(8 Aug 1879 – 10 Apr 1919) a Mexican revolutionary who famously said “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” Emiliano was orphaned at 16, but he made his own way, taking pride in his independence and his ability to make a living for himself off of his own land. He is credited for inspiring the Agrarian Agitation that came to be known as ‘Zapatismo’. Zapata was born in a noted family in Morelos, Mexico but his education was only limited to book-keeping and after growing up, he earned his living as a watermelon farmer and also dealt in mules and bricks. However, the peasant population in Mexico were routinely oppressed by the landowning classes which precipitated the Revolution of 1910 and Zapata became the leader of the faction in Morelos.
When the land-owning class pushed him and his fellow peasant farmers off the land, leaving them with nothing, Emiliano used his position of leadership within his community to lead a revolt. He was soon positioned as the central leader of the revolution in the south of Mexico uniting all the peasant leaders under ‘Liberation Army of the South’, and his forces helped to remove dictator Porfirio Diaz from power. Unfortunately, after the successful ousting of dictator Diaz, civil war broke out in Mexico as various revolutionary leaders all battled for power. Zapata, who commanded an army of 27,000 men, wanted only land reform, so that his people, and people across Mexico, could make a living. “The land should belong to the people who work it, ” he declared.
But other revolutionary leaders, Francisco I. Madero and Venustiano Carranza, denounced him and set a “scorched earth” campaign against him and his Zapatista rebels, burning homes and crops and killing the inhabitants, conscripting them, or sending them to labor camps. Zapata had finally retaken his home-state of Morelos from Carranza’s troops, when Jesús María Guajardo, a general in Carranza’s army, ambushed him in la Hacienda de Chinameca, where shooters waited on the roof. They shot him 20 times.
He died still fighting for what and who he believed in, the people of Mexico. He died “a slave to principles, and not to men.” 2019, the 100th anniversary of his death, was declared “El Año del Caudillo del Sur, Emiliano Zapata Salazar Day,” in Mexico. May his memory endure another 100 years, and beyond.
