Mexican Revolution of 1910

Mexican Revolution of 1910

(background to Like Water for Chocolate)

• A major armed struggle that started with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat and Mexican President, Porfirio Díaz.

• Díaz’s regime (1876-1910), known as the Porfiriato, despite bringing advances in industry and modernization, is mainly remembered for its human rights abuses and violation of earlier liberal reforms.

• Despite some initial reforms, like a policy of no consecutive terms for President, Díaz soon became a dictator and went against his own earlier policy(ies). Through the army, the Rurales, and gangs of thugs, Diaz frightened people into voting for him and rigged elections

• The working class, farmers, and peasants, all suffered extreme exploitation in the name of technological and industrial progress during the Porfiriato.

• Wealth, political power, and access to education were concentrated among a handful of families, mainly of European descent, who controlled large estates. Most of the people in Mexico were landless. Foreign interests also had a lot of power in Mexico at the time: British, French, and U.S. companies.

• Díaz’s new land laws virtually undid all earlier reforms so that no peasant or farmer could claim the land he occupied without formal legal title. Small farmers were helpless and angry. Backed by popular peasant support, leaders such as Francisco I. Madero, Pancho Villa, and Emiliano Zapata would launch a rebellion against Díaz, escalating into the eventual Mexican Revolution.

• Madero unseated Díaz for a short while, only to be unseated himself by Victoriano Huerta, who lacked the support of the U.S. President, Woodrow Wilson.

• Carranza, a rancher and political activist, set about with his group of “Constitutionalists” to overthrow Huerta with the secret support of the U.S.A.; Villa, Zapata, and others joined in the fighting against Huerta, with Carranza becoming president in 1914.

• Carranza, in turn, was driven out of power in 1915 by Villa and Zapata.

• Villa and Zapata viewed by some as revolutionary liberators supporting peasants and poor farmers; others viewed them as mere exploitative bandits.

• Women an important social force in the Mexican Revolution. The 1884 Civil Code instated by Díaz restricted women at home and in the workplace. The Code created inequalities amongst women and ethnic minorities who suffered politically, socially, economically and religiously under the Porfirian regime.

• During the Revolution women were prominent political activists, thinkers, writers, figures, and role models; many were imprisoned as a result.

• The “revolutionary period” only ended in about 1920, but coups and uprisings continued well afterwards. Figures and ideals of the Mexican Revolution are still often invoked in current-day Mexican politics.

Source: “Mexican Revolution” in Wikipedia.org.

Accessed Sept. 09, 2008.