WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION? - HISTORY - 2024

Among those who participated in the Mexican Revolution are Porfirio Díaz, Francisco Madero, Emiliano Zapata, Francisco "Pancho" Villa and Pascual Orozco.

The Mexican Revolution was the largest political, social and military conflict in Mexico since its independence from Spain.

It began in 1910 and lasted throughout that decade. Over the years, the revolution confronted various factions, including former allies later confronted.

The existence of multiple protagonists - political and military - is due to the fact that the revolution went through different phases.

In the initial phase, the uprising was fighting the Porfirio Díaz regime after more than thirty years at the helm of the country.

Then, over the years, it escalated into a factional war between Diaz's initial opponents. Finally, the so-called Tragic Ten, already started in the 1920s, was concluded.

The 5 main protagonists of the Mexican Revolution

1- Porfirio Díaz

Porfirio Díaz was president of Mexico uninterruptedly between 1884 and 1911. He had been before on different occasions.

Initially the Mexican Revolution was an uprising against him. Díaz had promised not to run for re-election in 1910, but broke his word.

In addition, he imprisoned the opposition leader Francisco Madero, who wanted to challenge him for the position. A year after the start of the revolution, Díaz fled to France. There he went into exile in Paris until his death four years later.

2- Francisco Madero and the Maderistas

Francisco Madero was the opposition political leader of Porfirio Díaz when the revolution began. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1910, accused of sedition.

He managed to escape from prison and fled to the United States of America. From there he proclaimed his uprising against the Diaz government. That was the origin of the Mexican Revolution, called in that phase the Maderista Revolution.

After Díaz fled to France, Madero assumed the presidency. However, just a year later he was assassinated by Victoriano Huerta's troops along with his vice president, José María Pino Suárez.

The 1913 coup against him was justified by his inability to fulfill the promises of social reform in the country.

3- Emiliano Zapata and Zapatismo

Emiliano Zapata was one of the most famous peasant and military leaders of the Mexican Revolution.

Zapata confronted President Madero and recognized Pascual Orozco as the legitimate leader of the revolution.

That placed him at the center of internal disputes between Porfirio Díaz's successors. The motive was his defense of the peasantry, to whom he demanded that the lands previously expropriated by the landowners be returned to them.

He allied with Pancho Villa to promote a like-minded president, but the internal disputes did not cease and he was finally assassinated in an ambush.

4- Francisco «Pancho» Villa

Pancho Villa was another important character in the revolutionary stage of Mexico. He was a bandit before being a general of the army and governor of the state of Chihuahua.

He evaded a death sentence thanks to Madero's intervention and his sentence was commuted to a prison sentence. He escaped and became one of the pillars of military maderism.

He actively fought throughout the Tragic Ten, first within the army and then as a guerrilla against the constitutionalist bloc, which emerged in the mid-1910s.

He was assassinated in 1920 with the approval of the then president, Álvaro Obregón.

5- Pascual Orozco

Pascual Orozco was a Mexican soldier very present in the revolution until his assassination in the United States in 1915. At first he rose up against Porfirio Díaz in support of Francisco Madero.

Later he decided to support the coup against Madero promoted by Victoriano Huerta. When he was forced into exile, he went with him to Texas and from there they tried to conspire to regain power.

The conspiracy involved the help of the German government, which alerted the US authorities and led, according to some theories, to his assassination.

References

1. Mexican Revolution, on Encyclopaedia Britannica at britannica.com.
2. Biography of Porfirio Díaz, on ThoughtCo at thoughtco.com.
3. "Emiliano Zapata !, Revolution and Betrayal in Mexico", Samuel Brunk. University of New Mexico Press. (nineteen ninety five).
4. "The Life and Times of Pancho Villa", Friedrich Katz. (1998).
5. "Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution", Frank McLynn. (2002).