The Life of General Francisco Villa at Ex-Hacienda La Purísima Concepción de El Canutillo

Glenn P. Willeford: Research Assistant with the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas

Gral. Francisco Villa negotiated a peace with interim Mexican President Adolfo De la Huerta and signed the Manifesto a la Nación at Hacienda Tlahualilo in La Laguna Comarca on 31 August 1920. In September he and 350-400 of his soldiers, along with their families, moved to La Purísima Concepción de El Canutillo, a former hacienda of the family of don José María Jurado. The ex-hacienda, which Villa purchased at a cost of 636,000 Mexican gold pesos (it was not a free gift of the government), had several annexos and included Rancho de San Antonio, Rancho de Ojo Blanco, La Hacienda del Espíritu Santo, La Hacienda de Nieves, and the Rancho de la Vía Excusada. The Convenio de Sabinas [Coahuila] had also granted the Villistas three other ex-haciendas for the purpose of settling his loyal soldiers on their own land. One of those, San Salvador de Horta was also in Durango state while the other two, San Isidro de las Cuevas and El Pueblito were situated in Chihuahua. All four of those properties became agricultural colonies under the ultimate command of Gral. Villa.

Upon their arrival the Villistas found the headquarters at Canutillo in poor condition. Roofs and doors were missing from the buildings and the cold mountain winter was coming. Under the direction of their leader, Francisco Villa, the old soldiers went to work. By the time freezing weather arrived the houses at Canutillo were waterproof and warm.

Other improvements began to be made at the growing community, which soon numbered about 2,000 men, women, and children. By 1923 Canutillo had been converted into a small city with a central store (which sold goods at the wholesale price), a doctor, chumilquitos (small specialty stores), an electrical repair shop, a mechanical shop (automobile repairs and welding were also performed), a blacksmith, a saddlery, a loom or weaving facility for the locally-grown wool, a mill for grinding corn, a carpentry shop, a post office, a telegraph connection to Parral, and telephone connections to Rosario and Indé. Improvement projects that Villa was considering at the time of his death included: the construction of a railway to Indé and Tepehuanes; the construction of a wheat mill, the placement of telephone lines to all of the annexos or ranches connected with Canutillo; and the construction of a "Puente de la Paz" (Bridge of Peace) across the Río Nazas at Gómez Palacio, Durango.

Modern agriculture was the main emphasis at the four ex-haciendas, and Canutillo soon became a model farm. With over 4,000 acres of cultivable land along the Río Florido, crops of corn and wheat were grown and sold on the commodities market. A sharecropping system was instituted for the farmland by which the quilino, or sharecropper, kept or utilized two-thirds of the crop he raised. Villa soon brought in heavy farm machinery to help with the plowing and harvesting. He is known to have had at least three tractors at the Canutillo farm. The other Villista colonies were also mechanized. Gral. Villa became such an important prospective buyer of machinery that Texas Governor Pat Neff promised to exempt him from arrest for past crimes if he entered the state in order to shop there for farm equipment. (This is truly remarkable when one considers that in 1916 he was being pursued by over 10,000 U. S. soldiers within Chihuahua state and that he had been wanted "Dead or Alive" by the U. S. government.)

Villa had long been interested in improving education in México. In keeping with this desire he erected a new facility, the Felipe Angeles School, at Canutillo. This large building contained classroom space for 300 students and was modern in every respect. Not only did Villa personally employ several of the teachers, but the federal government sent five highly-qualified lady teachers as well as a director, Professor Jesús Coello Avendaño, from Cd. México. Children from Canutillo and the surrounding ranchos were required to attend classes. Villa himself often sat in during the sessions, especially if one of his children was present. Today the Angeles School has lost its roof and is going to ruin, yet the slate blackboards still hang on the crumbling walls in mute testimony to the progressive ideas of Francisco Villa.

Athletics was an important part of Villa´s life; he wore tennis shoes and white pants when he exercised. At Canutillo he engaged in jogging as well as in the sport of rebote, a game much like modern racquetball. (The old stone rebote court today stands in a pig pen on the west side of Canutillo village. It should be protected and preserved as a historical monument by the state of Durango.) One of his rebote partners, a teacher named Rodolfo Rodríguez Escalera, during a 1981 interview with Professor Ignacio Sánchez Arriola of Mexico City, remembered:

Look, one time we were playing and it was my turn to serve against Villa. At the moment of service he stepped in the line of fire and I grazed his arm. I was very scared . . . so I apologized. He said, "No professor: play, play, play. This is a game for strong men." So we continued as if nothing had happened.

Villa´s life at Canutillo may be described as having been idyllic. As long as he remained at home under the protection of his fifty-man escort of Dorados he was safe from his many enemies. He could relax there. La Purísima Concepción de El Canutillo is a tranquil and beautiful place; the architecture of la casa grande and la iglesia date back to Spanish colonial times. Just below the headquarters begin the fertile fields that lead down to the Río Florido. Cottonwood trees outline the twisting river and canals while the clean mountain air is crisp and exhilarating. For a time Mrs. Luz Corral, Villa´s wife, resided at the former hacienda; however, following a disagreement with her husband, she departed. In 1921 Villa married Austreberta Rentería in Hidalgo del Parral; thereafter she dwelt with the general in the casa grande. (Austreberta conceived two of Villa´s children, Francisco and Hipólito, while they lived at Canutillo). Additionally, at least eight of Villa´s other children resided there.

Friedrich Katz, in his recent tome entitled The Life and Times of Pancho Villa, says:

Villa was an attentive father. He frequently took his sons along when he rode through the hacienda, explaining his ambitious economic projects to them . . . . [And] every day his children sat down with him at the family meal, which was attended by about thirty persons.

While being interviewed by Sánchez Arriola, maestro Rodríguez Escalera recalled a nostalgic moment that took place as life was closing in on Gral. Francisco Villa. It occurred at La Purísima Concepción de El Cantillo, and it was an event that the teacher would remember for the rest of his days. This is what he observed:

[Villa had] ordered a dance to be held in the large room [of the casa grande at Canutillo]. The only ornaments . . . were the División del Norte flags that he had put away in his room. He placed a box on a table and personally climbed on top and nailed all the flags to the wall without permitting anyone to help him. After he finished he stood there for a few minutes and just stared at those flags. Perhaps he remembered the battles those flags represented for the Mexican people, battles that he and his men had won and the government of Carranza had taken credit for. I believe that was the last time [that Gral. Villa] was emotionally touched. A few months later he was assassinated on the streets of Parral.