Diplomacy in the Aftermath of Pancho Villa’s Raid
Consul Antonio Landín in Columbus, 1917–1920
Access this photo essay at brandonbmorgan.medium.com
Western History Association meeting, October 16, 2020,
My original plan for this essay depended on my ability to find new records and sources about Mexican consular agent, Antonio Landín. Formerly of the secret service, Landín was assigned to head up consular agencies along the U.S.-Mexico border as revolutionary battles continued in the north against Pancho Villa and his supporters. After taking on de facto consular responsibilities in Caléxico, twenty-six-year-old Lándin received a new assignment to serve as the consular agent in the small border town of Columbus, New Mexico.
In the fall of 1917, when the Mexican bureaucrats in the foreign relations office decided to create a new consular agency there, the town of Columbus was still reeling from Pancho Villa’s pre-dawn raid, enacted nearly a year-and-a-half previously on 9 March 1916. Villa’s attack resulted in the death of 18 Americans in town and nearly one-hundred villistas (nearly one-fifth of the total force that followed him across the border into Columbus), most of whom had been impressed into service.
This still-incomplete research on Landín is part of my larger project that re-contextualizes Villa’s raid by focusing on the cross-border region where it took place. Columbus and Palomas, Chihuahua, were founded in the late nineteenth century at a crossroads where Porfirian modernization concessions collided with the development schemes of Western boosters. Between 1907 and 1916, the Columbus boosters attempted to create a place myth for the townsite that painted the region as a bastion of white, Protestant family farmers. The reality never matched their promotional literature.
The population of Columbus ballooned, by some counts to as high as 20,000. With the military presence, local businesses thrived. Newspaper editor, G.E. Parks, railed against anyone who brought attention to the possibility of violence in town “Columbus’ Greatest Evil” in a 1917 editorial. For the townsite boosters and local businessmen, good times had arrived.
Yet, as other records show, including the account of Parks’ predecessor, Perrow Moseley, Mexican people in the town (yes, Columbus was multicultural and multiracial, despite boosters’ efforts to suggest otherwise) faced intense scrutiny and summary violence in the weeks and months after Villa’s raid. Members of the 13th Cavalry and local residents captured villista survivors.
As Mosely remarked in a letter to his sister, “Most of our local Mexicans have been made to leave and many of them have died very unnatural deaths since the battle. Our people are very bitter and the soldiers are letting them (our people) do pretty much as they please — all the Mexican Prisoners were taken out of camp and turned loose — our citizens were informed of what was to be done and shot them as they were turned loose.”
When Landín arrived in Columbus, he faced the convergence of these conflicts. On September 16, 1917, he faced intense criticism from Columbus residents for raising the Mexican flag over the consular office to celebrate the national holiday.
Questions that I still need to pursue:
- What was the decision-making process for placing a consular agent in Columbus in 1917?
- Do other records from Landín’s tenure exist? Might they shed light on his communications with the local Mexican population, town government, and NM state government?
- I need to do more work to place this story within the larger context of Mexican consular agencies on the border during the Revolution.
