Exam Study Guide #2

Antonio Diaz Soto Y Gama

A revolutionist and politician during the time of the Mexican Revolution, Antonio Diaz Soto y Gama was born in San Luis Potosi on January 23, 1880. Being an anarchist at the turn of the 19th century, he had evolved into a devout Roman Catholic Conservative over time, which would drastically influence his views on the Revolution. His contributions to the Revolution are brought to light in his strikes and uprisings in the early 20th century, as well as his contributions to Liberal Parties and newspapers calling for revolution and reform all across Mexico.

1920 Election

A well known general in the Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1920, Alvaro Obregon became president of Mexico in 1920 by holding his own election. He was able to do this after he launched a revolt against Vensutiano Carranza, which led to his assassination and guaranteed success for Obregon in the subsequent election.

Punitive Expedition

Otherwise known as the Pancho Villa Expedition, the Punitive Expedition occurred during the Mexican Revolution and was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces led by Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa. The U.S. sought to capture Villa for his military engagement at Columbus.This operation lasted from March 14, 1916, to February 7, 1917.

Pact of the Embassy

An agreement, also known as the Pact of the Ciudadela, signed in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City early in the morning of February 19, 1913, that ended the Decena Trágica (the Ten Tragic Days). After General Victoriano Huerta, commander of the government forces, seized control by deposing President Francisco Madero, U.S. Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson intervened to end the destructive artillery duel in the heart of Mexico City. In the U.S. Embassy Wilson convened and mediated negotiations between Huerta and rebel commander General Felix Díaz, whose forces remained in control of parts of the capital.

Anticlericalism

Anticlericalism is strong opposition to the clergy for its real or alleged influence in political and social affairs. This is also applicable to the clergy's doctrinairism, for its privileges or property, or for any other reason. Anticlericalism became prevalent in Mexico in the period between 1924 to 1938, when suppressive anticlerical legislation stood alongside social reforms.

Article 3

Article 3 called for lay education, which paved the way for Jose Vasconcelos to set up a functional education system in Mexico. It essentially established free, obligatory, and secular public education free from clerical supervision, and secularized the Mexican state.

Railroads

As early as 1856, the government of Mexico had the right to acquire private or public land when needed to be used for public utility, including construction of a railroad. However, in May of 1882, the Mexican government enacted a new law establishing a judicial procedure that would expedite the transfer of ownership of land from the proprietor to the railroad, eliminating many provisions and regulations that had previously restricted development. The expropriation of land provided the Mexican government with an agenda of building an extensive railway system and would encourage foreign investors. The government targeted the land in rural areas, where many people had failed to pay their taxes for many years, paid very little taxes that were basically insignificant to the government, or held improper titles to the land they occupied. The government concurred that it would be more economically beneficial for the land to be used for the construction of railroads.

Pablo Gonzalez

Pablo González Garza was born in Lampazos de Naranjo, Nuevo León on May 5, 1879, and was a Mexican General during the Mexican Revolution. He is considered to be the main organizer of the assassination of Emiliano Zapata.

Bernardo Reyes

Born in August 1850, in Guadalajara, Mexico, Bernardo Reyes was a Mexican general and politician who had a large influence in the Mexican Revolution. He was Madero's former supporter, and also led the first uprising against him, which was easily suppressed. Thrown in prison, Reyes saw another opportunity to seize control of Madero's regime on February 9, 1913, but was killed in the initial assault on the National Palace.

Emiliano Zapata

Born on August 8, 1879, Anenecuilco, Mexico, Emiliano Zapata was a Mexican revolutionary and advocate of agrarianism who fought in guerrilla actions during the Mexican Revolution. He formed and commanded the Liberation Army of the South, an important revolutionary brigade, and his followers were known as Zapatistas. Zapata died on April 10, 1919.

Victoriano Huerta

Born on December 22, 1850, in Colotlán, Mexico, General Victoriano Huerta served Porfirio Diaz's successor, Francisco Madero. When part of the army in Mexico City rebelled against Madero, Huerta joined the rebels, compelled Madero to resign and assumed the presidency, establishing a military dictatorship. His rule was repressive, and he was almost immediately confronted with opposition, which drove him out.

Jose Yves Limantour

Born on December 26, 1854, in Mexico City, José Yves Limantour y Marquet was a Mexican financier who served as Secretary of the Finance of Mexico from 1893 until 1911, following the fall of the Porfirio Díaz regime. Limantour contributed in establishing the gold standard in Mexico, suspending free coinage of silver, and mandating only government coins be used. Along with helping set Mexico on a strong financial basis, Limantour is recognized for securing the national debt in 1899 with a consortium of foreign banks. This would help Mexico's economy at the time of the outbreak of the Revolution.

Ramon Corral

Born on January 10, 1854, in Álamos, Mexico, Ramon Corral Verdugo was the 6th Vice President of Mexico under Porfirio Díaz from 1904 until their resignations in May 1911. He is known for his writings against the Pesqueira administration, which began his journey into politics.

Pancho Villa

Born on June 5, 1878, in San Juan del Rio, Durango, Mexico, Pancho Villa started off as a bandit who was later inspired by reformer Francisco Madero, helping him to win the Mexican Revolution. After a coup by Victoriano Huerta, Villa formed his own army to oppose the dictator, with more battles to follow as Mexican leadership remained in a state of flux. He was assassinated on July 20, 1923, in Parral, Mexico.

Henry Lane Wilson

Born on November 3, 1857, in Crawfordsville, IN, Henry Lane Wilson was an American diplomat best known to students of American history for his activities as ambassador to Mexico between 1910 and 1913, during the tumultuous Mexican Revolution, but Wilson also played a significant role after 1913 in the formulation of Republican party policy toward Mexico.

Luis Morones

Born on October 11, 1890, in Mexico City, Luis Napoleon Morones was one of the most recognizable characters of the revolutionary era in Mexico. He led the largest, most important mass labor organization of the 1920s, known as CROM (Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana, or the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers).

Francisco Mugica

Born on September 3, 1884 in Tinguindin (Michoacán), Mexico, Francisco Jose Mugica Velázquez was a military revolutionist and politician who was also a constituent in the Constitutional Congress of 1917. His ideas were summarized and mostly implemented in articles 3, 27, and 123 of the Constitution of 1917. A governer and secretariat, Mugica was a notable political figure and revolutionist of the time.

Ricardo Flores Magon

Cipriano Ricardo Flores Magón was born on September 16, 1874 in San Antonio Eloxochitlán, Oaxaca, Mexico. A frequently noted Mexican anarchist and social reform activist, Magon's brothers Enrique and Jesús were also active in politics. Followers of the Magón brothers were known as Magonistas. He has been considered an important participant in the social movement that sparked the Mexican Revolution.

Commercial Agriculture

Commercial agriculture in Mexico was largely confined to haciendas controlled by government officials such as those in Porfirio Diaz's regime. These haciendas were largely populated workforces that would grow crops in mass quantities mostly for exports. Unfair wages and working conditions were quite common and this would eventually lead to the Mexican Revolution. The conclusion of the Revolution would see the land redistributed in the form of ejidos.

Constitutionalists

Constitutionalists were a faction of citizens in the Mexican Revolution consisting of mainly middle-class liberals, urbanites, and intellectuals who desired a constitution under the guidelines "Mexico for Mexicans." Those holding opposing viewpoints were known as conventionalists. After the revolution they would dominate Mexican politics as the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) until the late 1970s.

Debt Peonage

Debt peonage in Mexico was basically a lend of land to work and live on by the Porfirian government. The problem was that the charges required to live and work on the land often superseded the profit those living on the land could produce. It was an unfair system that strongly resembled slavery.

Plan de Guadalupe

Drafted on March 23, 1913, the Plan de Guadalupe was a document drafted by Governor of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza, in response to the overthrow and execution of President Francisco Madero during the Ten Tragic Days of February in 1913. Just three days later, Carranza proclaimed the plan from his hacienda of Guadalupe. The plan was limited, calling for the overthrow of Victoriano Huerta, free elections, and return of rule of law. The plan had no hint of the social demands found in Madero's Plan de San Luis Potosí or agrarian reform.

Anarchism

During the decades between 1910 and 1930, Mexico was swept into the maelstrom of revolution. Throughout this period, the ideology of Anarchism was a very strong force internationally.

Zapata's Assassination

Emiliano Zapata was known for being a stone in the shoe of military leaders at the time due to his persistent need to help the poor and downtrodden citizens of Mexico. Because of this, in 1916, President Venustiano Carranza ordered his generals to get rid of Emiliano Zapata by any means necessary. Taking place on April 10, 1919, Zapata was betrayed, ambushed and killed in Morelos by government forces working with Colonel Jesus Guajardo.

Queretaro Convention

Following the fall of Porfirio Diaz's regime, various revolutionary factions struggled for power. This struggle led to the constitutional convention of 1917, which was held in Queretaro. Following the conclusion of the convention, Venustiano Carranza, a revolutionary leader of the time, was elected president. His election led to the formation of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (Institutional Revolutionary Party), which would solidify a period of stability in Queretaro and the rest of the country that would last until 2000.

CROM

Founded in Saltillo (Coahuila's capital) in 1918, CROM (Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana, or the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers) was a large federation of labor unions in Mexico called into action by President Venustiano Carranza's labor delegates.

Francisco I. Madero

Francisco Madero was born on October 30, 1873 in Parras, Mexico, into a wealthy Mexican family. He studied in the United States and Paris. Madero organized the Anti-Reelectionist Party when Mexico's dictator Porfirio Diaz declared he would run for reelection in 1910. Madero won the presidential election in 1911, but was unprepared for the demands of office. He was assassinated in 1913.

Felix Diaz

Félix Díaz Velasco was a Mexican politician and general born in Oaxaca, Oaxaca on February 17, 1868. He graduated as an engineer from the Colegio Militar in 1888 and was a leading figure in the rebellion against President Francisco Madero during the Mexican Revolution. To enhance his chances of overthrowing Madero, Diaz joined Victoriano Huerta and Bernardo Reyes in their rebellion against Madero. However, Diaz was captured in October 1912 and sentenced to death for treason.

James Creelman

James Creelman was born in Montreal, Province of Canada on November 12, 1859. He is famous in history for securing a 1908 interview for Pearson's Magazine with Mexican president Porfirio Díaz, in which the strongman said that he would not run for the presidency in the 1910 elections. The interview set off a frenzy of political activity in Mexico over the presidential elections and succession of power. It is believed that the Creelman Interview marks a major turning point in the genesis of the Mexican Revolution.

John Kenneth Turner

John Kenneth Turner, an American reporter, publisher, author, propagandist, advocate of pacifism and socialist causes - and even one-time gun-runner in support of a regime change in Mexico, partially through the best-seller of his time, Barbarous Mexico - has been almost forgotten in his home country. Having backed the appropriate winds of change south of the Rio Grande, he is more favourably remembered there.

Convention, 1914

Known as the Convention of Aguascalientes, the Convention of 1914 was a major meeting between factions of the Mexican Revolution that had defeated Victoriano Huerta's Federal Army, which forced his resignation and exile in July of 1914. The assembly of this convention was enacted on October 1, 1914 by Venustiano Carranza, who was the leader of the Constitutional Army. The convention was intended to settle the differences between the "big four" warlords who played the biggest roles in overthrowing Huerta: Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranza and Alvaro Obregon. Following the conclusion of said meeting, the newly reconciled Villa and Zapata entered Mexico City on 6 December, as the commanders of an army of 60,000 men. Followed by his supporters, Carranza consequently retreated to Veracruz. Lastly, Zapata returned to his stronghold in Morelos, indicating that the alliance with Villa was mostly in principle.

Article 123

Largely the result of the efforts of Rouaix, Francisco J. Múgica and Heriberto J. Jara, article 123 granted the right to professional association as a social guarantee for workers and employers to defend their interests. This law was the first of its kind, as no such law had ever before been included in the constitution of any country. In addition to said terms, article 123 set limits to working hours, established equal pay for equal work, implemented a day of rest per week, compensation for work-related accidents and injuries, and lastly incorporated comfortable and hygienic conditions in work environments.

Plan de Ayala

The Plan de Ayala was a document written by Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata and his supporters in November of 1911. They wrote this in response to Francisco I. Madero and his Plan De San Luis Potosi. The plan is a denunciation of Madero as well as a manifesto of Zapatismo and what it stood for. It calls for land reform and freedom, and would become very important to Zapata's movement until his assassination in 1919.

Food crisis

Many things contributed to Mexico's food crises of the 20th century, such as the unstable and unfair governmental policies of the late 19th century, the Mexican Revolution of 1910, and the Great Depression occurring in the United States. With continuous land reform over the years and the influx of immigrants being deported back into Mexico due to growing economic crises in the U.S. food shortages became a major issue in Mexico.

Modernity

Modernity in Mexico can be the result of many things, but it is arguably most attributed to the industrialization of the country as a whole. The incorporation of railroads and factories allowed for cheap labor and much faster transportation of goods. Production skyrocketed, and so did profits. In this process, technology improves, and so does the overall economic state as a whole.

Plan de San Luis Potosi

The Plan de San Luis Potosi was a political document written in San Antonio, Texas and published in the Mexican city of San Luis Potosí in 1910. The document ushered in the Mexican revolution and the collapse of the Presidency of Porfirio Díaz. The document, or 'plan', called for the destruction of Díaz's authoritarian presidency and the re-institution of democracy through violent direct action on the part of the Mexican populace.

Veracruz Occupation

On April 21, 1914, before the U.S. Congress had the opportunity to approve President Wilson's request for authority to intervene in Mexico, the president acted. He did this upon receiving word of a German ship approaching Veracruz with a huge arms shipment for the Victoriano Huerta regime. Ordering the immediate occupation of Veracruz, the fighting was fierce, with more than 300 Mexicans and about 90 Americans being killed. This over-zealous act served to unify divided Mexicans, where Venustiano Carranza offered support to his bitter rival, Huerta, who then both demanded the removal of American forces from the area.

Battle of Celaya

One of the largest and bloodiest battles in Mexican history, the Battle of Celaya (Guanajuato) was a decisive military engagement in the wars between revolutionary factions during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20. These forces were led by Álvaro Obregón and Pancho Villa. Villa sought to capture Obregon's positions, but he was heavily fortified with trenches and machine guns. With his forces decimated, Villa retreated northward, leaving Venustiano Carranza in virtual control of Mexico, though he continued his bandit rebel activities in the north until Carranza was overthrown in 1920.

Pascual Orozco

Pascual Orozco Vazquez was born on January 28, 1882, in the Guerrero Municipality, Mexico. Orozco was a Mexican revolutionary leader who, after the triumph of the Mexican Revolution, rose up against Francisco I. Madero and recognized the coup d'état led by Victoriano Huerta and the counter-revolutionary government it imposed. He led a revolt against Madero that was initially victorious, but Orozco lacked the manpower to hold the ground he had overtaken.

Regeneracion

Regeneración was a Mexican anarchist newspaper that functioned as the official organ of the Mexican Liberal Party. Founded by the Flores Magón brothers in 1900, it was forced to move to the United States in 1905.

Repression

Repression in Mexico is most evident in times of revolution and reform, because major land reforms and other policies were enacted to disperse wealth. In doing so, many were forced off their properties or required to pay higher taxes for living in said properties. Repression is an unfortunate consequence to major changes within a country.

Sisal, Henequen

Sisal is a plant grown for a wide varieties of uses such as twine, rope, paper, cloth, hats, footwear, etc. Henequen is a plant processed as a textile in various forms to obtain a range of products for domestic, commercial, agricultural and industrial use, as binder twine for crops such as hay.

Cananea Strike

The Cananea Strike, also known as the Cananea Riot, or the Cananea Massacre, took place in the Mexican mining town of Cananea, Sonora, in June 1906. Although the workers were forced to return to their positions with no demand being met, the action was a key event in the general unrest that emerged during the final years of the regime of President Porfirio Díaz and that prefigured the Mexican Revolution of 1910. In the incident twenty-three people died, on both sides, twenty-two were injured, and more than fifty were arrested.

1917 Constitution

The Constitution of 1917 addressed three major issues: land, religion, and labor. It included land and labor reform, which strengthened government control over the economy by permitting the breakup of large estates, placing restrictions on foreigners owning land, and allowing nationalization.

PLM

The Partido Liberal Mexicano, or Mexican Liberal Party, was started in August 1900 when Ingeniero Camilo Arriga published a manifesto addressed to Mexican liberals who were dissatisfied with the way the Porfirio Díaz government was deviating from the liberal Constitution of 1857. Arriaga called on Mexican liberals to form local liberal clubs, which would then send delegates to a liberal convention.

Battle of Juarez

The First Battle of Ciudad Juárez took place in April and May 1911 during the Mexican Revolution between federal forces loyal to President Porfirio Díaz and rebel forces of Francisco Madero. Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa commanded Madero's army, which besieged Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. After two days of fighting the city's garrison surrendered, leading Orozco and Villa to take control of the town. The fall of Ciudad Juárez to Madero, combined with Emiliano Zapata's taking of Cuautla in Morelos, convinced Díaz that he could not hope to defeat the rebels. As a result, he agreed to the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez. Diaz then resigned and went into exile in France, thus ending the initial stage of the Mexican Revolution.

Institutional Revolution

The Institutional Revolution in Mexico was led by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario Institucional). Founded by former president Plutarco Elias Calles, the PRI was a Mexican political party that dominated the country's political institutions from its founding in 1929 until the end of the 20th century. Virtually all important figures in Mexican national and local politics belonged to the party, because the nomination of its candidate to a public office was almost always tantamount to election.

Rio Blanca Strike

The Río Blanco Strike was an incident that started at the Río Blanco Cotton Mill near Río Blanco, Veracruz, in January 1907. In December 1906 textile factory workers in the neighboring state of Puebla went on strike to protest the owners' implementation of a new, unified set of regulations that affected all aspects of mill hands' lives. Laborers in Veracruz, including those at Río Blanco, aided their striking colleagues in Puebla through donations of monies and foodstuffs. Many protests and riots would follow. The Río Blanco strike, although strictly speaking not a strike but a revolt, became a nationalist symbol representing the long historical struggles for social justice and for the economic independence of the Mexican nation.

Army of the North

The name of Pancho Villa's army in the Mexican Revolution. Famous for fighting battles such as the Battle of Celaya and the Battle of Columbus.

Porfiriato

The term for Porfirio Diaz's extensive 35 year virtual dictatorship where he ruled with "necessary evils" for Mexico's benefit. Diaz's rule during this time is remembered for being very oppressive to the Mexican people, but also highly beneficial concerning improving social and economic issues surrounding the country at the time. He is remembered for essentially industrializing modern Mexico.

Columbus, NM

The town of Columbus, New Mexico is historically significant due to the Battle of Columbus (otherwise known as the Columbus Raid). This was a raid conducted by Pancho Villa's Division of the North on the town of Columbus, which lies only 3 miles north of the border. This battle quickly escalated into a full-scale engagement between Villistas and the U.S. Army. Led by Villa himself, the raiders were driven back into Mexico by units of the 13th Calvary stationed at Columbus. The engagement angered Americans and President Woodrow Wilson ordered Villa's capture in what was known as the Punitive Expedition. They were unsuccessful in his capture.

Cientificos

These men were a circle of technocratic advisors to President of Mexico Porfirio Díaz. Steeped in the positivist "scientific politics", they functioned as part of his program of modernization at the start of the 20th century.

Article 27

This article established ownership of land and waters, giving it primarily to the nation. Owners can then can transfer direct control and set up private property, but this also stipulates that this shall remain subject to the public interest. It also authorized the confiscation of large estates, dividing them into smaller properties. This allowed for the distinguishing between land and subsoil rights-which established that though the first may be private property, the second encompasses inalienable domain of the nation. While this article also placed conditions on foreign ownership, the controversy surrounding it comes from the exclusion of Churches from holding property.

"Presidential Succession of 1910"

This book caused an immediate sensation among the political class in Mexico when it was published in late 1908. The book's author, Francisco I. Madero, was a member of a prominent family of landowners and businessmen from the state of Coahuila. Madero was committed to liberal politics and for many years provided intellectual and material support to dissidents arrayed against the government of Porfirio Díaz

"Mexico for the Mexicans"

This ideology arose following the conclusion of the Mexican Revolution. It was believed by many that land reform and governmental policies should center around the rights of Mexican citizens, and limit foreign affairs and powers. It was an attempt to restructure Mexican nationalistic power as a whole.

Vecindades

Vecindades are a Latin American term for a building containing several housing units that are often low-income properties. These units were originally created through upper class citizens selling or abandoning their mansions and moving west to avoid noisy and polluted industrial areas. The vacant multi-storied mansions were converted what is known as Mexico City's first slums.

Vensutiano Carranza

Venustiano Carranza was a leader in the Mexican civil war following the overthrow of the dictator Porfirio Díaz and became the first president of the new Mexican Republic in 1917. A moderate who was tainted by his association with Díaz, Carranza opposed the sweeping changes that followed the revolution. When the opposition rebelled in 1920, Carranza fled the capital and was betrayed and murdered.

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson, born on December 28, 1856, in Staunton, Virginia, was a dedicated scholar, enthusiastic orator, and 28th president of the United States. He who would find his place in Mexican history by having involvement in the Mexican Revolution, as well as notable battles like the Battle of Columbus, New Mexico.

Alvaro Obregon

Álvaro Obregón was born February 19, 1880, in Alamos, Mexico. After serving for a short time in Carranza's cabinet (1917), he was politically inactive for two years. In 1920, however, Obregón took a leading role in the uprising that quickly overthrew President Carranza. Obregón was elected as Mexico's new president and managed to impose peace and prosperity in the wake of a savage civil war.