Assassinations during the Mexican Revolution
During Professor Stark’s lecture on the Mexican Revolution,
he mentioned that in all of the assassinations that took place during the Mexican
revolution, the assassins were unknown and never found. I thought it was
interesting that the people said, “Quien mato a Villa? Callese y portese bien!”,
saying that Calles was responsible for the assassination of Villa. I decided to do some research about some of
the conspiracy theories of the other assassinations. Over the course of the Mexican Revolution,
Madero, Zapata, Carranza, Villa and Obregon were all powerful leaders that were
assassinated.
The Madero assassination was ordered by Huerta. The
conspiracy theory is that he ordered the guards to shoot him as well the Vice
President. They were arrested and the soldiers who were guarding them said that
Madero was trying to escape and used that as an excuse to shoot him. Because
everyone knew that Huerta was behind it, the United States even refused to
recognize his government, despite the fact that their ambassador, Wilson, was
involved in helping Huerta come to power.
The assassination of Zapata was ordered by President
Carranza. Carranza sent Colonel Jesús Guajardo to arrange a meeting with Zapata
and said he would give him more ammunition and supplies. Zapata was tricked and
trapped. Guajardo’s men surrounded him and shot at him from the roofs of
buildings.
Carranza was actually assassinated in his sleep. He was
traveling from Mexico City to Vera Cruz when his train was attacked and he was
forced to travel overland. A local chieftain named Rodolfo Herrera took him and
his men in. Herrera supposedly shot him and his key advisors and supporters in their
sleep. Obregon put Herrera on trial but
he was acquitted.
The assassination of Villa remains a mystery still today. His
car was ambushed in the street by assassins and shot over 40 times. As
previously discussed, many Mexicans believed Calles ordered his assassinations.
Villa had many other enemies though. These included Obregon, who fought against
him in many battles, Melitón Lozoya, who owed Villa a large amount of money, Jesús
Herrera, whose sons were murdered by Villa, and many others whose family
members were killed in cold blood by Villa.
I found the assassination of Obregon to be the most
interesting. After Obregon was elected president, there was a banquet held in
his honor. At the banquet, a young man, named José de León Toral, posing as a caricaturist
drew a skillful sketch of Obregon and presented it to him. Toral pulled a gun
out and shot him several times. Toral was a Cristero soldier who did not like
Obregón’s suppression of the Catholic church.
I never realized how many people had actually been assassinated during the revolution. Villa's assassination reminded me of JFK's because they were both in a car when they were killed. Villa had many different enemies, besides Calles, that could have killed him, and there are many controversies behind JFK's death. Some people believe it was the Soviet Union, the Mafia, the CIA, an accidental shot fired by his bodyguard, the driver of his limousine, that it was ordered by Lyndon Johnson, there were two shooters, or even that his wife killed him with a hidden gun in her bouquet of flowers. But Villa's death was different from JFK's because everybody accepted that it was Calles who killed him and never really questioned if it could have been somebody else.
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