Biography
Agustin Calvillo was one of the ten defendants prosecuted after the April 4, 1935 confrontation over an eviction in Gallup, New Mexico. He was held without bail on murder charges following the preliminary hearing in April. Calvillo was acquitted in October, but immigration authorities then sought to deport him. Protests by the Gallup Defense Committee and International Labor Defense temporarily halted the deportation proceedings against Calvillo and fellow acquitted defendant Serapio Sosa.
The April 20, 1935 Daily Worker named Augustine Calvillo among the Gallup defendants facing first-degree murder proceedings in Santa Fe after the early-April confrontation at the courthouse. The April 19 report described a preliminary hearing, with forty-five defendants appearing and three unavailable through wounds or illness. The report establishes charges and hearing participation, but does not individually establish continued physical detention for every person in its roster. No complete term or exact arrest date is established. This source prints the variant Augustine Calvillo; the existing canonical profile is Agustin Calvillo. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n095-NAT-apr-20-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
Page 1’s May 10 Santa Fe dispatch individually identifies this Gallup defendant as held without murder bail; ILD member, printed Augustin Calvillo. It describes fourteen workers held in the state penitentiary death-house area awaiting trial, ten on first-degree murder accusations and four on escape accusations. Pretrial placement in that area does not mean a death sentence was imposed. Bail set does not establish bail posting; later dispositions in the existing record remain distinct. Page 8 calls for trade-union defense. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n113-NAT-may-11-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Page 8 individually names this defendant among seven acquitted of murdering Sheriff M. R. Carmichael in the Gallup case. The same report explicitly says all seven were immediately remanded to jail for inability to furnish $2,000 bond on the separate accusation of aiding and abetting a prisoner’s escape. Acquittal of murder therefore is not entered as physical release. Printed Augustine Cavillo, Gregory Correa and Rafael Gomez are retained as contemporary roster variants of the matched existing defendants; the report supplies no individual actual discharge or completed service. Source: https://newspapers.swco.ttu.edu/bitstreams/34268242-ac0d-472e-8d03-7eb5b704a2c0/download
The October 20 Santa Fe dispatch says nationwide protests temporarily halted deportation of Calvillo and Sosa, two acquitted Gallup defendants. A halted deportation is not physical release from immigration or other detention. Page 5 supplies Calvillo’s life history: four years of schooling; agricultural work before Southern Pacific employment near Sacramento in 1921; leg illness and an operation followed by several years of disability; Santa Fe Railroad track-walking work after returning to mobility late in 1927; Gallup American coal work from 1929; union picketing in the 1933 strike; unsuccessful rehiring and CWA applications; and participation in the successful 1934 FERA strike. He was still a FERA worker when arrested April 5, 1935. His first wife died in 1926; two surviving daughters lived with his mother. In 1932 he married Carmelita Kramer, who had two children, and they had two more. His family faced reduced relief after his arrest. Ages are not converted into birth dates. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n253-NAT-oct-21-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=5 The printed April 5 arrest conflicts with an existing April 4 incarceration date in the record. This source does not resolve the discrepancy; neither structured date is changed here.
Daily Worker, April 25, 1935, pages 1–2: The April 24 Santa Fe report individually lists this Gallup defendant among ten bound over after the preliminary murder hearing, held without bail. It reports murder accusations dismissed against thirty-eight of the original forty-eight and four other defendants retained under $500 bail on prisoner-escape accusations. Its overlapping reference to the ten as held for assisting escape is preserved as the report's wording, without replacing the later individualized charging and trial history. The paper alleges deputy gunfire killed the sheriff and miners; that account is attributed. Continued detention, not a final imposed sentence or exact discharge, is established. Three unnamed released defendants reportedly were immediately seized for deportation; those unnamed transfers are not assigned to this person. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n099-NAT-apr-25-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Gallup jail-start date
An appeal dated September 24, 1935 at New Mexico State Prison, Santa Fe, and printed on October 1, individually lists Agustin Calvillo among its ten signatories. The prisoners state that they have been jailed since April 4, 1935. This first-person custody statement supports recording April 4 as the beginning of confinement in the Gallup case. It does not establish a physical release date, a completed sentence or present-day custody. The scheduled October trial is not used as release.
Daily Worker, October 1, 1935, original PDF pages 1–2, especially the complete signed appeal on page 2. Some page 1 text is damaged in the surviving scan; the date and signatures on page 2 are legible and were checked visually.
Contemporary Gallup defense account
Printed Augustine Cavillo, described as married without children and member of the ILD and Unemployment Council. The first group, containing this name, is described as held without murder bail. The pamphlet says all ten also faced aiding-escape allegations with an additional $1,000 bond. The printed roster actually contains nine names despite referring to ten defendants and “these four” before listing only three in the first group. No missing individual is supplied by inference. These early bail conditions are distinct from later post-trial bonds; neither the bail amount nor the advocacy account establishes a release or time served.
Louis Colman, Night Riders in Gallup (1935), pages 3, 11–12.
Daily Worker, May 11, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, April 25, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
