The Life and Times of Pancho Villa

There is enormous animosity against the hacienda for which I have no explanation, and which would have seemed incredible to me, if I did not feel it every moment. Many of the servants whom we considered loyal have greatly disappointed us; they have been captivated by the promises made by the revolutionaries that the lands would be divided among them, and right now all they think about is the realization of such a beautiful dream. Many of them have received great benefits from the hacienda and they are the ones who demand land with the greatest eagerness, not because we have caused them any harm, but because of their desire for their own profit. / -The administrator of the hacienda of Santa Catalina to its owner

On the eve of the Spanish Conquest, what is today the state of Chihuahua had been part neither of the Aztec empire nor of the complex civilization known as Mesoamerica, which included the inhabitants of central and southern Mexico. In contrast to Mesoamerica, Chihuahua had no large cities, no dense population living on intensive agriculture, and no highly stratified social groups. Instead, it was thinly populated by groups of hunters, gatherers, and some agriculturists, loosely organized into different tribes. The Aztecs had shown no interest in conquering this nomadic population, to which they collectively referred in the most derisive way as chichimecas, the sons of dogs.