Caryl ap Rhys Pryce (30 September 1876 – 26 November 1955) was a Welshman and soldier of fortune most noted for his role in the 1911 Magonista rebellion in Baja California, Mexico.
He was born on 30 September 1876, in Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, British India, the son of Lt.-Col. Douglas Davidson Pryce and Georgie Hunter Carter. He was the younger brother of General Sir Henry ap Rhys Pryce.
Pryce took over the command of the Mexican foreign legion in the rebellion after the slaying of its previous commander Stanley Williams. Pryce forced the property owners of the Mexicali region to contribute to his army's operations. On 9 May 1911 Pryce and his soldiers took control of Tijuana in a battle with Government Troops. Here he also instituted a regime of taxes and customs duties. With the resignation of Porfirio Díaz as president of Mexico, Pryce resigned his command of the foreign legion in the face of Ricardo Flores Magón's refusal to accept the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez.
Pryce was a direct descendant of the Welsh freedom fighter Owain Glyndŵr.
Africa and Boer War
He fought in the Matabele Rebellion with the British South Africa Police enlisting in May 1897 under the command of R.C. Nesbitt V.C.. He joined D Troop Mashontaland Division and participated at the storming of Matshayongombi's stronghold, where dynamite was used to blow the rebels out of their fortified caverns. Over the course of four days, 278 rebels surrendered, but hundreds more were entombed within the rock. Shortly afterwards, Pryce obtained a prospecting licence from the Mining Commissioner at Umtali, but his ten claims in Manica country proved fruitless
In the Second Boer War, he distinguished himself as an outstanding marksman, regularly stalking and engaging Boer positions. Pryce enlisted in the Natal Mounted Police at Pietermaritzburg in May 1898. Active service ensued in the Boer War, including six months in the Imperial Light Horse in 1900, prior to employment in the South African Constabulary later that year. Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in January 1903, he went on to serve as District Commandant of Bethlem, Springfontein, Flicksburg and Jacobsdal, in which period he also acted as Magistrate.
Gringo revolutionary
In 1908, he joined the 6th Duke of Connaught's Own Rifles, the local militia unit. But with business slack, and in fear of being hitched by the lady in his life, Pryce made a typically spur of the moment decision - whilst walking late one night he happened upon the ferry to Los Angeles, and without further thought or telling anybody of his intentions he jumped aboard. Arriving in L.A. in January 1911, without a penny to his name, his prospects looked bleak, the local populace suffering from high unemployment.
Yet Pryce's arrival in Los Angeles happened to coincide with the heightened activity of Ricardo Flores Magon, an exiled Mexican revolutionary with ambitions towards ousting his country's president, Porfirio Díaz - the latter had been in power for 30 years and was under increasing pressure by another revolutionary called Madero, whose "Generals" were to later be Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.
Magon was constantly watched by both U.S. and Mexican agents, and, though fearful of being extradited back to his homeland to face the firing squad, plotted a revolution in Baja California, right on the American border - being based in L.A., he was able to take advantage of the down trodden masses and enlist their support as a vanguard of socialist revolution. And what he got by way of volunteers was a very mixed bag indeed, comprising 'U.S. Army deserters, border bandits, escaped convicts, mercenaries, and most of all Caryl ap Rhys Pryce' (Gringo Revolutionary, The Amazing Adventures of Caryl Ap Rhys Pryce, by J. Humphries, refers), the latter no doubt attracted by a bounty of $100 and a salary of a dollar a day - not to mention the promise of 160 acres of free land in Baja California, if Magon's aims were achieved.
Among a party of 18 volunteers, Pryce was guided across the border into Mexico by Generalissimo Jose Maria Leyva, and his second in command, Simon Berthold, his fellow mercenaries including another Boer War veteran, "Melbourne" Hopkins from Australia, and several U.S. Army deserters, most prominent of which was to become Stanley Williams. Poorly armed, the budding revolutionaries joined up with a party of Indians, 'the only thing distinguishing them as an army, the anarchist emblem, tiny red bows, pinned to their sleeves' (Humphries).