Pancho Villa

            Pancho Villa was born on June 5, 1878 in San Juan Del Rio Durango. His full name is Jose Doroteo Arango Arambula. In March 1916, Pancho and a group of guerrillas (an armed band that uses surprises attacks and sabotage rather than open warfare) burned a town in Columbus, New Mexico, and killed 16 Americans. When Wilson found this out, he sent 6,000 troops under General John J. Pershing across the border and to find and capture Villa. The search for Villa was a total fail, it made Wilson recall Pershing’s troops in 1917.

                Wilsons Mexican policy damaged U.S foreign relations. The British ridiculed the presidents attempt to “shoot the Mexicans into self-government.’’ Latin Americans regarded his “moral imperialism” as no improvement over Theodore Roosevelt’s “big stick.” Wilson followed Roosevelt’s example in the Caribbean. In 1915 he sent marines into Haiti to put down a rebellion. The marines stayed there until 1934. Then in 1916 he sent troops into the Dominican Republic to preserve order and to set up a government he hoped would be more stable and democratic than the current regime.