in the Sierra Madre. This year about 300 cabalgantes are expected to ride all or part of the 250-mile trail to the border. The Binational Cavalry Trail Remembrance Ride began 17 years ago. Members from both sides of the border join together in peace and unity to honor the casualties of the 1916 raid. Mexican communities along the route recognize the riders with speeches, food and drink. A fiesta is held in Palomas (3/11/16) the night before the Mexican cabalgantes cross into the United States Saturday morning (10:00 a.m.). One hundred horses and riders will be allowed to cross into the U.S. A Pancho Villa re-enactor (Natcio Martinez from Durango) will be among them. Reception ceremonies are held near the center of Columbus. A variety of events are planned for the remainder of the day including band concerts, ballet folklorico, mariachi, historical lectures and exhibits, authentic cuisine, contests, etc. For further event information, contact the Columbus Chamber of Commerce at columbuschamberofcommerce@yahoo.com(575-545-1681) or Pancho Villa State Park www.emnrd.state.nm.us/SPD/panchovillastatepark.html (575-740-7665).