Mexico Revolution

A little more than 100 years ago a Mexican peasant named Emiliano Zapata gathered a rural army from the plantations and villages of southern Mexico, seized the lands of the haciendas, and began to distribute them among the peasants of Anenecuilco, his hometown, in the state of Morelos. Outraged and impatient with the ceaseless destitution of the indigenous peoples at the hands of the landowners, he had decided to take justice in his hands.

The legend of Francisco Villa is full of heroism, tragedy and romance. It is the story of a poor farmer boy who became a bandit out of necessity, after avenging an injustice on his family; a military genius who flew from an oppressive government to lead the largest revolutionary army in his country's history, and defeated dictatorship to become Mexico's liberator, only to fall again in disgrace when his troops abandoned him or were massacred by the enemy.

En febrero de 1913, durante la Decena Trágica, el encargado de negocios ad interim de Japón, Horiguchi Kumaichi, acogió, salvó y consoló—con graves riesgos para su vida y la de los suyos—a la esposa, padres y dos hermanas del presidente Francisco I. Madero.

Zapata was associated with political efforts against Daz and the landowning hacendados from an early age, and when the Revolution emerged in the year 1910, he was placed as a key figure in the peasant insurgence in Morelos. He established the Freedom Army of the South with the help of certain other peasant leaders, and he rapidly rose to become its undisputed head.