Jun 15, 2023 - Sale 2641

Sale 2641 - Lot 9

Price Realized: $ 6,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
EXTRAORDINARY LETTER WRITTEN FROM PRISON ENTIERLY IN HIS OWN HAND VILLA, FRANCISCO ("PANCHO"). Autograph Letter Signed, to Chihuahua Governor Abraham González ("Abram Gonsales"), in Spanish, expressing faith in the will of God, hoping that his deeds have been of service to the country, hoping that God is aware of his great sacrifices, expressing loyalty and gratitude to González, requesting that he persuade the president that Villa is not a traitor and that the president ought to release him from prison. 1 page, 4to, ruled paper; faint scattered soiling and uneven toning, separation at horizontal fold repaired verso with paper, paper clip impressions at upper left. "Mexico Penitentiary" [Mexico City], 11 September 1912
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". . . I am at sea in this prison. Unjust though it is, we must reconcile ourselves to the will of God. My anxiousness is only reduced by thinking of my past services. May they be useful for my country, and may God take my sufferings into account. I feel much pleasure when I receive your letters, and I feel that I always followed the path of justice, and that my God is seeing all this; it is because your sincerity fills me with gratitude, and I swear by my country and by my parents that the esteem I have for you will be faithful unto death. Sir, it seems there is someone telling the president not to set me free, telling him that I might oppose the government. But these people have poor grounds. God did not put me in this world to be a traitor, and I hope that you can make the president see what I am, so that he adheres to justice. . . ."
In 1912, General Victoriano Huerta suspected Pancho Villa of theft and ordered that he be sent before the firing squad. President of Mexico Francisco Madero, together with whom Villa had rebelled against the dictatorial Porfirio Díaz, stayed the order of execution, allowing Villa to remain alive, but imprisoned. As the orphaned son of a field worker whose early life was spent running from the law, Villa had little opportunity to improve his reading and writing ability, but the time afforded by life in prison and the instruction of revolutionary leader Gildardo Magaña while there, helped improve his skills. By the end of 1912, Villa had managed to escape from prison and flee to the United States.