In class we talked a lot about Zapata's assassination because of course, we watched Viva Zapata. After reading from this book however, I found Pancho Villa's assassination of more interest. So after Obregon became president, Pancho Villa kind of retired to a ranch in the north. You would think he would just be a happy ol' retired man, sittin' on his front porch, but no. At almost all times Villa had 50 armed bodyguards protecting him. He lived in constant fear of being murdered and was said to do weird things like never let anyone walk behind him. But he was a good member of society, he funded a school for children and was a godfather to many children as well. One of his men had a son and asked Villa to be his godfather, so Villa traveled to a nearby town to do such. On the way there he stopped in Parral, probably to spend time with a mistress. As he was driving on the street, men with rifles were waiting on the rooftops to shoot him. This is the part that intrigues me; the assassins did not shoot Villa that day because a crowd of schoolchildren appeared because school was let out. I am just so surprised by the humanity of the assassins. I feel like whenever I picture assassins I always think of men with no feelings, cold blooded killers. But in the end maybe I'm wrong. These men had orders to kill Villa at this intersection in the road, but they hesitated because of the children. I guess we will never know their true motives, maybe they just didn't want bad publicity if they accidently hit a child. But I would like to think that it was out of the goodness of their hearts that they did not shoot Villa when the children were around. What do you think?
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Blog #8 Assassination
So over Spring Break my brother and I got to talking about history (big surprise). We talked about all sorts of random things and then got more specific on assassinations when Caesar and Brutus came up. I told him that if he found assassinations interesting he needed to study Mexican history, because as we all know it is chock full of them! He then surprised me by knowing about Zapata and Villa's assassinations, so I asked him where he learned that. He then giddily ran to his room and brought me one of his history books, Assassination- A History of Political Murder. We started flipping through the pages as if we were kids again- sitting next to one another looking at all the pictures and talking. (I'm a little sentimental, can you tell?) Anyways, he gave me the book to look at, so I of course read the section on Zapata and Villa.
In class we talked a lot about Zapata's assassination because of course, we watched Viva Zapata. After reading from this book however, I found Pancho Villa's assassination of more interest. So after Obregon became president, Pancho Villa kind of retired to a ranch in the north. You would think he would just be a happy ol' retired man, sittin' on his front porch, but no. At almost all times Villa had 50 armed bodyguards protecting him. He lived in constant fear of being murdered and was said to do weird things like never let anyone walk behind him. But he was a good member of society, he funded a school for children and was a godfather to many children as well. One of his men had a son and asked Villa to be his godfather, so Villa traveled to a nearby town to do such. On the way there he stopped in Parral, probably to spend time with a mistress. As he was driving on the street, men with rifles were waiting on the rooftops to shoot him. This is the part that intrigues me; the assassins did not shoot Villa that day because a crowd of schoolchildren appeared because school was let out. I am just so surprised by the humanity of the assassins. I feel like whenever I picture assassins I always think of men with no feelings, cold blooded killers. But in the end maybe I'm wrong. These men had orders to kill Villa at this intersection in the road, but they hesitated because of the children. I guess we will never know their true motives, maybe they just didn't want bad publicity if they accidently hit a child. But I would like to think that it was out of the goodness of their hearts that they did not shoot Villa when the children were around. What do you think?
In class we talked a lot about Zapata's assassination because of course, we watched Viva Zapata. After reading from this book however, I found Pancho Villa's assassination of more interest. So after Obregon became president, Pancho Villa kind of retired to a ranch in the north. You would think he would just be a happy ol' retired man, sittin' on his front porch, but no. At almost all times Villa had 50 armed bodyguards protecting him. He lived in constant fear of being murdered and was said to do weird things like never let anyone walk behind him. But he was a good member of society, he funded a school for children and was a godfather to many children as well. One of his men had a son and asked Villa to be his godfather, so Villa traveled to a nearby town to do such. On the way there he stopped in Parral, probably to spend time with a mistress. As he was driving on the street, men with rifles were waiting on the rooftops to shoot him. This is the part that intrigues me; the assassins did not shoot Villa that day because a crowd of schoolchildren appeared because school was let out. I am just so surprised by the humanity of the assassins. I feel like whenever I picture assassins I always think of men with no feelings, cold blooded killers. But in the end maybe I'm wrong. These men had orders to kill Villa at this intersection in the road, but they hesitated because of the children. I guess we will never know their true motives, maybe they just didn't want bad publicity if they accidently hit a child. But I would like to think that it was out of the goodness of their hearts that they did not shoot Villa when the children were around. What do you think?
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This is a very interesting story. I am also surprised at the humanity of the assassins and how they avoided shooting into a group of children in order to kill Pancho Villa. When you think of almost all other assassinations the shooting was done in very public places in front of many people. Some examples I can think of off the top of my head are JFK, President Lincoln, and the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. All three assassinations were done in very public places were innocent people could be injured, and some were. But on the other hand, I can see why the assassins didn't shoot into the group of children to get to Villa. For the first part, children are seen as innocent and not worthy of such harsh cruelty, which saves them from some cruel acts. Another option is that the men lived in the town and had connections to the children. Information didn't travel anywhere near as fast as it does today, so in order to catch Villa off guard, they had to be ready at a moments notice to get the chance at taking his life. That would make it much more likely that the men were from that town and thus didn't want to shoot at their children or people that they knew. Overall, I think there are many different things that could have kept the men from shooting Villa when they first had the chance, and unfortunately we will never know the complete truth.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting! I am really intrigued by these specifics of this assasination. I agree with you that when I think of an assassin, I think of a person with no feelings, no heart, and not really caring about their own life. However, the fact that these assassins held off because there was a crowd of school children is interesting. I really wish that no one would ever murder anyone, but hey, this is a fallen world and the chances of that are basically zero... I would love to think that these men did not shoot Villa at this specific time out of the goodness of their heart, but it is kind of hard to believe that they really care about others when they are trying to murder someone. However, this story does lead one to believe that these assassins did take the children into account and did have some kind heart and caring feelings although their acts may prove otherwise. But maybe there was a risk that the assassins saw with the children, not necessarily because they cared about the children, but maybe like if they shot Villa in front of the children, then maybe the word would spread quicker and there was a higher chance that they would be caught (if they actually cared about that). Maybe... It is so hard for me to believe that murderers actually care, but that is just me. Again, as Gabrielle and Caitlin said, we will never know the true motives unfortunately, but thank you for the intriguing story!
ReplyDeleteWow this is really interesting! I agree with Gabby - I'm not sure that I have ever heard of an assassination that didn't put innocent people at risk. I also agree that the assassins could have had connections to those kids, it seems plausible. They were known to the people in that particular city and probably didn't want to risk their "reputations." I'm curious, was Pancho Villa still assassinated in that city, just at a different time? Or did they give up on trying to kill him there?
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your comments guys! :)
DeleteBecca, Pancho Villa was still assassinated in that city yes. It was on his return trip from the baptism that the assassins shot his car 40 times, and 9 of the bullets hit Villa. They also killed his chauffer and 2 of his bodyguards I believe.