Mexican Revolution (1910-1920): Madero, Villa and Zapata

The Mexican Revolution was a decade of uprisings and civil war that began on 20 November 1910 and overthrew the long rule of Porfirio Díaz. Leaders such as Francisco Madero, Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranza and Álvaro Obregón fought first against the old regime and then against each other. The conflict cost hundreds of thousands of lives, produced one of the most radical constitutions of its age and shaped Mexican politics for the rest of the twentieth century.

Background: the Porfiriato

Porfirio Díaz, a general and hero of the war against the French intervention, ruled Mexico from 1876 to 1880 and again from 1884 to 1911. His regime, known as the Porfiriato, brought political stability, railways, foreign investment and export growth after decades of turmoil that had included the Reform War. Its motto was “order and progress”.

The benefits were very unevenly shared. Laws on the survey and sale of “vacant” land helped haciendas and companies absorb the communal lands of many villages, especially in states such as Morelos, where sugar planters expanded at the expense of peasant communities. By 1910 most rural Mexicans owned no land at all. Mine and factory workers faced long hours and low pay, and strikes at Cananea (1906) and Río Blanco (1907) were put down by force.

Politically, elections were managed and Díaz was repeatedly re-elected. An ageing circle of ministers and governors monopolised office, frustrating ambitious provincial elites and the growing middle classes. In a 1908 interview with the American journalist James Creelman, Díaz suggested Mexico was ready for democracy and that he would welcome an opposition party, raising expectations he did not intend to meet.

Course of the revolution

Madero and the fall of Díaz (1910-1911)

Francisco I. Madero, a wealthy landowner from Coahuila, published a book criticising presidential re-election and founded the Anti-Reelectionist movement. He ran against Díaz in 1910, but was arrested before the vote. After the official result gave Díaz another term, Madero escaped to San Antonio, Texas, and issued the Plan of San Luis Potosí, calling on Mexicans to rise up on 20 November 1910.

The first response was modest, but in the northern state of Chihuahua irregular forces led by Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa won a series of fights against federal troops. In the south, Emiliano Zapata led villagers of Morelos who wanted their lands back. On 10 May 1911 rebels captured the border city of Ciudad Juárez. The Treaty of Ciudad Juárez followed on 21 May, and Díaz resigned on 25 May 1911. He sailed into exile in France and died in Paris in 1915.

Madero’s presidency and Huerta’s coup (1911-1914)

Madero won an election in October 1911 and took office on 6 November 1911. He was a sincere democrat, but he left much of the old federal army and bureaucracy in place and moved slowly on land reform. Zapata broke with him almost at once: his Plan of Ayala, proclaimed on 28 November 1911, demanded the return of stolen lands and the expropriation of part of the haciendas. Orozco revolted in the north in 1912.

In February 1913 a military revolt in Mexico City began the “Ten Tragic Days” (Decena Trágica). General Victoriano Huerta, commanding the government troops, changed sides and seized power with the encouragement of the United States ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson. Madero and Vice-President José María Pino Suárez were arrested and shot on the night of 22 February 1913.

Huerta’s coup reunited the revolutionaries. Venustiano Carranza, governor of Coahuila, issued the Plan of Guadalupe on 26 March 1913 and became “First Chief” of the Constitutionalist army. Álvaro Obregón led forces from Sonora, while Villa’s Division of the North became the most famous fighting force of the war. Zapata continued his own struggle in the south.

The new US president, Woodrow Wilson, refused to recognise Huerta, and in April 1914 American forces occupied the port of Veracruz. Villa’s victory at Zacatecas on 23 June 1914 broke the federal army, and Huerta resigned on 15 July 1914. The Treaty of Teoloyucan in August dissolved the old army altogether.

The war of the winners (1914-1917)

Victory split the revolutionaries. A convention of revolutionary chiefs met at Aguascalientes in October 1914, but Carranza rejected its decisions. Villa and Zapata allied against him, and their troops occupied Mexico City in December 1914, when the two leaders met for the first time at Xochimilco on 4 December. Carranza withdrew to Veracruz.

The decisive campaign came in 1915. Obregón, using trenches, barbed wire and machine guns in the manner of the First World War, defeated Villa’s cavalry charges in two battles at Celaya in April 1915 and again at León, where Obregón lost his right arm. Villa’s army disintegrated, and in October 1915 the United States recognised Carranza’s government.

Villa then turned to raids. On 9 March 1916 his men attacked Columbus, New Mexico, and the United States sent a Punitive Expedition under General John J. Pershing into Mexico. It failed to capture Villa and withdrew in early 1917, as war with Germany approached and Berlin explored a Mexican alliance in the Zimmermann Telegram.

Constitution and a new order (1917-1920)

With Villa and Zapata reduced to regional guerrilla forces, Carranza summoned a constituent congress at Querétaro. The Mexican Constitution of 1917, promulgated on 5 February 1917, went far beyond Carranza’s own draft, with articles on land reform, national ownership of subsoil resources, labour rights and secular education. Carranza became constitutional president on 1 May 1917.

Violence continued. Zapata was lured into an ambush and killed at Chinameca, Morelos, on 10 April 1919. In 1920 Carranza tried to impose a little-known civilian successor, and the Sonoran leaders Obregón, Plutarco Elías Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta rebelled under the Plan of Agua Prieta. Carranza fled the capital and was killed at Tlaxcalantongo, Puebla, on 21 May 1920. Villa accepted an amnesty and retired to a hacienda in July 1920, and Obregón became president on 1 December 1920.

Key people

• Porfirio Díaz (1830-1915), president for most of 1876-1911, overthrown in 1911.
• Francisco I. Madero (1873-1913), leader of the 1910 revolt and president from 1911 until his murder in 1913.
• Pancho Villa (1878-1923), commander of the Division of the North; assassinated at Parral in 1923.
• Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919), leader of the agrarian revolution in Morelos and author of the Plan of Ayala.
• Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920), First Chief of the Constitutionalists and president 1917-1920.
• Álvaro Obregón (1880-1928), the most successful revolutionary general, president 1920-1924; assassinated in 1928.
• Victoriano Huerta (1850-1916), general who seized power in 1913 and was driven out in 1914.

The human cost

The revolution was fought by many different armies, from Villa’s railway-borne divisions to Zapata’s village militias and the conscripts of the federal army. Thousands of women, the soldaderas, travelled with the troops, cooking, nursing and sometimes fighting. Towns changed hands repeatedly, haciendas and mines were wrecked, and the railways were badly damaged.

Death toll estimates vary widely, because many deaths came from hunger, epidemics (including the 1918 influenza) and executions rather than battle. Historians commonly give figures between several hundred thousand and about 1.5 million. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans also crossed into the United States to escape the fighting.

By the numbers

Consequences and legacy

The revolution destroyed the Porfirian state and its army and replaced the old landowning elite with a new class of revolutionary generals and politicians. The 1917 Constitution promised land to the villages and rights to workers, but these promises were carried out slowly and unevenly; large-scale land distribution came mainly under President Lázaro Cárdenas in the 1930s. Conflict with the Catholic Church over the constitution’s anticlerical articles led to the Cristero War of 1926-1929.

In 1929 Calles founded the National Revolutionary Party, which under later names, including the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), governed Mexico until 2000. The revolution became the founding story of modern Mexico, celebrated every 20 November and in the murals of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Villa and Zapata in particular became popular heroes far beyond Mexico.

Myths and facts

• Myth: the revolution was a single movement against Díaz. In fact Díaz fell within six months; most of the fighting was between revolutionary factions with very different aims.
• Myth: Villa and Zapata were long-standing allies. Their alliance lasted only from late 1914 into 1915 and had little practical coordination.
• Myth: the revolution ended neatly in 1920. Rebellions, assassinations and the Cristero War followed, and historians debate whether the revolution ended in 1917, 1920 or 1940.

Timeline

• 1910, 5 October: Madero’s Plan of San Luis Potosí calls for revolt on 20 November.
• 1910, 20 November: Start of the armed uprising against Díaz.
• 1911, 25 May: Díaz resigns after the fall of Ciudad Juárez.
• 1911, 28 November: Zapata proclaims the Plan of Ayala.
• 1913, 22 February: Madero and Pino Suárez are killed after Huerta’s coup.
• 1914, 15 July: Huerta resigns after defeats at Zacatecas and elsewhere.
• 1915, April: Obregón defeats Villa in the battles of Celaya.
• 1917, 5 February: The new Constitution is promulgated at Querétaro.
• 1919, 10 April: Zapata is killed at Chinameca.
• 1920, 21 May: Carranza is killed; Obregón takes office on 1 December.

Why it matters

The Mexican Revolution was the first great social revolution of the twentieth century, preceding the Russian Revolution by several years. It reshaped land ownership, labour law, church-state relations and national identity in Mexico, and its leaders and symbols remain central to how Mexicans understand their history.