DAVID WOODBURY: James, congratulations on the publication of your book, now on the shelf after so many years in the making. It is a difficult thing to write deeply on a scantily-documented subject, and to make a meaningful contribution in an area where accomplished historians have already staked their claims. But you succeeded with Billy the Kid: El Bandido Simpático.
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JAMES MILLS: Gracias. If I was going to write a biography of Bonney, it was never going to be a pop-history overview or just another Billy book that doesn’t bring anything new to the table. 

DW: How did this project progress? Did you start out to write a biography from the beginning, and what were some of the obstacles you had to overcome to shepherd this massive work to completion? 

JM: It came as a result of decades of fascination and research. I broke into the field with a handful of articles and obviously the next step was to write a book. Richard W. Etulain was the one who first began encouraging me to write a Bonney book of my own and to do it my way. It seemed a daunting task at the time, but eventually I thought, “F—k it, just start typing and see where it goes.” The biggest obstacle I had to overcome was an alarming lack of sleep for eighteen months. It should have taken at least two years to write a hefty tome like mine. I don’t recommend writing a book the  size of mine in that amount of time to anyone who values their sanity for the duration. I guess pathological commitment to a project can do that to a person sometimes. No complaints though. Like the pompous song from that windbag Sinatra goes; I did it my way.

DW: A feature of your work on Billy the Kid, remarked upon by everyone who reads it, is the overdue attention you give to Hispano sources and perspectives. This seems like such an obvious and glaring oversight in retrospect, even though Billy’s comfort among, and affinity for, the Hispanic people of the region was commonly known. I wonder if you can articulate how this alternate lens helps us better understand who Billy the Kid was? 

JM: Call me crazy, but if you are going to write a biography of a guy, the recollections of the people who spent the most time around him and arguably knew him best, might just have some considerable value. It’s astonishing to say that pretty much half of Bonney’s history has been somewhat overlooked or cast aside all these years, but I found that was primarily the case. Some previous biographers have acknowledged and even dipped their toe into the Hispano waters of his history, but none of them really dived in to see what truly lay beneath the surface. We are talking about a guy who immersed himself in a considerably different culture to his own. Only when the Hispano perspectives are given equal consideration to Anglo ones, does Billy truly become a fully fleshed-out human being. It has also been inexcusable that second-hand Anglo recollections of some events have actually been afforded more credence than first-hand Hispano ones.

DW: In your preface, you acknowledge the foundational work of historians who have gone before, and quote Frederick Nolan, perhaps the preeminent Lincoln County War historian, saying, “It is the job of the younger generation to gnaw on the bones of the older.” I was struck by the fact that Nolan and another giant in world of Billy the Kid — Robert Utley — both passed away in June 2022, coincident with the publication date for your new biography. I’m curious whether, during your writing and research, you had a sense of there being a generational shift in your approach to the subject, that yours might be the latest of many shifts in the Billy the Kid story over the years.

JM: There is a generational shift with the approach to any subject, but if I said I felt any real sense of that while working on my book, I’d be bullshitting you. I am a historian of a younger generation, a 21st century historian as I’ve described myself, and perhaps that provides a somewhat different cultural or generational perspective on things. I was saddened to hear of Fred and Bob’s deaths. I knew them both. They had a great run and contributed so much to frontier history. They will always have my respect and admiration. At the same time, I'm not looking to fill anybody’s else’s shoes or fit into anyone else’s mould. I’m certainly not going to simply parrot the perspectives and analysis of previous historians, no matter how esteemed, without doing any original research and possibly drawing different conclusions. I leave that sort of thing to the Tom Clavin’s of the world. Some of the old timers who are contacting me following my book’s release have seemed a little taken aback. I don’t think I am what some of them were expecting. For starters, I don’t wear buttoned shirts or cowboys hats.

DW: I gathered from a piece in “True West” magazine that you have not yet personally visited New Mexico. Advances in technology must surely play a part in the “generational shift” mentioned above. The digitization of source material, for example, allowed you to sleuth out some items that seasoned historians overlooked (like the Las Vegas, NM jailhouse interview). What kind of technological tools and tricks helped you advance the story of Billy the Kid? 

JM: Any historian not making use of the technological advances that my generation have at our disposal, well, as the saying goes, if you don’t change with the times, you get left behind. That said, one cannot rely solely on digitization of sources. It must be a healthy combination of digitized source materials and old fashioned archival materials, as the extensive list of archives that I consulted with in my book’s bibliography demonstrates. I was fortunate to have some very helpful archivists at my disposal, as well as my technological “tools and tricks” as you describe them.

DW: I’m very curious to know whether you experienced any personal revelations about Billy the Kid as a result of your research, and your long immersion in his world? Did you come to view things differently from what you thought you understood, about the Kid, or about that time and place? Was there anything you were surprised to discover?

JM: There were quite a few personal revelations about Bonney and his world. One misconception has been the frequent portrayal of John Tunstall and Alexander McSween as clean-cut, kindly gents. They were not violent men, but in their own way, they were every bit as scheming, greedy, and manipulative as the House. Tunstall and McSween did not wish to take down the Murphy & Dolan faction to make things better for everyone in Lincoln County, they simply wanted to usurp their position and enjoy the exact same benefits at everyone else's expense. That doesn’t mean Tunstall deserved to be brutally murdered of course, but the Lincoln County War was not as black-and-white an affair as some people think. As for the personal revelations regarding Billy, people will have to read the damn book to find those out. Okay, one thing I was surprised to learn, was that a rescue plan was being put together by some Hispanos while Bonney was being held in the Lincoln jail in April 1881. They were not about to sit back and just let their boy hang. Of course, in the end, the rescue plan wasn’t needed.

DW: What would you say are the biggest misconceptions about Billy the Kid? There is an odd inclination for us to paint historic figures as heroes, or villains. You seem to conclude, reasonably, that he was neither of those things (or maybe he was both). When trying to get at his character, “kid” really is the operative word. 

JM: I don’t participate in that odd inclination to paint anyone from frontier history as a hero or a villain. I have my own personal heroes from history, but that doesn’t mean I am blind to their faults either. Humans are far too complex to be pigeon-holed. I don’t have much time for “Billy the Kid.” He’s mostly myth. Henry McCarty alias William H. Bonney is much more interesting. As far as the misconceptions about him, two of the biggest, are that he was hell-bent on being an outlaw and enjoyed becoming famous. He made a concerted effort on multiple occasions to get out of the outlaw life, and judging by his own words on the matter, never cared much for the fame he was bestowed.

DW: Any plans to visit the States? Can you get UNT Press to pony up for a book tour? And what can you say about your next book, In The Days of Billy the Kid: The Frontier Lives of José Chávez y Chávez, Juan Patrón, Martín Chávez, and Yginio Salazar? Why the focus on these individuals, and how far along are you?

JM: Extenuating circumstances make traveling very difficult for me. I’ll get to the States if and when I can. As for those four hombres, they all lived very interesting lives before and after they knew Bonney, and much Hispanic frontier history remains overlooked. I’m roughly a third of the way into it. I expect it will be released during the first six months of 2024.