III.

The Revolt Begins

The spark that ignited the revolution came from an unlikely source: the presidential election of 1910, which had been considered a mere formality by most Mexicans. There was little indication that the presidential candidacy of a member of the political elite, Francisco Madero, would lead to revolution. Madero came from a wealthy family in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila. He achieved national recognition with the publication in early 1909 of his book, La successíon presidencial en 1910 (The Presidential Succession in 1910). In the work Madero called for free elections and a ban on reelection to high public offices. He also argued that Díaz should permit a free selection of the vice president who would presumably succeed the aging president. When it became evident that Díaz would not permit any choice, Madero chose to run for the presidency himself. Díaz initially welcomed Madero’s candidacy as a harmless threat that would give the election a democratic appearance. When Madero became the focal point of anti-Díaz forces, Díaz jailed Madero until after the presidential elections. After Díaz won the election in an overwhelming victory in the summer of 1910, he released Madero, who promptly fled to San Antonio, Texas, to plot revolution.

Madero presented his program for revolution in the Plan of San Luis Potosí, named for the Mexican city in which he had been jailed. The plan declared the 1910 elections to be null and announced that Madero would be installed as provisional president until new elections could be held. The plan even provided a specific starting time for a national uprising: 6 pm on November 20, 1910. It also highlighted the fact that Madero was concerned primarily with Mexico’s political problems, not its growing economic and social difficulties. Although Madero called for free and democratic elections, and a ban on reelection at all levels of government, he offered little to urban workers seeking higher wages and better working conditions, or to indigenous people seeking the restoration of their traditional lands. Madero’s intention was to lead a political rebellion, not a social revolution. Despite the political nature of the plan, it became a rallying point for poor and working-class Mexicans, many of whom expected that broader economic and social reforms would be instituted by a Madero government.

On the night before the revolt was to start, Madero crossed into Mexico expecting to be met by a revolutionary army organized by his uncle. Instead he found only a handful of poorly armed rebels; Madero promptly went back to San Antonio, but he returned to Mexico to resume nominal leadership of the rebel movement in February 1911, after numerous rebellions occurred throughout Mexico under his banner.

The most important of these rebellions were those led by Emiliano Zapata in southern Mexico and Pascual Orozco and Francisco “Pancho” Villa in the north. Zapata called for land reform and the break up of large estates and ranches in order to give land to indigenous people and other peasant farmers. Rallying under the cry “Land and Liberty,” he recruited an army made up largely of indigenous people from villages and farms in the state of Morelos. Villa recruited a following consisting primarily of armed cowboys and ranch foremen, who began attacking federal forces and railroad connections in the northern state of Chihuahua.

The northern rebels under Villa focused on capturing the border town of Ciudad Juárez, across the Río Grande (called the Río Bravo in Mexico) from El Paso, Texas. The capture of Ciudad Juárez would be a psychological blow to the Díaz regime, but more importantly, it would give the rebels control of the customs house and an entry point for importing war materials into northern Mexico. On May 10, 1911, rebel forces captured Ciudad Juárez. Díaz recognized that the end of an era was at hand and agreed to resign before the end of May; in return Madero promised to keep Díaz’s federal army and bureaucracy intact. Díaz resigned on May 25 and went into exile in Europe. His minister of foreign relations, Francisco Leon de la Barra, was appointed to serve as interim president until new elections could be held.

In the presidential elections scheduled for October, Madero was the obvious choice for the victorious rebel groups, although others had actually played more important roles in the military action. The only significant opposition came from General Bernardo Reyes, who represented the old regime. Reyes quit the race and went into exile in San Antonio, Texas, claiming unfair treatment in the campaign. Madero won an overwhelming victory over a group of minor candidates and took office on November 6, 1911.