Emiliano Zapata

President Diaz of Mexico:  What is your name?

Response:  Zapata.  Emiliano Zapata.

The above dialogue is from a memorable scene in the 1952 movie (that I saw at the Oswego Theater) Viva Zapata! with Marlon Brando (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, but won by Gary Cooper for High Noon) in the starring role.  

So who was Emiliano Zapata?  He was born in 1879 in a rural village in the Mexican State of Morelos in an era when peasant communities came under increasing pressure from the small-landowning class who monopolized land and water resources for their sugar-cane production.  The land owning class had the support of dictator Porfirio Díaz (Mexican President 1877-1880 and 1884–1911).

Early on Zapata participated in political movements against Díaz and the landowning hacendados.  When the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910 he was thus positioned as a central leader of the peasant revolt in Morelos. 

Cooperating with a number of others, Zapata formed the Liberation Army of the South, of which he soon became the undisputed leader. His forces contributed to the fall of Díaz, defeating the Federal Army in the Battle of Cuautla (May 1911).  

When the revolutionary leader Francisco I. Madero became president he disavowed the role of the Zapatistas, denouncing them as simple bandits.  Madero sent the Federal Army to root out the Zapatistas in Morelos.  However, to the contrary, Zapata succeeded in driving Madero's forces out of Morelos.

In 1913 a coup against President Madero led to civil war among various Mexican leaders, including Zapata.  He focused his energies on rebuilding society in Morelos (which he now controlled), instituting the land reforms of his Plan de Ayala. 

Zapata initiated guerrilla warfare against the group led by Venustiano Carranza, who in turn invaded Morelos, employing scorched-earth tactics to oust the Zapatista rebels. Zapata once again re-took Morelos in 1917 and held most of the state against Carranza's troops until 1919.

On April 10, 1919 (103 years ago), Zapata was invited to a meeting by a supporter of Carranza who promised to defect to Zapata's side.  When Zapata arrived for the meeting, he was riddled with bullets by Carranza's men in an assassination.  This was graphically portrayed in a second memorable scene from Viva Zapata!