Jose Chavez y Chavez
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Jose Chavez y Chavez (1851-1924) was a cowboy from the U.S. state of New Mexico. He was a member of a Mexican-American Indian tribe. Chavez y Chavez became a cowboy at a relatively young age, when he joined Billy the Kid's group. In the 1988 movie, Young Guns, Chavez y Chavez was portrayed by Lou Diamond Phillips.
One of a few Indians to crossover and become the kind of person who is nowadays typically known as a cowboy, Chavez y Chavez nevertheless dressed, lived and acted like one, but he was also fiercely proud of being an Indian, and he respected, to some degree at least, his tribe's beliefs.
Chavez y Chavez joined Billy the Kid in his twenties. Already having committed a number of small robberies and other crimes, Chavez y Chavez would prove useful to Billy the Kid's gang. Together with Billy and the four other members of the gang, Chavez y Chavez engaged in the Lincoln County War that lasted from 1878 to 1879.
Chavez y Chavez met Billy the Kid, Jim French, Fred Waite, Charlie Bowdre, John Middleton, and Tom O'Folliard after he decided to join the Tunstall-McSween group in their war against the Dolan group. Inside the Tunstall-McSween group, another group was formed, to try to give the Tunstall-McSween group an edge over the Dolans. The Regulators, as they were known, were forty five gunfighters that included Jose Chavez y Chavez. During some point of his tenure as a member of the Regulators, Chavez y Chavez met Billy the Kid and his other friends, joining the group thereafter.
On February 28, 1878, John Tunstall was murdered. On April 1 of the same year, Lincoln's sheriff, a Dolan backer, was killed by the Kid's gang, and Chavez y Chavez credited himself with this killing.
Eventually, more killings from both sides followed, leading to the burning of the McSween home on July 19. Fourteen people lived at the house, including Mr. McSween and his wife, as well as twelve cowboys. Six people died in the fire, but every member of the Kid's gang was able to escape.
By March of 1879, New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace began a fight against crime in that state, and one of his priorities was to stop the ongoing war between the Dolans and the Tunstall-McSween backers. With this in mind, Wallace made the Lincoln County Mounted Rifles, a group of which Chavez y Chavez became a member, as a private. The "Mounted Rifles" failed in their purposes, however, and the group lasted only about three months, period during which Chavez y Chavez kept being a member of Billy's gang.
Chavez y Chavez allegedly testified, alongside Billy the Kid, in court to try to implicate the Army in connection to the burning of the McSween house and subsequent deaths occurred during the fires. It is believed that, in 1880, Chavez y Chavez murdered a dangerous convict in a New Mexico jail.
Jose Chavez y Chavez became adrift after Billy the Kid's death, travelling across the American Southwest, sometimes without any particular destination in mind. He did arrive at Las Vegas (New Mexico), in time to meet Bob Ford, official killer of Jesse James. According to legend; the two had agreed to a shooting game between them. So impressed was Ford with Chavez y Chavez's gun abilities, that he fled immediately after he was asked to have a duel against Chavez y Chavez.
Chavez y Chavez soon became a policeman. But he allegedly was not able to leave his life as a desperado, becoming friends with Vincente Silva and joining Silva's two gangs, including Las Gorras Blancas ("The White Caps"), a group which was then linked by the general public with terrorism. Silvas' other group, "Bandits Society" is said to have operated much like the mafia, trying to make profits by forcing people out of their properties.
Vicente Silva ordered the killing of Patricio Maes, which was carried on October 22, 1892 by Chavez y Chavez, Eugenio Alarid and Julian Trujillo. In February 1893, the group performed the murder of Silvas' brother in law, Gabriel Sandoval. But Sandoval's death backfired on Silva, when his wife became concerned about the whereabouts of her brother. When Silva ordered Chavez y Chavez, Alarid and Trujillo to kill his wife, the three gunmen became worried about Silva's mental state; they decided to kill him as well when they were digging Silva's wife's grave, and so; Silva and his wife were both murdered by Chavez y Chavez, Alarid and Trujillo as Silva carried his wife to them.
In 1894, some men were arrested and brought to the courts of law in connection with the killing of Patricio Maes. Chavez y Chavez became a fugitive, but he was eventually arrested on May 26. A jury found him guilty, and he was given the death sentence. A second trial came, and Chavez y Chavez was again given a death sentence. This decision was later overturned by a new Governor in New Mexico, who felt compelled to commute Chavez y Chavez's sentence to life in prison instead, given the publicity that this case garnered and the public's pressure towards the Government sparing Chavez y Chavez of his death at the time.
During a jail riot, Chavez y Chavez helped the police. This would pay him off when, on January 11, 1909, New Mexico's Governor George Curry granted him a pardon.
For the remaining fifteen years of his life, Chavez y Chavez led a relatively quiet life, and he died of natural causes at his home in 1924, with a friend by his side.
