About a month ago my older brother (a bit of a historian buff) asked me to tell him about Latin American history since that is one of the areas of the world he does not know much about. I proceeded to tell him the interesting stuff we'd been learning at the time, like the Spanish Conquest, and the Independence movements and such. He then proceeded to ask me about Pancho Villa (which he always mispronounces).
At that point in time I had no answer for him. I knew less than he did about Pancho Villa, but I told him that we'd have another discussion once I had learned about him. Well we've been talking in class a great detail about the Mexican revolution. I now know the role that Pancho Villa played in the revolution, but I feel like I am still lacking some information. Where did he come from? Why did he get involved in the war? Well I was surprised to find that Pancho Villa had an interesting life before the war.
His actual name isn't Pancho Villa, he was born Doroteo Arango, and he was the son of a sharecropper in San Juan del Rio. When he was 15 years old his father died, so he had to take on many responsibilities and work as a sharecropper in his father's place. Then one day, a year later, Villa heard that the owner of the hacienda he worked for was planning on raping Villa's sister. He then shot the owner and fled to the mountains. Two years later he was a leader of a group of bandits that he met in the mountains. They would steal from and commit crimes against the rich, and would often help poor members of the community. This is why Pancho Villa is often looked up to, he is a real life Robin-Hood.
There are multiple theories as to why he changed his name from Doroteo Arango to Pancho Villa, it is hard to say for sure. Some say it was the name of another bandit leader, others say it was his grandfathers name, others speculate that it was to protect his family from trouble. Madero heard about Pancho Villa and his skills and thought he might be a good general in guerilla warfare in the revolution. So Villa was asked to join and, as we know, he did and became one of the greatest generals of the Mexican Revolution.
I really enjoyed that you took the initiative to look up additional information just out of curiosity. I think that is something that a lot of us need to do more. However, of course it is very important to be careful where you get your information... I found a lot of what you said to be very interesting and saying to myself "Oh! I didn't know that!" Who knew that his name was not actually Pancho Villa, and that he fled to the mountain as a young man and led a group of bandits. I didn't! I also really like how you said that he was a "real life Robin-Hood". I need to try to compare people and different things in reading and history to things that I know really well so that I can comprehend it better. Thank you for posting this interesting information about this interesting and important person that we would not have known about otherwise.
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