Emiliano Zapata: A Biography (Greenwood Biographies)

184 Pages·2011·1.34 MB·English

by  Albert P. Rolls

EMILIANO ZAPATA
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EMILIANO ZAPATA
A Biography
Albert Rolls
GREENWOOD BIOGRAPHIES
Copyright 2011 by Albert Rolls
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except
for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission
in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rolls, Albert.
Emiliano Zapata : a biography / Albert Rolls.
p. cm. — (Greenwood biographies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-313-38080-8 (hardcopy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-38081-5
(ebook) 1. Zapata, Emiliano, 1879–1919. 2. Revolutionaries—
Mexico—Biography. 3. Mexico—History—Revolution, 1910–1920.
4. Mexico—Politics and government—1910–1946. I. Title.
F1234.Z37R65 2011
972.08'1092—dc22 [B] 2011013272
ISBN: 978-0-313-38080-8
EISBN: 978-0-313-38081-5
15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5
This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.
Visit www.abc-clio.com for details.
Greenwood
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC
ABC-CLIO, LLC
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Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911
This book is printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Series Foreword vii
Preface ix
Timeline: Events in the Life of Emiliano Zapata xiii
Chapter 1 A Child of Anenecuilco, Morelos 1
Chapter 2 Zapata’s Early Political Education 13
Chapter 3 Bringing the Revolution to Morelos 27
Chapter 4 The Revolution Continues and the Plan de Ayala 45
Chapter 5 In the Face of Brutality and Gentleness 59
Chapter 6 The Rise and Fall of Huerta 71
Chapter 7 The Revolution Enters a New Phase 87
Chapter 8 Starting Over Again 103
Chapter 9 The Battle for Morelos 115
Chapter 10 Beyond the 1917 Constitution 127
Chapter 11 The Final Betrayal 137
vi CONTENTS
Appendix 149
Bibliography 153
Index 159
SERIES FOREWORD
I n response to high school and public library needs, Greenwood devel-
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viii SERIES FOREWORD
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PREFACE
Denounced as a bandit and called the Attila of the South during the
Mexican Revolution early in the 20th century, Emiliano Zapata was
later made, by an act of the Mexican legislature, an offi cial national hero
and came to be regarded as one of Mexico’s most notable 20th-century
fi gures. The anniversary of his death is a day of national mourning,
“an occasion for speeches celebrating Zapata’s revolutionary career and
presidential pronouncements on agrarian matters.” 1 Such celebrations
seem counter to the spirit of Zapata’s life and of the post-revolutionary
political system, which, after all, never fully supported the ideals for
which Zapata fought. More recent moves to deemphasize his place in
Mexican history in state-approved textbooks seem to provide a more
genuine acknowledgment of who Zapata was, that is, a man who was
willing to risk marginalization for the sake of struggling for what he be-
lieved was right. “As a national symbol Zapata connotes social justice,”
the scholar Emily Hind explains. He sought the return of land taken by
wealthy landowners “to landless Mexicans,” and in this respect, “the
rhetoric of the offi cial history was in tension with the [government’s]
neglect of rural issues.”2