Editing Pancho Villa (section)

==Ambush and death==
[[File:Pancho villa car.jpg|thumb|Dodge automobile in which Pancho Villa was assassinated, [[Historical Museum of the Mexican Revolution]] in Chihuahua]]
On 20 July 1923, Villa was shot and killed in an ambush while visiting Parral, most likely on the orders of political enemies [[Plutarco Elías Calles]] and President [[Alvaro Obregón]].<ref name=ipzpl /><ref>Katz, ''The Life and Times of Pancho Villa'', pp. 765–766</ref> He frequently made trips from his ranch to Parral, where he generally felt secure, for banking and other errands. Villa usually was accompanied by his large entourage of armed ''Dorados'', or bodyguards, but on that day he had gone into town without most of them, taking with him only three bodyguards and two other ranch employees. He went to pick up a consignment of gold from the local bank with which to pay his Canutillo ranch staff. While driving back through the city in his black 1919 Dodge touring car,<ref>see photo</ref> Villa passed by a school, and a pumpkinseed vendor ran toward his car and shouted "Viva Villa!", a signal to a group of seven riflemen who then appeared in the middle of the road and fired more than 40 rounds into the automobile.<ref name=McLynn/>{{rp|393}}<ref>Katz, ''Life and Times of Pancho Villa'', p. 766.</ref> In the fusillade, nine [[Expanding bullet|dumdum bullets]], normally used for hunting big game, hit Villa in the head and upper chest, killing him instantly.<ref name=Katz/>{{rp|766}}

Claro Huertado (a bodyguard), Rafael Madreno (Villa's main personal bodyguard),<ref name=McLynn/>{{rp|393}}<ref name=oka;vi /> Daniel Tamayo (his personal secretary), and Colonel Miguel Trillo (who also served as his chauffeur)<ref>{{cite web |title=Faces of the Mexican Revolution |date=June 2010 |url=http://academics.utep.edu/Portals/1719/Publications/MexicanRevolutionBios.pdf |publisher=University of Texas, El Paso}}</ref><ref name=McLynn/>{{rp|393}}<ref name=oka;vi>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,727220,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081222150529/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,727220,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 December 2008 |magazine=Time |title=Foreign News: The Cockroach |date=30 July 1923}}</ref><ref name=villaas /> were also killed. One of Villa's bodyguards, Ramon Contreras, was wounded badly but managed to kill at least one of the assassins before he escaped;<ref name=villaas>{{Cite web|url=http://www.laits.utexas.edu/jaime/jrn/cwp/pvg/assassination.html|title=The Assassination|website=www.laits.utexas.edu}}</ref> Contreras was the only survivor.<ref name=villaas /> Villa is reported to have died saying "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something,"<ref name=Guthke10>Guthke, Karl Siegfried. ''Last Words: Variations on a Theme in Cultural History'', Princeton University Press, 1992, p. 10.</ref> but there is no contemporary evidence that he survived his shooting even momentarily. Historian and biographer [[Friedrich Katz]] wrote in 1998 that Villa died instantly.<ref name=Katz/>{{rp|766}} ''Time'' also reported in 1951 that both Villa and his aide (Tamayo) were killed instantly.<ref name=opjvilla />

Telegraph service was interrupted to Villa's hacienda of Canutillo, probably so that Obregón's officials could secure the estate and "to prevent a possible Villista uprising triggered by his assassination."<ref name="Katz, p. 767">Katz, ''The Life and Times of Pancho Villa'', p. 767.</ref>

The next day, Villa's funeral was held and thousands of his grieving supporters in Parral followed his casket to his burial site<ref name=villaas /> while Villa's men and his closest friends remained at the Canutillo hacienda armed and ready for an attack by the government troops.<ref name=villaas /><ref name="Katz, p. 767"/> The six surviving assassins hid out in the desert and were soon captured,<ref name=oka;vi /> but only two of them served a few months in jail, and the rest were commissioned into the military.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/030908dntexvilla.3c17a58.html |title= Pancho Villa assassin's kin say U.S. Government still owes reward &#124; News for Dallas, Texas &#124; Dallas Morning News &#124; Latest News|website=www.dallasnews.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101202041129/http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/030908dntexvilla.3c17a58.html |archive-date=2 December 2010}}</ref>

Villa was likely assassinated because he was talking publicly about re-entering politics as the 1924 elections neared. Obregón could not run again for the presidency, so there was political uncertainty about the presidential succession. Obregón favored fellow Sonoran general [[Plutarco Elías Calles]] for the presidency. If Villa did re-enter politics, it would complicate the political situation for Obregón and the Sonoran generals. Assassinating Villa benefited the plans of Obregón, who chose someone who in no way matched his power and charisma, and Calles, who ardently wanted to be president of Mexico at any cost.<ref>Buchenau, Jürgen. ''Plurarco Elías Calles and the Mexican Revolution'', 102–103</ref> It has never been proven who was responsible for the assassination, but according to Villa's biographer [[Friedrich Katz]], Jesús Salas Barraza took responsibility to shield Obregón and Calles.<ref>Katz, ''Life and Times of Pancho Villa'', 772–782</ref> Most historians attribute Villa's death to a well-planned conspiracy most likely initiated by Plutarco Elías Calles and his associate, General [[Joaquín Amaro]] with at least tacit approval of Obregón.<ref name=McLynn/>{{rp|393}}

At the time, a state legislator from Durango, Jesús Salas Barraza, whom Villa once whipped during a quarrel over a woman,<ref name=opjvilla /> claimed sole responsibility for the plot.<ref name=opjvilla /> Barraza admitted that he told his friend, who worked as a dealer for General Motors,<ref name=opjvilla /> that he would kill Villa if he were paid 50,000 pesos.<ref name=opjvilla /> The friend was not wealthy and did not have 50,000 pesos on hand,<ref name=opjvilla /> so he collected money from enemies of Villa and managed to collect a total of 100,000 pesos for Barraza and his other co-conspirators.<ref name=opjvilla /> Barraza also admitted that he and his co-conspirators watched Villa's daily car rides and paid the pumpkinseed vendor at the scene of Villa's assassination to shout "Viva Villa!" either once if Villa was sitting in the front part of the car or twice if he was sitting in the back.<ref name=opjvilla />

Obregón gave in to the people's demands and had Barraza detained. Initially sentenced to 20 years in prison, Barraza's sentence was commuted to three months by the governor of Chihuahua, and Salas Barraza eventually became a colonel in the Mexican Army.<ref name=opjvilla /> In a letter to the governor of Durango, Jesús Castro, Salas Barraza agreed to be the "fall guy," and the same arrangement is mentioned in letters exchanged between Castro and Amaro. Others involved in the conspiracy were [[Félix Lara]], the commander of federal troops in Parral who was paid 50,000 pesos by Calles to remove his soldiers and policemen from the town on the day of the assassination, and [[Melitón Lozoya]], the former owner of Villa's hacienda from whom Villa was demanding to pay back funds he had embezzled. It was Lozoya who planned the details of the assassination and found the men who carried it out.<ref name=McLynn/>{{rp|393}} It was reported that before Salas Barraza died of a stroke in his Mexico City home in 1951, his last words were "I'm not a murderer. I rid humanity of a monster."<ref name=opjvilla />

===Aftermath of his death===
[[File:Monumento a la Revolución 1.jpg|thumb|The [[Monumento a la Revolución|Monument to the Revolution]] in Mexico City, where a number of revolutionaries, including Villa, are buried at this pilgrimage site to the Revolution even if they were adversaries during the conflict.]]

Villa was buried the day after his assassination in the city cemetery of [[Parral, Chihuahua]],<ref name=Katz/>{{rp|767}} rather than in Chihuahua city, where he had built a mausoleum. Villa's skull was stolen from his grave in 1926.<ref name=plana>Plana, Manuel. ''Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution'', Interlink Books, 2002, p. 117.</ref> According to local folklore, an American treasure hunter, [[Emil Lewis Holmdahl|Emil Holmdahl]], beheaded him to sell his skull to an eccentric millionaire who collected the heads of historic figures.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://publisher.abc-clio.com/9781610695688/1104|title=American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales: An Encyclopedia of American Folklore|last=Butticè|first=Claudio|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2016|isbn=978-1610695671|editor-last=Fee|editor-first=Christopher R.|volume=3|location=Santa Barbara, CA|pages=998–1001|chapter=Villa, Pancho (1878–1923)|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/31751217}}{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The skull is rumored to be in the possession of Yale University's [[Skull and Bones]] Society, a claim they deny.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2024-02-24 |title=PANCHO VILLA SKULL AT YALE? |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1988/08/11/pancho-villa-skull-at-yale/86767821-0a40-4946-b06c-36b5803423ba/ |access-date=2024-05-22 |work=Washington Post |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Robbins |first=Alexandra |url=http://archive.org/details/secretsoftombsku00robb |title=Secrets of the tomb : Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the hidden paths of power |date=2002 |publisher=Boston : Little, Brown |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-316-72091-5 |pages=7, 146}}</ref> His remains were reburied in the [[Monumento a la Revolución|Monument to the Revolution]] in Mexico City in 1976.<ref name=Benjamin /> The [[Francisco Villa Museum]] is a museum dedicated to Villa located at the site of his assassination in Parral.

Villa's purported [[death mask]] was hidden at the Radford School in El Paso, Texas until the 1980s, when it was sent to the [[Historical Museum of the Mexican Revolution]] in Chihuahua. Other museums have ceramic and bronze representations that do not match this mask.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2006/07/12/questions-begin-to-arise-over-death-mask-of-pancho-villa/ |title=Questions Begin to Arise Over Death Mask of Pancho Villa |last=MacCormack |first=John |newspaper=San Antonio Express-News |date=12 July 2006}}</ref>