Book Review: In the Days of Billy the Kid by James B. Mills

Review: In the Days of Billy the Kid by James B. Mills A deeper, richer American West—told through the lens of Hispano resistance and resilience.

Available at: https://amzn.to/3IHtBNz

James B. Mills has already reshaped how we think about Billy the Kid. In El Bandido Simpático, he showed that Billy’s story, long buried beneath layers of myth and media distortion, only becomes truly legible when we view it through the eyes of the people and the land that surrounded him. Mills’ great insight was this: Billy the Kid makes the most sense not as a gunslinger or an outlaw icon, but as a young man navigating the fractured, volatile world of New Mexico Territory, a place still reeling from the aftermath of the Mexican-American War and deep in the throes of Anglo-Hispano conflict.

Now, with In the Days of Billy the Kid, Mills expands that lens and brings into focus the lives of four crucial Hispano figures who lived, fought, resisted, and survived in the same world: José Chávez y Chávez, Juan Patrón, Martín Chávez, and Yginio Salazar. This book isn't just a companion to his earlier book, It is a vital extension of it, providing the other half of the story. If Mills’ first book made the case that Billy belonged in the Hispano world, this one shows us what that world actually looked like, felt like, and fought for.

It is within this Hispano context that we can now look at Billy the Kid, and at men like Chávez y Chávez and Salazar, with a newer, better, and deeper understanding and appreciation for this fascinating and often misunderstood portion of American history. Their struggles were not just about outlawry or reputation, but about land, identity, justice, and survival. The Lincoln County War, so often reduced to a shootout between cattle barons, is here placed in its proper frame: a continuation of Hispano resistance against exploitation, corruption, and displacement in the wake of American expansion.

Reading this, I felt like Mills was doing more than just pointing to the trail, he was redrawing the map. Drawing from a staggering array of archival material and previously overlooked sources, he uncovers the broader Hispano resistance—from the rise of Los Gorras Blancas to the political movements of San Miguel County, from the arrival of the railroad to the shadowy world of Vicente Silva’s Sociedad de Bandidos. Prior historians have viewed these as sideshows to the big show of Billy the Kid, but Mills reveals that they are central to understanding the true nature of the frontier and the communities who lived it, fought for it, and refused to be erased from it.

This isn’t your father’s, or grandfather’s, history of Billy the Kid. It’s more complete, more honest, and more human. The context here is the whole story, and in Mills' capable hands, that story is absolutely essential to a greater understanding of the West.

Available at: https://amzn.to/4kFJLVf