Emiliano Zapata

Emiliano Zapata Salazar known as El Caudillo LED On (August 8th 1879 - April 10th 1919) was one of the main actors of the revolution of 1910 in Mexico against the president Porfirio Díaz, then of the civil war which followed the fall and the exile of this one.

Its origins and previous political

Emiliano Zapata, was born with San Miguel Anenecuilco, village of the State of Morelos, located at the south of the capital of the Mexico. He is the son of Gabriel Zapata and Cleofas Salazar. Anenecuilco which was declining, did not count 411 inhabitants in 1900 did not count of them any more but 371 in 1910 the day before the revolution. At the time, the Mexico was controlled by the general Porfirio Díaz who reached the capacity in 1876.

After the departure of Santa Anna in 1855 a new constitution was promulgated in 1857 by the congress of prevalence juarist. After a three year old war against the conservatives (1858-1860) the liberals (juarists) promulgated laws of nationalization of the ecclesiastical goods which stripped the Catholic church its grounds which were bought at low prices after the fall of the Empire of Maximilien (which personally protected the village from Anenecuilco one as of its indigenous mistresses living non-loin)), in 1867, by speculators resulting from victorious liberal the juarists mediums and landowners. Moreover this new constitution not guaranteeing more the collective ownership of the grounds belonging to the villages, the hacendados benefitted from it to seize the majority of them little by little, raflant with the passage the small ones and average individual exploitations. In June 1874 already, Jose Zapata, " gouverneur" of Anenecuilco and native of Mapaztlán, wrote in Porfirio Díaz:

“Les plantations of cane with sugar is as a malignant disease which extends and destroys, and makes disappear very to take ground and ground possession still with an insatiable thirst ”
The Mexican official journal " diario oficial of the federacion" of March 27th, 2002 publishes in its section the 3 digits of the census carried out in Mexico in 1910: officially the country counted 15160369 inhabitants of which 80% lived in the countryside. Elections having to take place in 1910, Díaz was represented. Certain politicians, considering the great age of this one and the lassitude generated by if long period of being able, tried their chance, like most known Francisco I. Madero, in which them politicking American saw a successor more flexible than Díaz.

The family of Zapata, even if it were not rich, did not live either in the Pauvreté. She escaped the peonaje and could preserve her own grounds (ranchero), her situation in the country world would have answered in the Soviet Union of the Twenties that of Koulak. In fact, the former generations had been porfirista (in favor of Díaz). Zapata always had the reputation of a well equipped man besides, vêtu like wanted it the social class which it represented, it was by no means a question of being “dressed up” while appearing with the bullfights and rodeos equipped in charro , but of being made respect. Although its attraction for beautiful clothing had rather made it resemble to the rich person hacendados them also of the natives or the mongrels but the majority of times of European origin which controlled the grounds, although those Ci affectionnassent a “Parisian” fashion more, it always preserved the affection even the admiration of the inhabitants of its village, Anenecuilco, so that to the thirty years age, Emiliano arrived at the head of the defense committee , a station which made of him the spokesperson for the defense of the interests of its village. André Castelot says to us that: " Zapata " maria" 27 times, its last marriage were the only one which took a legal appearance. Zapata had moreover a species of harem, composed of woman white, mongrel and indigenous and it carried two large revolvers and a machete, tool agricultural which was used for to him as well to correct his/her children, that to beat his wives or to make jump a head… "

The day before the Revolution

In 1908, Zapata engaged in the federal army, which counted fifteen thousand men then, quantifies very weak compared to a population evaluated to approximately 15 million people. (Diaz had sought to decrease the number and the capacity of the soldiers). He was used with the 9th battalion as cavalry, as personal stableman of Pablo Escandon, chief of the Staff, but disappointed by the decline and the impéritie which reigned there, he succeeds in turning over to the civil life.

The first political act of Zapata is located in 1909, year or it supported the candidate of the opposition Patricio Leyva to the post of governor of Morelos. It was implied in the fight of the villagers despoiled by powerful Mexican and foreign investors. It then supervised the peaceful restitution of the grounds of some Hacienda S with their legitimate owners. In May 1910 it took by the force of the grounds with Villa of Ayala. He was then actor many conflicts opposing the villagers between them and with the owners often absent and the managers of the haciendas , the growers of cane with sugar, in connection with the monopolization of the grounds of the villages and was pilot the brutalities made by the " rurales" , police force trained by people of grown but with the service of the hacendados.

During many years, it militated with perseverance for the rights of the villagers. It started by establishing thanks to acts dating from the Spanish colony the rights of the peasants on grounds objects of arguments. Then, it tried to convince the governor of the State to make return the grounds to their rightful owners, but afflicted by the inertia of which proof the authorities made and by that of the courts of the Republic which, proudly, did not recognize the documents of title dating from kings d' Espagne, it was armed to take possession of the disputed grounds.

At that time, Porfirio Díaz was threatened by the candidature of Francisco I. Madero. Zapata was combined then in Madero (a liberal democrat) which passed for that which would allow a deep change Mexico. In January 1910 it was put in prison three days under pretext of public intoxication, but to actually oblige it to turn over in the army. It was released to serve only in March by the intervention of powerful a hacendado which had employed it and which had regard for him, gift Ignacio " Nachito" of Torre there Mier son-in-law of gift Porfirio Diaz (he had married Amada Diaz on January 16th, 1888)

Paddle of the revolution to the fall of Huerta

In 1910, the disorders which the country underwent led to the creation of groups of guerillas. Zapata quickly had a big role in this movement, it was named general of an army of Morelos by Francisco Madero ( Ejército Libertador LED On , armed liberator with the South (it is necessary to hear south of the town of Mexico City, or is located the small State de Morelos and not of the whole of the south of the country)

Although being almost illétré and never not having read nor written Zapata was partly influenced by Ricardo Flores Magón, ideologist whose thought was a mixture of anarchism, liberalism and socialism (cf Luis Pazos), originating in the State of Oaxaca like Porfirio Diaz. What displeased has certain revolutionists, Magón was regarded at the time as traitor with his country because judged internationalist and making involve many foreigners (of which citizens of the USA) in the policy and the interior conflicts of the country.

The partisans of Zapata had as a slogan " Libertad Justicia there Ley" reformed; (Reform, Freedom, Justice and Law), used in their proclamations, currencies and on the documents emitted under their authority, and not as one usually believes it the anarchistic slogan of the liberal party of the brothers Flores Magon " Tierra there libertad" , used as from 1911

Otilio Montaño (which judged and was shot, shown to be the intellectual author in March 1917 of a revolt against Zapata and was shown by Diaz Soto there Gama to be an anarchist, a positivist and to write the pastoral ones), tried to render comprehensible in Zapata the ideas of Pierre Kropotkine and Magón Flora at the time where Zapata started to take part in the combat of the peasants for the restitution of their grounds. Zapata was especially pragmatic, all those which could help it to recover the properties of the villagers were welcome.

Díaz was reversed by Madero in 1911 following the movement of rebellion of the middle-class represented by Madero, which trained with it the peasants and part of the working class. The middle-class provides the majority of the executives to the revolutionists, of the army of Francisco Villa which recovered federal generals whose artillerist Felipe Angeles celebrates it and with the blessing of the United States which hastened to recognize its government, for betraying later best… With Madero, shy persons land reforms were undertaken and of the elections were to take place. However, the position of Madero on the land reform did not satisfy Zapata and its partisans as shows it article 14 of the plan of Ayala:

" If president Madero and another dictatorial elements of the current and last mode wish to avoid immense misfortunes which afflict the fatherland and if they have truths feelings of love towards it, that they give up immediately the stations which they occupy and by there, they will seal a little the serious wounds which they opened within the fatherland, because if they do not make it, the blood and the anathema of our brothers will fall down on their têtes."

The plan of Ayala whose watchword was libertad, justicia there ley in 1911 is slightly modified in 1915 por to become Réforma, libertad, justicia there ley and will remain unchanged until the death of Zapata. It is necessary to raise that this plan required the nationalization and the expropriation only of the 2/3 of the ground of the great land and buildings and that on the external level it does not have any reference nor call to revolutionary internationalism, it is rather in a return to last colonial and prehispanic seen as of the golden ages that it is necessary to seek the characteristic of the Zapatist movement.

Finally, after the nomination in Morelos of a governor applying the rather benign policy of Madero for the landowners and the lack of encouraging gestures in term of land policy of this last, Emiliano Zapata remobilisa Ejército Libertador LED To.

Madero, frightened, required of Zapata to disarm and demobilize its troops. Zapata answered that if the villagers of Morelos did not manage to take advantage of their rights by the weapons, they could not either not disarmed it and without assistance. Madero sent the very qualified army and several generals of which the general sergeant Victoriano Huerta in order to try to neutralize Zapata but without success. Before that, the successor of Diaz, temporary president Francisco Leon of Barra had sent to Morelos to fight the troops of Zapata, the general sergeant Victoriano Huerta who was a Huichol native and who knew his adversaries very well.

Shortly after, president Madero, as well as the vice-president Pino Suárez were dislocated and assassinated by order of Victoriano Huerta. The federal army continued to fight the partisans of Zapata. A new force appeared in North, the Villistas of the general Francisco Villa, made up mainly of former partisans of Madero and framed by military careers trained in the best European schools. Zapata hesitated to meet Villa following the rejection by this last of the plan of Ayala.

The conservatives of the capital and its opponents in general had called Zapata “the Attila of the South”.

The opposition to Huerta knew its apogee with Venustiano Carranza which had proclaimed to precede jefe and which directed a faction constitutionnalist to which Zapata and Villa adhered. Huerta which did not have the support of the USA was quickly reversed by these forces militarily powerful. Following its defeat, the constitutionnalists reflect in place a convention charged to constitute the new government. Zapata refused to assist to with it asserting that none conventional had been elected. The chiefs of Morelos sent to the place a delegation to present the plan of Alaya and to observe the behavior of convention.

Vis-a-vis the partisans of Carranza

January 3rd, 1914 it signed a contract of a colossal amount for the time of 25.000 American dollars (approximately double in pesos) with the American cinematographic company Mutual Film corp., giving him exclusiveness to film its military actions. These films show the hardness of the combat and many atrocities made on both sides.

A little later Carranza took the head of the new revolutionary government said gobierno constitucionalista . With Á lvaro Obregó N which were faithful of Venustiano Carranza, they had overcome Pancho Villa, which them supplies weapons and ammunition was not ensured any more by the USA. The Zapata August 2nd, 1914 tried to draw the attention of the United States in a long open letter with president Wilson in whom he condemned " Mr Venustiano Carrranza and its clicks politicians ambitieux". Later in a letter with the general Francisco Villa he says that the moment had just established a provisional government trained revolutionary chiefs. In the case or Carranza would act in another Zapata direction ensured that it had 70000 men armed with Mauser rifles. During several months the American diplomacy had tried to bring closer the partisans to Zapata with the constitutionalists of Carranza. In dissension with Zapatist this government although resulting from the revolution, an all-out war against them carried out then. The inhabitants of Morelos were the victims and invented the verb carrancear which for them wanted to say to destroy, to violate, to plunder. The Zapatist ones, nevertheless, remained mobilized, but lost little by little their force. Zapata also feared that the neutral policy of Carranza during the world war, whose oil policy had rather supported the German interests, to have according to its own " terms; offended the French capital and britannique" did not annoy the United States. It tried to reconcile the public opinion of this country by publishing a written letter with Francisco Vasquez Gomez or it denounces the mad socialist ideas of Zapatist like Palafox and is declared in favor of the company spirit in all the economic sectors except for the monopolies which constitute a threat for free plan of the social forces. The government constitutionnalist of Carranza did not find an other means only treason to eliminate Zapata, especially hoping for it on behalf of Zapatist repented. It also tried to move away the other chiefs from the Zapatist army, but no proposal had success. Zapata was shown to be sanguinary and to have made carry out others rebellious with which it had the different ones, his captive enemies and soldiers, one reproaches him the innocent victims of attacks against the trains, actually it was it undoubtedly less than Carranza or Villa and than of other actors of the civil war. It was also difficult for him to control all the actions of those which were claimed of him.

During the occupation of the town of Mexico City by the Convention represented militarily by the forces of Zapata, it was struck during the month of July 1915 of the coins of 1 and 2 bronze centavos identical to those circulating then but of smaller module, this currency was declared illegal in September 1916 by the constitutionnalists (Carranza) who had driven out city the conventionists. The forces of Zapata (which held so that people have means of exchange because the national gold and silver cash had been thésaurisé by the population) emitted in their zones of influence of the copper currency, banknotes of forced circulation and also of the currency carrying the slogan " reformed, libertad, justicia there ley" who was appéciée because out of money.

Its death

In April 1919, the colonel Guajardo plotted a ambush against Zapata with its superior the general Pablo González, a close relation of Carranza. To gain the confidence of Zapata, it simulated sympathy to him and made attack a column of federal soldiers (its own men) by killing 57. It thus obtained to speak to him about its rallying, promising men and weapons to him. They took return to the hacienda of San Juan Chinameca, Zapata fell into the trap: armed men waited there and it was cut down has bearing end. Saturdays following its assassination, with the cemetery of Cuautla, it was buried very deeply so that its partisans did not carry his skin. Its tomb carries the number 23. One can read there:

Al hombre representativo of the revolución popular el apóstol LED agrarismo, Al vidente that jamás abandonó Fe Al inmortal EMILIANO ZAPATA dedican este homenaje known compañeros of lustred.

His/her companions described it as follows: The restitution of the grounds taken by the hacendados at its native village, San Miguel Anenecuilco, in Morelos, was the main objective of its rebellion. He did not seek changes for all the country nor abstract ideals: freedom, democracy etc, if not that the hacendados restore the grounds whose villages had documents of title dispatched at the time of the Spanish Colony. However on the basis of Plan of Ayala written by his adviser the professor Otilio E. Montano one identified it like a precursor of the land reform. As a man he loved the women, the card decks, the fighting cocks, the cognac and the cigars. He was also large expert of the horses.

Zapata did not leave any writing. It left of the State de Morelos only on rare occasions and one thinks that it never saw the oceans which border Mexico.

Although general, Emiliano Zapata, contrary to Francisco Villa, never carried uniform.

After the death of Zapata, the Army of release of the South was divided into several factions of which five more important élirent the successor of Zapata later, their chiefs quarreling in inextricable intrigues, disappearing definitively after the rebellion of Obregon had deposited and makes assassinate Carranza which fled Mexico City for Veracruz. The successor of Zapata was Gildardo Magana Cerda helped by the lawyer Antonio Diaz Soto there Gama, who had joined Zapata in April 1914 and was also his delegate with the convention of Aguascalientes. In 1920 although its military value was unimportant the zapatism represented by its only name a large policy issue and very aspiring to the presidency sought to put it on its side. The chief rebels Pélaez which then " régnait" on the oil-bearing zones of Tampico needed combined in other areas and made vainly the Zapatist chiefs of the formidable offers in term of financial aids, promising to give them all the money which they needed.

However, the name of Zapata was used throughout the 20th century by all the successive presidents, it was used as alibi with the policies to mislead many peasants who hoped in their turn to become owners and today still it is used for the best and worst, though the new generations which live downtown do not know it or little, some being unaware of even completely its existence at almost a century of its disappearance.

Various information

  • It was emitted as from on October 3rd, 1994 a banknote (10 Pesos) has its effigy.

  • There is also a commune Emiliano Zapata in the State of Morelos.

  • It had as a maxim: " Es mejor to morir of magpie that to vivir toda una emptied arrodillado": " Better is worth to die upright than to live a whole life with genoux".

See too

Wikipédia: complete text of the plan of Ayala

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