Biography
Willie Gonzales was a Gallup, New Mexico miner and member of the United Mine Workers of America. He was married and had two children when the International Labor Defense took up the Gallup defendants' cases in 1935. Arrested after the April 4 confrontation in which Sheriff M. R. Carmichael was killed, Gonzales faced murder and prisoner-escape accusations. The jury acquitted him of murder in October, but he was immediately remanded to jail under $2,000 bond to await proceedings on the escape charge.
The April 20, 1935 Daily Worker named Willie Gonzales 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. 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 $7,500 murder bail; active in UMWA Local 1721. 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
The Gallup defense article prints William Gonzales and reports his refusal of an offered inducement to turn against the other defendants. This is attributed defense testimony concerning the existing prosecution; it creates no new conviction or custody endpoint. Daily Worker, October 7, 1935, original PDF page 5. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n240b-NAT-oct-07-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=5
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 explicitly says this Gallup defendant remained held on the charge of aiding a prisoner to escape after the murder acquittal. This report establishes continuing detention, not a completed release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n253-NAT-oct-21-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
The October 17 Aztec dispatch says the judge released Barini/Bartol and Gonzales on their own recognizance while riot charges remained, conditional on their not returning to Gallup. It quotes Gonzales identifying himself as a UMWA member. This conditional disposition conflicts with the October 20 continued-detention report on the escape accusation, so no exact physical discharge or complete custody duration is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n250-NAT-oct-18-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=3
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, among six held under an aggregate $45,000 bail; no individual allocation is supplied here. 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
The July 2, 1935 Daily Worker individually identifies Willie Gonzales as William Grant Gonzales, born in 1910 at San Marcial, New Mexico. Its account describes two separate periods of actual confinement during the 1933 Gallup strike: jail following a speech characterized as inflammatory, followed by release and prompt rearrest for attending a mass meeting, military-stockade confinement, a hunger strike and another release before he resumed organizing. The strike ended in December 1933. Only year precision is established, and no exact days or total custody duration are inferred.
The same July 1935 report specifically states that William Gonzales was being held in Santa Fe Penitentiary on $7,500 bond in the murder prosecution. No new admission or release date for that 1935 custody is supplied.
Contemporary Gallup defense account
Described as married with two children and a UMWA member. The group containing this name is described as held on $7,500 murder bond. 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.
