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The Notorious Men of the Wild West

Khalid Elhassan December 4, 2019 32 min

18. Robbing in South America

The Sundance Kid, his wife Ethel, and Butch Cassidy, in front of their cabin in Argentina. Daily Beast

In February, 1905, Cassidy and Sundance robbed a bank in southern Argentina. Tipped off that a warrant was out for their arrest, the duo sold their ranch in May 1905, and fled to Chile. They returned to Argentina later that year and robbed another bank, then fled back to Chile. In 1906, they moved to Bolivia, and worked as guards for a mining company.

Contemporary reporting on the activities of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Argentina. New York Herald

In November, 1908, Cassidy and Sundance robbed a Bolivian mining company’s payroll, then fled to a small town where they lodged in a boarding house. They aroused the proprietor’s suspicions, and he notified a nearby Bolivian army unit. On the evening of November 6^th, 1908, the boarding house was surrounded. A firefight erupted, during which the duo were outgunned and shot multiple times. Grievously wounded, Cassidy shot Sundance dead to put him out of his misery, before turning his pistol on himself.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.