WThe Mexican Revolution was a major revolution, including a sequence of armed struggles, lasting roughly from 1910 to 1920, that transformed Mexican culture and government. Its outbreak in 1910 resulted from the increasing unpopularity of the 31-year-long regime of Porfirio Díaz and the regime's failure to find a controlled solution to presidential succession. This resulted in a power struggle among competing elites, which created the opportunity for agrarian insurrection. Wealthy landowner Francisco I. Madero challenged Díaz in the 1910 presidential election, and following the rigged results, revolted under the Plan of San Luis Potosí.
WThe 6th Infantry Regiment ("Regulars") was formed 11 January 1812. Zachary Taylor, later the twelfth President of the United States, was a commander of the unit. The motto, "Regulars, By God!" derives from the Battle of Chippawa, in which British Major General Phineas Riall noticed that the approaching regiment had on the uniforms of militia, which the British had defeated at Queenston Heights. Instead, the Americans pressed the attack. Riall is believed to have said, "Those are Regulars, By God!", though the only source of this was opposing U.S. General Winfield Scott.
WThe ABC countries, or ABC powers, are the South American countries of Argentina, Brazil and Chile, seen as the three most powerful, most influential and wealthiest countries in South America. The term was mostly used in the first half of the 20th century, when they worked together to develop common interests and a coordinated approach to issues in the region with relatively little influence from outside powers, in contrast with the Cold War governments.
WBefore the 1910 Mexican Revolution that overthrew Porfirio Díaz, most land in post-independence Mexico was owned by wealthy Mexicans and foreigners, with small holders and indigenous communities retaining little productive land. This was a dramatic change from the situation of land tenure during the colonial era, when the Spanish crown protected holdings of indigenous communities that were mostly engaged in subsistence agriculture. Mexican elites created large landed estates (haciendas) in many parts of Mexico, especially the north where indigenous peoples were generally not agriculturalists. Small holders, many of whom were mixed-race mestizos, engaged with the commercial economy. Since foreigners were excluded from colonial Mexico, landholding was in the hands of subjects of the Spanish crown. With Mexican independence in 1821 and the emergence of Mexican Liberals, the economic development and modernization of the country was a key priority. Liberals targeted corporate landholding by both the Roman Catholic Church and indigenous villages, for they were seen as impediments to their modernization project. When liberals gained power in the mid nineteenth century, they passed laws in the Liberal Reform that mandated the breakup and sale of these corporate lands. When liberal army general Porfirio Díaz took power in 1876, he embarked on a more sweeping program of modernization and economic development. His land policies sought to lure foreign entrepreneurs to invest in Mexican mining, agriculture, and ranching. It was successful, with Mexican and foreign investors controlling the majority of Mexican territory by the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Peasant mobilization against the landed elites during the revolution and calls for "Mexico for the Mexicans" prompted land reform in the post-revolutionary period.
WBackroads Pragmatists: Mexico's Melting Pot and Civil Rights in the United States is a history book by Ruben Flores about the connection between post-revolutionary Mexico and the American Civil Rights Movement. University of Pennsylvania Press published the book in 2014. It won the Society for U.S. Intellectual History Book Award the next year.
WThe Mexican Border War, or the Border Campaign, refers to the military engagements which took place in the Mexico–United States border region of North America during the Mexican Revolution. The Bandit War in Texas was part of the Border War. From the beginning of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, the United States Army was stationed in force along the border and on several occasions fought with Mexican rebels or federals. The height of the conflict came in 1916 when revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked the American border town of Columbus, New Mexico. In response, the United States Army, under the direction of General John J. Pershing, launched an expedition into northern Mexico, to find and capture Villa. Though the operation was a failure in that Villa was not captured, it was partially successful in that the army found and engaged the Villista rebels, and in killing Villa's two top lieutenants. The revolutionary himself escaped and the American army returned to the United States in January 1917. Conflict at the border continued, however, and the United States launched several additional, though smaller operations into Mexican territory until after the American victory in the Battle of Ambos Nogales, leading to the establishment of a permanent border wall. Conflict was not only subject to Villistas and Americans; Maderistas, Carrancistas, Constitutionalistas and Germans also engaged in battle with American forces during this period.
WThe Catholic Church in Mexico is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, his Curia in Rome and the national Mexican Episcopal Conference. The history of the Catholic Church in Mexico dates from the period of the Spanish conquest (1519–1521) and it has continued as an institution in Mexico into the twenty-first century. In the late 20th century, Eastern Catholic jurisdictions were established in Mexico.
WIn 2010, Mexico celebrated both the 200th anniversary of its Independence and 100th anniversary of its Revolution. The entire year was proclaimed by President Felipe Calderón as "Año de la Patria", or "Year of the Nation." 16 September 1810 is the day of the "Grito de Dolores" or Miguel Hidalgo's call to take up arms against the Spanish colonial government. The start of the Mexican Revolution is celebrated as being 20 November 1910, when Francisco "Pancho" Villa and Pascual Orozco led the first insurrectionist attack against the regime of Porfirio Díaz. Events and other promotions of these celebrations were designed to link of Mexico's identity and historic continuity. During a speech at the inauguration of the Casa de Allende Historic Museum, President Felipe Calderón called upon Mexico to use the upcoming anniversaries to reflect on where the country has been and to think about what kind of Mexico descendants will inherit in the future. He said the vision of the insurgents of the War of Independence was forward, not backward, so every celebration of these past events must consider the future as well.
WThe Constitution of Mexico, formally the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, is the current constitution of Mexico. It was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in the State of Querétaro, by a constituent convention, during the Mexican Revolution. It was approved by the Constituent Congress on 5 February 1917. It is the successor to the Constitution of 1857, and earlier Mexican constitutions.
WLa Cruz Blanca Neutral was a volunteer infirmary and relief service established during the Mexican Revolution to care for those wounded in the conflict. The Red Cross refused to treat insurgents and the Neutral White Cross was developed to treat all combatants. After their initial success in Ciudad Juárez, the organisation spread out through 25 states in Mexico for the duration of the war. It continued as a quasi-governmentally subsidised organisation into the 1940s, when it was converted into an organisation to assist children. The organisation is still operating in Mexico City.
WReferences and depictions of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, places and things named for and commemorating him.
WThe Battle of Guerrero, or the Battle of San Geronimo, in March 1916, was the first military engagement between the rebels of Pancho Villa and the United States during the Mexican Expedition. After a long ride, elements of the American 7th Cavalry Regiment encountered a large force of Villistas at the town of Guerrero in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. In what has been called the "last true cavalry charge," the Americans assaulted the town and routed the defenders, inflicting over seventy-five casualties on the Mexicans with the loss of only five men wounded.
WMaderism was the first of the movements that formed the Mexican Revolution. It was led by Francisco I. Madero between 1909 and 1910.
WThe Magonista Rebellion of 1911 was an early uprising of the Mexican Revolution organized by the Liberal Party of Mexico, which was only successful in northern Baja California. It is named after Ricardo Flores Magón, one of the leaders of the PLM. The Magonistas controlled Tijuana and Mexicali for about six months, beginning with the "liberation" of Mexicali on January 29, 1911. The rebellion was launched against the rule of Porfirio Díaz but was put down by forces loyal to Francisco I. Madero. Acting on a tip from Madero's agents, leaders of the Magonista movement were arrested in the United States.
WThe Maximato was a transitional period in the historical and political development of Mexico from 1928 to 1934. Named after former president Plutarco Elías Calles's sobriquet el Jefe Máximo, the Maximato was the period that Calles continued to exercise power and exert influence without holding the presidency. The six-year period was the term that President-elect Alvaro Obregón would have served if he had not been assassinated immediately after the July 1928 elections. There needed to be some kind of political solution to the presidential succession crisis. Calles could not hold the presidency again because of restrictions on re-election without an interval out of power, but he remained the dominant figure in Mexico.
WThe military history of Mexico encompasses armed conflicts within what that nation's territory, dating from before the arrival of Europeans in 1519 to the present era. Mexican military history is replete with small-scale revolts, foreign invasions, civil wars, indigenous uprisings, and coups d’etat by disgruntled military leaders. Mexico's colonial-era military was not established until the eighteenth century. After the Spanish conquest of central Mexico in the early sixteenth century, the Spanish crown did not rely on a standing military, but the crown responded to the external threat of a British invasion by establishing a standing military for the first time following the Seven Years' War (1756–63). The regular army units and militias had a short history when in the early 19th century, the unstable situation in Spain with the Napoleonic invasion gave rise to an insurgency for independence, propelled by militarily untrained, darker complected masses fight for the independence of Mexico. The Mexican War of Independence (1810–21) saw royalist and insurgent armies battling to a stalemate in 1820. That stalemate ended with the royalist military officer turned insurgent, Agustín de Iturbide persuading the guerrilla leader of the insurgency, Vicente Guerrero, to join in a unified movement for independence, forming the Army of the Three Guarantees. The royalist military had to decide whether to support newly independent Mexico. With the collapse of the Spanish state and the establishment of first a monarchy under Iturbide and then a republic, the state was a weak institution. The Roman Catholic Church and the military weathered independence better. Military men dominated Mexico's nineteenth-century history, most particularly General Antonio López de Santa Anna, under whom the Mexican military were defeated by Texas insurgents for independence in 1836 and then the U.S. invasion of Mexico (1846–48). With the overthrow of Santa Anna in 1855 and the installation of a government of political liberals, Mexico briefly had civilian heads of state. The Liberal Reforms that were instituted by Benito Juárez sought to curtail the power of the military and the church and wrote a new constitution in 1857 enshrining these principles. Conservatives comprised large land owners, the Church, and most of the regular army revolted against the Liberals, fighting a civil war. The Conservative military lost on the battlefield. But Conservatives sought another solution, supporting the French intervention in Mexico (1862–65). The Mexican army loyal to the liberal republic were unable to stop the French army's invasion, briefly halting it in with a victory at Puebla on 5 May 1862. Mexican Conservatives supported the installation of Maximilian Hapsburg as Emperor of Mexico, propped up by the French and Mexican armies. With the military aid of the U.S. flowing to the republican government in exile of Juárez, the French withdrew its military supporting othe monarchy and Maximilian was caught and executed. The Mexican army that emerged in the wake of the French Intervention was young and battle tested, not part of the military tradition dating to the colonial and early independence eras.
WThe Monument to the Revolution is a landmark and monument commemorating the Mexican Revolution. It is located in Plaza de la República, near to the heart of the major thoroughfares Paseo de la Reforma and Avenida de los Insurgentes in downtown Mexico City.
WThe Niagara Falls peace conference, sometimes referred to as the ABC Conference, started on May 20, 1914, when representatives from Argentina, Brazil and Chile—the ABC Powers—met in Niagara Falls, Canada, for diplomatic negotiations in order to avoid war between the United States and Mexico, during the era of the Mexican Revolution.
WThe Pancho Villa Expedition—now known officially in the United States as the Mexican Expedition, but originally referred to as the "Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army"—was an unsuccessful military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa from March 14, 1916, to February 7, 1917, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920.
WThe Plan of Agua Prieta was a manifesto, or plan, drawn up by three revolutionary generals of the Mexican Revolution, declaring themselves in revolt against the government of President Venustiano Carranza. It was proclaimed by Obregón on 22 April 1920, in English and 23 April in Spanish in the northern border city of Agua Prieta, Sonora.
WThe Plan of Ayala was a document drafted by revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata during the Mexican Revolution. In it, Zapata denounced President Francisco I. Madero for his perceived betrayal of the revolutionary ideals, embodied in Madero's Plan de San Luis Potosí, and set out his vision of land reform. The Plan was first proclaimed on November 28, 1911 in the town of Ayala, Morelos, and was later amended on June 19, 1914. John Womack calls the Plan the Zapatistas' "Sacred Scripture".
WThe Plan of Guadalupe was a political manifesto which was proclaimed on March 26, 1913 by Venustiano Carranza in response to the overthrow and execution of President Francisco I. Madero, which had occurred during the Ten Tragic Days of February 1913. The manifesto was released from the Hacienda De Guadalupe, which is where the Plan derives its name, nearly a month after the assassination of Madero. The plan was limited, it denounced Victoriano Huerta from the presidency and proposed the restoration of a constitutional government.
WThe Plan of San Luis de Potosí was a political document written by presidential candidate Francisco I. Madero, who was jailed prior to the elections, and escaped to write the Plan. It was published on October 5, 1910. It called for nullifying the 1910 election of Porfirio Díaz, claimed a provisional presidency for Madero, and called for Mexicans to revolt on November 20, 1910.
WRevolution Day is an official Mexican government holiday, celebrated annually in Mexico on November 20, marking the start of what became the Mexican Revolution.
WThe Ruby Murders is the popular name for three separate incidents involving the deaths of six American citizens near the town of Ruby, Arizona. The first incident occurred in February 1920 when Mexican bandits robbed and killed the two owners of the Ruby Mercantile. A second attack happened in April 1921 when Mexican bandits robbed and killed the store's new owners. Two of the bandits were arrested for the crime, but they briefly escaped custody in July 1922 after killing another two men, which led to the largest manhunt in the history of the Southwest.
WThe Ten Tragic Days was a series of events that took place in Mexico City between 9 and 19 February 1913, during the Mexican Revolution. Armed conflict in the capital broke out, with rebels led by General Félix Díaz, nephew of the former president, and General Bernardo Reyes, seeking to overthrow democratically elected president Francisco I. Madero, with the support of the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson. Madero's key general Victoriano Huerta defected to the rebels. The coup d'état resulted in the arrest of Madero and his vice president, José María Pino Suárez, who then resigned. Although there was the possibility that they could go into exile, as had former President Porfirio Díaz in May 1911, Madero and Pino Suárez were murdered on 22 February 1913. General Huerta became President of Mexico, with the support of most state governors. But a broad-based revulsion against Huerta's coup and the murders led to civil war between Huerta's government and revolutionary forces in northern and southern Mexico.
WThe Teoloyucan Treaties were signed on August 13, 1914, at Teoloyucan, State of Mexico, Mexico between the revolutionary army and forces loyal to Victoriano Huerta. The revolutionary army was represented by Álvaro Obregón and Lucio Blanco. The Federal Army was represented by General Gustavo A. Salas and Admiral Othón P. Blanco, while Mexico City was represented by Eduardo Iturbe. The treaties established the surrender of the Federal Army and its dissolution.
WThe United States involvement in the Mexican Revolution was varied and seemingly contradictory, first supporting and then repudiating Mexican regimes during the period 1910–1920. For both economic and political reasons, the U.S. government generally supported those who occupied the seats of power, but could withhold official recognition. The U.S. supported the regime of Porfirio Díaz after initially withholding recognition since he came to power by coup. In 1909, Díaz and U.S. President Taft met in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Prior to Woodrow Wilson's inauguration on March 4, 1913, the U.S. Government focused on just warning the Mexican military that decisive action from the U.S. military would take place if lives and property of U.S. nationals living in the country were endangered. President William Howard Taft sent more troops to the US-Mexico border but did not allow them to intervene directly in the conflict, a move which Congress opposed. Twice during the Revolution, the U.S. sent troops into Mexico, to occupy Veracruz in 1914 and to northern Mexico in 1916 in a failed attempt to capture Pancho Villa. Although U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America was to assume the region was the sphere of influence of the U.S., articulated in the Monroe Doctrine and in Theodore Roosevelt's corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted the right of the U.S. to intervene militarily in the region to restore order if in the U.S. view a nation could not or would not do it itself, the U.S. role in the Mexican Revolution has been exaggerated. It did not directly intervene in the Mexican Revolution in a sustained manner.
WThe United States occupation of Veracruz began with the Battle of Veracruz and lasted for seven months, as a response to the Tampico Affair of April 9, 1914. The incident came in the midst of poor diplomatic relations between Mexico and the United States, and was related to the ongoing Mexican Revolution.
WThe Francisco Villa Museum is dedicated to the life and times of the Mexican Revolutionary, Francisco "Pancho" Villa. The museum is in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico, and is housed in the former estate of General Francisco Villa and his widow, María Luz Corral de Villa.
WThe Yaqui Wars, were a series of armed conflicts between New Spain, and the later Mexican Republic, against the Yaqui Indians. The period began in 1533 and lasted until 1929. The Yaqui Wars, along with the Caste War against the Maya, were the last conflicts of the centuries long Mexican Indian Wars. Over the course of nearly 400 years, the Spanish and the Mexicans repeatedly launched military campaigns into Yaqui territory which resulted in several serious battles and massacres.
WThe Ypiranga Incident occurred on April 21, 1914, at the port of Veracruz in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. The SS Ypiranga was a German steamer that was commissioned to transport arms and munitions to the Mexican federal government under Victoriano Huerta. The United States had placed Mexico under an arms embargo to stifle the flow of weaponry to the war-torn state, then in the throes of civil war, forcing Huerta's government to look to Europe and Japan for armaments.
WZapatismo is used by historians to refer to the armed movement identified with the ideas of Emiliano Zapata, leader of the Mexican Revolution, reflected mainly in the Plan de Ayala term 1911. The members of the Liberation Army of the South led by Zapata were known as "Zapatistas".