EL RONDÍN

AUTHOR:  Esteban Luján

TRANSLATOR: Jonathan Van Coops

Paperback / $20 / ISBN-10: 1-58790-104-9 / 65 pages / 8.5” x 11  /  illustrated in color

History / Mexican Revolution of 1912

Campaigns of Colonel Toribio Ortega and Colonel José de la Cruz Sánchez in the Mexican Revolution of 1912 /

Campañas del coronel Toribio Ortega y del coronel José de la Cruz Sánchez en la Revolución de 1912

 (A Bi-Lingual Book with English & Spanish Text)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Esteban Luján’s EL RONDÍN is a first person account of General Pasqual Orozco, Jr.’s 1912 uprising in Chihuahua, Mexico and one of the earliest written documents about this important period of the Mexican Revolution. Translated into English by Esteban Luján’s great grandson, the military actions of Colonel Toribio Ortega and Colonel José de la Cruz Sánchez are described from the beginning of the uprising in Coyame on February 5, 1912 to Orozco’s defeat at Ojinaga on September 14, 1912. This republication of EL RONDÍN also includes the original text, a modern Spanish version, photos, maps and chronology, giving new life to a little known treasure.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Esteban Luján was born December 25, 1867 (son of Hilario Luján and Victoriana Acosta Luján) in El Polvo, Texas, about sixteen miles south of Presidio, Texas and Ojinaga, Chihuahua in the region called La Junta de los Ríos, the confluence of the Río Conchos and the Río Bravo (Río Grande) and the boundary between Mexico and the United States. El Polvo received a post office and became known as Redford, Texas in 1911.

Married in 1891 in Ojinaga, Chihuahua, information about his early years and education are mostly unknown but somehow he learned or was taught to read and write, eventually becoming a credentialed schoolteacher. He was 44 years of age when he wrote El Rondín, and it is possible that he developed the text from notes in his diary. As the family history goes, at some point he was in the service of Generals Toribio Ortega and Francisco Villa as a scribe and messenger. Eventually he moved west with his family, resettling in Stockton, California in 1920. During a time when the Mexican government arrested and murdered opposition leaders and their associates and sent agents into the United States to search for them, he spoke little of his activities during the Revolution and never again set foot in Mexico. He died in Garvey (now Rosemead), California in 1946 and is buried in Los Angeles, California.