1. MEXICAN REVOLUCION
Francisco I. Madero
Emiliano Zapata
Doroteo Arango
«Pancho Villa»
Venustiano Carranza

2. The Mexican Revolution
was brought on by, among
other factors, tremendous
disagreement among the
Mexican people over the
dictatorship of President
Porfirio Díaz, who, all
told, stayed in office for
thirty one years.

4. During that span, power was
concentrated in the hands of a select
few; the people had no power to
express their opinions or select their
public officials. Wealth was likewise
concentrated in the hands of the few,
and injustice was everywhere, in the
cities and the countryside alike.

7. Early in the 20th Century, a new generation of
young leaders arose who wanted to participate in
the political life of their country, but they were
denied the opportunity by the officials who were
already entrenched in power and who were not
about to give it up. This group of young leaders
believed that they could assume their proper role
in Mexican politics once President Díaz
announced publicly that Mexico was ready for
democracy.

10. Although the Mexican Constitution
called for public election and other
institutions of democracy, Díaz and
his supporters used their political and
economic resources to stay in power
indefinitely.

13. Francisco I. Madero was one of the
strongest believers that President
Díaz should renounce his power and
not seek re-election. Together with
other young reformers, Madero
created the ''Anti-reeleccionista''
Party, which he represented in
subsequent presidential elections.
Between elections, Madero travelled
throughout the country, campaigning
for his ideas.

16. Francisco I. Madero was a firm supporter of democracy
and of making government subject to the strict limits of
the law, and the success of Madero's movement made
him a threat in the eyes of President Díaz. Shortly before
the elections of 1910, Madero was apprehended in
Monterrey and imprisoned in San Luis Potosí. Learning
of Díaz's re-election, Madero fled to the United States in
October of 1910. In exile, he issued the ''Plan of San
Luis,'' a manifesto which declared that the elections had
been a fraud and that he would not recognize Porfirio
Díaz as the legitimate President of the Republic.

19. Instead, Madero make the daring move of
declaring himself President Pro-Temp
until new elections could be held. Madero
promised to return all land which had
been confiscated from the peasants, and
he called for universal voting rights and
for a limit of one term for the president.
Madero's call for an uprising on
November 20th, 1910, marked the
beginning of the Mexican Revolution.

21. On November 14th, in Cuchillo
Parado in the state of Chihuahua,
Toribio Ortega and a small group of
followers took up arms. On the 18th in
Puebla, Diaz's authorities uncovered
preparations for an uprising in the
home of the brothers Maximo and
Aquiles Serdán, who where made to
pay with their lives.

23. Back in Chihuahua, Madero was able to
persuade Pascual Orozco and Francisco
("Pancho") Villa to join the revolution.
Though they had no military experience,
Orozco and Villa proved to be excellent
strategists, and they earned the allegiance
of the people of northern Mexico, who
were particularly unhappy about the
abusive ranchers and landlords who ran
the North.

26. In March of 1911, Emiliano Zapata led
the uprising of the peasants of Morelos
to claim their rights over local land and
water. At the same time, armed revolt
began in many other parts of the
country. The "Maderista" troops, and
the national anger which inspired them,
defeated the army of Diaz within six
months. The decisive victory of the
Mexican Revolution was the capture of
Ciudad Juarez, just across the river
from El Paso, by Orozco and Villa.
Porfirio Diaz then resigned as President
and fled to exile in France, where he
died in 1915.

29. With the collapse of the Díaz regime,
the Mexican Congress elected Francisco
León de la Barra as President Pro-Temp
and called for national popular
elections, which resulted in the victory
of Francisco I. Madero as President and
José María Pino Suárez as VicePresident.

32. Born in Cuatro Ciénegas, Coahuila, to
Colonel Jesús Carranza and María de Jesús
Garza and educated at the Fuente
Athenaeum in Saltillo and the Mexico City
Preparatory School, Venustiano Carranza
becomes the president of Mexico in 1917.
He starts his political career as mayor of
Cuatro Ciénegas in 1887, and serves again
from 1894 to 1898. He is local deputy,
substitute federal deputy, senator for his
state, and interim governor of Coahuila in
1908.

35. Carranza is one of the first to join the antireelectionists. Madero makes him the Minister of
War and the Navy of his provisional cabinet in
Ciudad Juárez. He takes charge of the government
of Coahuila and, after Madero’s assassination, he
issues the Plan of Guadalupe on March 26, 1913, in
which Victoriano Huerta and the legislative and
judicial powers are repudiated. Proclaimed the first
chief of the constitutionalist army (because of the
1857 Constitution), Carranza begins his march to
Sonora.

38. After
Huerta
falls,
Venustiano
Carranza enters Mexico City on August
20, 1914. The disagreements between
the first chief and General Francisco
Villa become evident, and Villa rebels
when Carranza asks him to attend the
October 1, 1914 convention, convoked
to settle some of the most serious
problems
of
the
revolutionary
movement.

41. At the convention, which is held in
Aguascalientes, Francisco Villa is
removed from his leadership of the
Division of the North, and Carranza is
removed from his position as first chief.
However, Carranza ignores the results of
the Aguascalientes Convention and
abandons the capital, establishing his
government in Veracruz.

44. Born on June 5, 1878, as Doroteo
Arango Arámbula, the future Francisco
"Pancho" Villa was the son of peasants
living in San Juan del Río. As a child,
he received some education from a
local church-run school, but became a
sharecropper when his father died. At
the age of 16, he moved to Chihuahua,
but swiftly returned after his sister was
raped by a local hacienda owner.

47. After tracking down the owner,
Agustín Negrete, Villa shot him and
stole a horse before fleeing to the
Sierra Madre mountains. Roaming
the hills as a bandit, Villa's outlook
changed following a meeting with
Abraham González.

50. Pancho Villa - Fighting for Madero:
The local representative for Francisco Madero, a politician
who was opposed to the rule of dictator Porfirio Díaz,
González convinced Villa that through his banditry he could
fight for the people and hurt the hacienda owners. In 1910, the
Mexican Revolution began, with Madero's pro-democracy,
antirreeleccionista volunteers confronting Díaz's federal
troops. As the revolution spread, Villa joined with Madero's
forces and aided in winning the first Battle of Ciudad Juárez in
1911. Later that year, he married María Luz Corral. All across
Mexico, Madero's volunteers won victories, driving Díaz into
exile.

53. Pancho Villa - Defeating Huerta:
Operating in conjunction with Carranza's Constitutionalist
Army of Mexico, Villa operated in the northern provinces.
In March 1913, the fight became personal for Villa when
Huerta ordered the murder of his friend Abraham
González. Building a force of volunteers and mercenaries,
Villa quickly won a string of victories at Ciudad Juárez,
Tierra Blanca, Chihuahua, and Ojinaga. These earned him
the governorship of Chihuahua. During this time, his
stature had grown to the point that US Army invited him to
meet with its senior leaders, including Gen. John J.
Pershing, at Fort Bliss, TX.

56. Returning to Mexico, Villa gathered
supplies for a drive south. Utilizing the
railroads, Villa's men attacked quickly and
won battles against Huerta's forces at
Gómez Palacio and Torreón. Following this
last victory, Carranza, who was concerned
that Villa might beat him to Mexico City,
ordered him to divert his attack towards
Saltillo or risk losing his coal supply.

59. Needing coal to fuel his trains, Villa
complied, but offered his resignation
after the battle. Before it was accepted,
he was convinced by his staff officers
to retract it and defy Carranza by
attacking the silver producing city of
Zacatecas.

62. Pancho Villa - Battling Carranza:
Following Carranza's departure, Villa and Zapata
occupied the capital. In 1915, Villa was forced to
abandon Mexico City after number of incidents involving
his troops. This helped pave the way for the return of
Carranza and his followers.

65. With Carranza reasserting power, Villa
and Zapata revolted against the regime.
To combat Villa, Carranza sent his ablest
general, Álvaro Obregón north. Meeting
at the Battle of Celaya on April 13,
1915, Villa was badly defeated suffering
4,000 killed and 6,000 captured. Villa's
position was further weakened by the
United States' refusal to sell him
weapons.

68. Pancho Villa - Retirement & Death:
Following Celaya and the American incursion, Villa's
influence began to wane. While he remained active,
Carranza had shifted his military focus to dealing with
the more dangerous threat posed by Zapata in the south.
Villa's last major military action was a raid against
Ciudad Juárez in 1919.

71. The following year he negotiated
his peaceful retirement with new
president Adolfo de la Huerta.
Retiring to the hacienda of El
Canutillo, he was assassinated
while traveling through Parral,
Chihuahua in his car on July 20,
1923.