Pablo Gonzales was a first cousin of Josefa Castano. He was an army general during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1919. He commanded the army in the city of Morelos and was responsible, on orders from the then Mexican president, for planning the killing of the famous rebel Zapata. After the presidential election of 1920, he retired to Monterrey, but was arrested, put on trial, sentenced, and executed for supposedly planning a rebellion. It was decided finally to send him into exile. He went to San Antonio, Texas and died there in 1950.

Historians writing from a Zapatan viewpoint have not been kind to Pablo Gonzales. For example the following is from John Womack, Jr., ZAPATA AND THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION (N.Y. Alfred A. Knopf. 1971) Pp.258-9:

"...Pablo Gonzales stood to fix a claim on an important post Mexico City if he established constitutionalist rule in the state: this official dignity he craved and he had thirty thousand troops to win it. From his early years in Nuevo Leon and Coahuila before the revolution he had wanted success and approval. An orphan at six, a peddler at fourteen, once even an emigrant into the United states, then a petty merchant and politician in a little Coahuila farm town, and a revolutionary for Madero in 1911, he had strained all his lie, alternately careful and reckless, for the opportunity he had now. His only handicap was a fear of failure that had numbed his brain and left him as stupid as he was ambitious. By 1916 a solemn, ceremonious palooka sporting smoked glasses and a floppy Stetson, Gonzales suffered a reputation as the only Carrancista general of a division never to have won a battle..."

Or the following from R.R. Fehrenbach, FIRE AND BLOOD, A HISTORY OF MEXICO, (N.Y. De Capo Press, 1995) new ed. pp. 545-5:

"Gonzales aspired to be the next president, but knew he was overshadowed by the greater hero Alvaro Obregon. Gonzales determined to become know as the "Pacifier of Mexico' by erasing the Zapatistas, who never trusted the revolutionary family and who refused to lay down ares… Pablo Gonzales' army had no more success with Zapasta's guerrilleros than its predecessors, despite a terror campaign. The federals burned every…in Morelos state and sacked every hamlet and town, but the peasants plowed their fields with rifles on their backs and held out… Finally, Gonzales fell back on the old play that had ended most Mexican civil wars, treachery. His plot was incredibly brutal and cold-blooded. He had one of his colonels, Jesus Guajardo, pretend to defect to Zapata, and in order to allay the suspicious peasant leader's doubts, he arranged for Guajardo to attack another unsuspecting government detachment and slaughter fifty-nine government soldiers. This act convinced Zapata as nothing else could that Guajardo had indeed changed sides. He came to a meeting with Guajardo, riding on his sorrel horse with a small bodyguard-into six hundred government rifles. He died instantly in a fusillade, and while his memory would live on throughout all the Americas, his movement collapsed. Colonel Guajardo was promoted and awarded fifty thousand pesos…

[In 1920 a chaotic Mexican election for president was pending between the sponsors of then President Carranza and the backers of Obregon including the Sonoran governor Adolfo de la Huerta and General Calles]…The Sonorans marched south…Calles took city after city, collecting more arms and volunteers. General Gonzales deserted Carranza, and no capable officer would oppose the popular hero, Obregon. Left with only a few cronies, Carranza decided to flee…A local military [man], Herrea, pretended to aid Carranza, then while the exhausted presidential party were sleeping in a hut where they had taken refuge from the wind and rain he sent soldiers to surround them. Carranza and his friends were slain by a sudden fusillade, and Herrera announced that the president had committed suicide.

The Sonorans entered the capital peacefully, acclaimed by the ruling groups. Adlofo de la Huerta became provisional president, until a special election replaced him with Obregon in November 1920. De la Huerta is remembered mainly for three things. He legalized, on the spot, land confiscations that had taken place, which Carranza refused to do thus satisfying all the new-rich generals who held new haciendas and inducing Zapata's warriors at last to lay down their arms. He exiled Pablo Gonzales, Zapata's nemesis, and had Zapata's executioner, Jesus Guajardo, shot. Finally, he bought off Pancho Villa with amnesty and a huge cattle property in Chihuahua-Durango states."