If I asked you to close your eyes and, you know,
conjure up the ultimate image of a revolutionary
who appears, I'm willing to bet that for 90 %
of people, the image that resolves in the mind's
eye is Emiliano Zapata. Oh, absolutely. It's
the sombrero, the bullet belt crisscrossed over
the chest like a bandolier, and that mustache,
I mean, it's the most magnificent, thick mustache
in the history of political rebellion. He is,
you could argue, the visual icon of the Mexican
Revolution. It's an incredibly powerful image,
isn't it? It's an image that has been, well,
commodified. It's printed on everything from
pesos to protest banners, T -shirts, even hot
sauce bottles for over 100 years. But the problem
with that level of iconography is that it just
flattens the human being. Yes. It turns a really
complex historical figure into a logo. Exactly.
And with Zapata, that flattening effect has pulled
his memory into completely opposite directions.
It's a tug of war. depending on who you asked
in 1910 or, frankly, who you ask today, he was
either the Attila of the South, you know, the
savage bandit who wanted to burn civilization
to the ground. The boogeyman. Or he was the Codillo
of the South, a flawless, saintly hero of the
peasantry who could do no wrong. And as is usually
the case when you peel back the layers of history,
the truth is far more complex, much messier,
and significantly more interesting than the caricature.
The man behind the mustache wasn't a cartoon
character. And that is our mission for this deep
dive. We are going to dig into the primary source
material, the historical records, the biographies,
and even some controversial diaries to unpack
the real Emiliano Zapata. We want to introduce
you to a man who is a skilled horse whisperer,
a surprisingly snappy dresser. a man who likely
spoke Nahuatl as well as Spanish, and a rigid
idealist who ended up fighting every single president
who crossed his path. It is a story of betrayal,
of radical politics, and some, well, some really
surprising contradictions. And speaking of contradictions,
here is the hook for later. If you think you
know the story of the poor, uneducated peasant
rising up from the dirt, you're going to be surprised.
We're also going to get into some modern controversies
regarding his personal life and sexuality that
sparked literal riots in Mexico City as recently
as 2019. That is a part of the history that often
gets glossed over in the textbooks, but the sources
on it are fascinating and they really challenge
our understanding of the era. So let's start
at the beginning. Or rather, let's start by dismantling
the myth of the poor peasant. I think the standard
pop culture narrative is that Zapata was born
into abject poverty, that he was starving, and
that hunger is what radicalized him. But when
we look at the probate records and the local
history of Anacuoco, that paints a different
picture, doesn't it? It really does. To understand
Zapata, you have to understand his context. He
was born in Anacuoco in the state of Morelos.
And while this wasn't a wealthy metropolis. The
Zapata family were not destitute peons. Not at
all. They're what you would call rancheros. The
records show they were reasonably well off within
their rural context. They were, you could say,
the rural middle class. I was reading the description
of how he dressed before the war broke out. Yeah.
This does not sound like a man in rags. The source
says he frequently wore a charro outfit. We're
talking tight -fitting black cashmere pants with
silver buttons down the legs, fine linen shirts
and silk scarves. He took immense pride in his
appearance. And we have to analyze what that
look meant, right? Wearing a charro suit in 1909
wasn't just fashion. It was a statement. Right.
He wasn't dressing like the indigenous field
laborers in their white cotton pajamas, but he
also wasn't dressing like the European -obsessed
elite in Mexico City with their French suits.
He was signaling a very specific, proud, regional
Mexican identity. The sources also mention he
wore a mozoquena -style spurs. Now, I had to
look this up, but that refers to amazoc. Puebla,
which was famous for its high -end metalwork.
Exactly. These were status symbols. They implied
he had disposable income. Zapata wasn't a day
laborer. He was an entrepreneur. He owned land.
He had a team of mules that he used for a freight
business, hauling maize and bricks. He grew watermelons?
He grew watermelons as a cash crop, yes. But
his real claim to fame... The thing that gave
him social capital in the region was his skill
with horses. He was a horse trainer, a famous
one. And this leads to one of those historical
ironies that feels too scripted to be true. Who
was one of his biggest clients before the revolution?
This is one of those details that just changes
how you view the whole conflict. Before the revolution
fully kicked off, Zapata worked as a horse trainer
for Ignacio de la Torre y Mir. And for those
who might not know the genealogy of the Porfiriato,
who was that? Ignacio de la Torre Mir was the
son -in -law of Porfirio Diaz. The dictator.
The dictator. The very man Zapata would eventually
rise up to overthrow. Zapata was intimately familiar
with the regime's family. He spent time in their
stables in Mexico City. He saw their world up
close. That establishes such an incredible link.
It means Zapata wasn't fighting from the outside
looking in. He had access. He saw how the other
half lived. He saw the sheer opulence of the
Diaz inner circle while his neighbors in Morelos
were struggling. It really complicates the narrative.
He wasn't some naive outsider. He walked between
worlds. But despite having some money and status,
his identity was rooted in Anaculco. And that
village is really the main character of this
first act. What was happening there that pushed
a guy with cashmere pants and silver buttons
to become an outlaw? Well, it comes down to two
things, land and law. And Inquilco was this interesting
mix of Spanish -speaking mestizo culture and
indigenous Nahuatl culture. In fact, there is
strong evidence suggesting Zapata was fluent
in Nahuatl. Which makes sense if he's bridging
these two worlds. But the grievance wasn't just
we are poor. It was we are being robbed. The
global economy plays a role here. The sugar industry
in Morelos was booming. To grow sugar, the big
haciendas, these massive industrial plantations,
needed land and water. So they started a policy
of enclosure. They were literally swallowing
up independent villages like Anahuilco. And this
wasn't just a riot where people got angry and
grabbed pitchforks. They tried to do this the
right way first. They absolutely did. And this
is a key point. The Zapatista movement started
as a legal defense fund. The village elders had
titles, deeds to the land. Some of these documents
dated back to the colonial era, written in a
hodl, granting the land to the village by the
Spanish crown. I love the image the biography
paints here. Zapata is elected president of the
village council at age 30, mostly because the
elders are too old to make the trek to the courts.
And he is literally carrying these ancient crumbling
papers in a tin box to government offices. It's
the Mr. Smith goes to Washington moment, but
it's tragic. He's trying to say, look, the law
says this is ours. And that is the moment that
radicalized him. The courts failed. The judges
were friends with the Hacienda owners. The system
was rigged. There's a story that they even met
with Diaz at one point, got a vague promise.
Right. And then Diaz just turned around and had
Zapata drafted into the army to get rid of him.
A classic move. That's the breaking point. When
the law fails so completely and the institutions
are closed to you, what is left? Revolution.
Violence becomes the only remaining tool of negotiation.
And that brings us to 1910. The system is cracking.
Francisco Madero, who was this wealthy northern
landowner, a totally different demographic than
Zapata, decides to challenge the dictator Diaz.
And Zapata sees an opening. Right. Now, we have
to unpack the difference in motivation here because
it explains everything that happens later. Madero
wants political change. His slogan is effective
suffrage, no reelection. He wants democracy.
He wants a functioning ballot box. He's a political
reformer. Exactly. Zapata. He doesn't care about
who sits in the presidential chair. He wants
the land back. But he joins Madero because Madero
made a specific promise. The plan of San Luis
Potosi. Madero put a clause in Article 3 of that
plan promising to return stolen village lands.
That was the hook. That was the only reason Zapata
mobilized. And the Zapatistas were incredibly
effective. The source mentions the six days of
battle in Kwatla in May 1911. Zapata's forces
take the city. This is basically the nail in
the coffin for the Diaz dictatorship. Diaz flees
to Paris. Madero wins. Mission accomplished,
right? If only history were that linear. This
is where the story turns into a tragedy of conflicting
interests. Madero becomes president and the very
first thing he does is tell Zapata, okay, Thanks
for the help. Now give up your guns. Before giving
back the land. Exactly. Before the land is returned,
Madera wanted stability. He was a moderate. He
called the Zapatistas mere bandits once he didn't
need their military strength anymore. He wanted
a slow, bureaucratic legal process for land reform.
Zapata looked at his armed peasants and knew
that if they gave up their rifles, their only
leverage, they would never see that land again.
There is this chilling quote Zapata sends to
the Minister of the Interior during this tension.
He warns them, I won't be responsible for the
blood that is going to flow if the federal forces
remain. He was drawing a line in the sand. Madero
crossed it. And in November 1911, Zapata crossed
back. He issued the Plan of Ayala. Okay, let's
deep dive into the Plan of Ayala. Because this
isn't just a press release. This is the Bible
of Zapatismo. It fundamentally shifts the nature
of the revolution, what was in it. It completely
changed the goalposts from political reform to
social revolution. First, it declared Madero
a traitor and illegitimate. That's step one.
But more importantly, it codified the demands.
Demand number one, immediate return of all stolen
lands. No lawsuits, no waiting. If the village
has the title, they take the land, period. And
demand number two. Nationalization. He wanted
to take one third of all the large haciendas,
even the ones with legal titles, and expropriate
that land to give to poor farmers. One third.
It was redistribution of wealth on a massive
scale. But wait, there was a kicker clause for
the stubborn owners, right? There was an enforcement
mechanism built in. Oh, absolutely. The plan
said that if a plantation owner resisted this
redistribution, they would lose everything. Not
just the one third. Not just the third. All of
it. The other two thirds would be taken as well.
It was a scorched earth. legal clause. That is
bold. It's basically, we could do this the easy
way or we could do this the very hard way. And
crucially, the plan of Ayala invoked Benito Juarez
and the liberal reform of the mid -19th century.
Zapata was framing his rebellion not as banditry,
but as the true continuation of Mexico's liberal
history. He was saying, we are the patriots.
You in Mexico City are the traitors. So now Madero
is the enemy. But Madero doesn't last long. He
gets overthrown. and murdered by his own general,
Victoriano Huerta, in 1913. A man generally regarded
as the villain of the story by almost everyone,
Huerta was a brutal alcoholic who wanted to restore
the old dictatorship. So now Zapata is fighting
Huerta. And this leads to this sort of Avengers
Assemble moment, where all the revolutionary
leaders try to team up against the common enemy.
You've got Zapata in the south. And in the north,
you've got Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza.
It was purely an enemy of my enemy situation.
They all hated Huerta. And militarily, they were
unstoppable. They managed to beat him in 1914.
But once Huerta was gone, the vacuum of power
opened up and the winners immediately turned
on each other. It's the classic problem, isn't
it? Winning the war is easy. Agreeing on the
peace is hard. Carranza was an aristocrat, much
like Madero, but tougher. He didn't like Zapata.
And he certainly didn't like Pancho Villa. Carranza
saw them as savages. He saw them as unwashed
masses who needed to be controlled. So the Convention
of Aguascalientes was held to try and sort this
out. It failed miserably. The country split.
Carranza on one side, Zapata and Villa on the
other. Which brings us to one of the most famous
meetings in Mexican history. December 1914. Xochimilco.
Zapata meets Pancho Villa. The visual alone is
striking. You have Pancho Villa, the loud, boisterous
northerner in his military uniform, weighing
200 pounds, laughing. And then Zapata, the quiet,
intense southerner in his charro suit, just watching
everything with suspicion. The source describes
the vibe as awkward but amiable. That is a great
description. They're from different worlds. Vila
was expansive. He roamed across huge territories.
Zapata was intensely local. He was focused almost
entirely on Morelos. There's a detail where they
are having a banquet and Vila is chugging brandy
while Zapata is sipping water because he doesn't
trust anyone enough to get drunk. Smart man.
But they agreed on one thing. They didn't trust
Carranza. They agreed to divide the country's
security. Vila would handle the north, Zapata
the south. But like most long -distance relationships
in a war zone, it fell apart. It did. Villa promised
weapons that never arrived. Carranza's general,
Alvaro Obregón, was a military genius and started
defeating Villa in the north. This left Zapata
isolated in the south. But strangely, this isolation
led to what might be the most fascinating period
of Zapata's life. 1915, the Morelos Commune.
This is the eye of the storm. While the rest
of Mexico was tearing itself apart in a brutal
civil war, Zapata had total control of Morelos.
And he actually did it. He implemented the Plan
of Ayala. He didn't just talk about it in speeches.
He put it into practice. No. They physically
redistributed the hacienda lands. Village councils
took over local government. And the source has
this incredible detail regarding the economics
of the commune. While Mexico City was starving
because of the war and inflation, the peasants
in Morelos had more to eat than they did in 1910.
That is so counterintuitive. Usually, war brings
famine. It happened because they switched the
crop base. For decades, the land had been used
for sugarcash crops for export. You can't eat
sugar. You can't eat sugar. Zapata told them
to plant corn and beans. They returned to subsistence
farming. So they were eating better and prices
were lower. It was a functioning agrarian society.
They established schools. They tried to create
a credit bank for farmers. It sounds almost utopian
compared to the chaos outside. There's even a
mention of a bullfight where Zapata and his nephew
participated as the matadors. Right. Just life
going on. It shows that Zapata wasn't just a
guerrilla fighter. He had a vision for a society
that could actually work. But, of course, with
Carranza winning in the north. The storm was
coming back. And it came back hard. Carranza
sent the army to burn Morelos to the ground.
Before we get to the tragic end of that storm,
I want to pivot to the man himself. We talked
about his clothes, but let's talk about his personal
life. Because if the poor peasant myth is wrong,
the stoic asexual monk myth is also definitely
wrong. Definitely. Definitely wrong. Zapata had
a very complex personal life. The records show
he had 16 known children with nine different
women. Wow. That is a busy life on top of running
a revolution. And his life was touched by tragedy
constantly. One of his sons died from a rattlesnake
bite. A daughter died from a scorpion sting.
It just reminds you of the harsh reality of living
in the countryside at that time, revolution or
not. But there's another aspect of his personal
life that historians have been debating, especially
recently. And this circles back to the source
material from the album of Amada Diaz. This is
where we have to tread carefully but honestly
with the sources. Amada Diaz was... Porfirio
Diaz's daughter and the wife of Ignacio de la
Torre Mir, the guy Zapata worked for. His old
boss. His old boss. Now, we know Ignacio de la
Torre Mir was a closeted homosexual. He was famously
part of the Dance of the 41, a scandalous drag
ball in Mexico City that was raided by police.
And there is an entry in a modest diary that
mentions her husband and Zapata. She writes about
seeing her husband and Zapata wallowing in the
stables. Wallowing in the stables. That is evocative
phrasing. It is, and it has led to a lot of historical
speculation. Later, when Mir was imprisoned by
the revolutionaries, Zapata went out of his way
to protect him. He saved him from execution.
Some historians argue this suggests a relationship
that went beyond employer -employee. And it's
not just Mir. There's mention of Manuel Palafox.
Right. Manuel Palafox, known as the Blackbird.
He was Zapata's personal secretary and a key
intellectual in the movement. He helped write
the agrarian laws. His homosexuality was apparently
an open secret among the troops. So you have
this movement that is often associated with machismo,
you know, guns, mustaches, violence. But the
inner circle seems to have been more fluid than
people assume. It challenges the stereotype.
The source material suggests Zapata prioritized
loyalty and the cause over the social prejudices
of the time. He didn't purge Palafox until Palafox
became a political liability for other reasons.
It adds a layer of humanity and complexity to
Zapata. He wasn't a caricature. He was a man
navigating a very complicated world. And it seems
he judged men by their commitment to the land,
not their private lives. It certainly makes the
hyper macho image a lot more nuanced. But let's
get back to the timeline. It's 1919. Carranza
is president. He wants Zapata gone. And he realizes
he can't beat him on the battlefield. Zapata
knows the mountains too well. So they decide
to use treachery. This is a plot straight out
of a spy novel. General Pablo Gonzalez, who is
hunting Zapata, sets a trap. He uses a colonel
named Jesus Guajardo. the bait the bait gonzalez
publicly accuses guajardo of being a drunk and
a traitor he creates a fake scandal even having
guajardo arrested briefly guajardo then writes
to zapata saying they've disgraced me i want
to defect i'll bring my men and weapons to your
side now zapata was an idiot he had survived
assassination attempts before he was suspicious
he asked guajardo to prove it And the proof,
God, the proof is brutal. It is horrific. To
prove he was a real traitor to the government,
Guajardo attacked a federal garrison at Yerakatabek.
It was a mock battle in the sense that it was
staged by the generals, but the casualties were
real. Guajardo actually executed former Zapatistas
who had defected to the government. He killed
men to prove to Zapata that he was sincere. That
is cold -blooded. Killing your own side's men
just to sell a lie. But it worked. Zapata was
convinced. He was. He agreed to a final meeting
to welcome Guajardo into the fold. April 10th,
1919. Hacienda de San Juan in Chinameca. Set
the scene for us. Zapata rides in with a small
escort, about 10 men. He believes he is meeting
a new ally who brings fresh troops and ammo.
Guajardo's men are lined up inside the walls,
ostensibly as an honor guard, ready to salute.
Bugle sounds the honor call. That was the signal.
As the last note faded, the soldiers raised their
rifles and fired point blank. Zapata and his
escort were riddled with bullets. He died instantly,
falling from his horse. It's such a violent,
abrupt end. And the government didn't just want
him dead. They wanted to kill the myth. They
displayed his body for 24 hours in Coatla. They
photographed it from every angle. They even displayed
his clothes, that famous taro suit now bullet
-ridden outside a newspaper office in Mexico
City. They needed people to see the corpse to
believe the Attila of the South was gone. But,
and this is the power of martyrdom, it backfired
completely. Instead of ending the movement, it
immortalized it. Zapata Lives became the rallying
cry. People refused to believe he was dead. Rumors
spread that the body was a double, that Zapata
didn't have a certain mole on his face. They
whispered that he had escaped to Arabia or Japan.
Or that he was simply up in the mountains, deep
in the caves, waiting for the right time to return.
Precisely. You can kill the man, but you cannot
kill the idea. Let's talk about that idea. The
legacy. Because Zapata lost the war, technically.
He died. His faction didn't take the capital.
But in the long run, did he win? In many ways,
yes. Look at the 1917 Constitution, Article 27.
That article codifies agrarian reform. It says
the land belongs to the nation and those who
work it. That is a direct result of Zapata's
pressure. The plan of Ayala is basically baked
into the Mexican constitution. But it took a
while to actually happen on the ground. It did.
It wasn't until the 1930s, under President Lázaro
Cárdenas, that large -scale land redistribution
really happened. Cárdenas fulfilled the promise
Zapata died for, handing out millions of hectares
to the ejidos, the communal lands. And his influence
goes beyond laws. I mean, culturally, he is everywhere.
We mentioned the EZLN, the Neo -Zapatistas. In
1994, on the day NAFTA went into effect, indigenous
people in Chiapas rose up wearing balaclavas,
calling themselves Zapatistas. They explicitly
link their struggle for indigenous rights and
autonomy to Zapata's struggle. And it gets even
more spiritual than that. The source mentions
Votan Zapata. Yes, this is fascinating. In some
indigenous regions, Zapatismo blended with Catholicism
and indigenous beliefs. He is worshipped as a
sort of reincarnated Mayan deity or a Saint Votan
Zapata. He has transcended history to become
mythology. And pop culture. Rage Against the
Machine songs like Calm Like a Bomb, Marlon Brando
playing him in Viva Zapata. There is even a fossil
reptile named after him, the Zapatadon. A small
reptile, but a fierce one, I assume. I would
hope so. But we can't talk about his legacy without
talking about that 2019 controversy. We hinted
at it in the intro, the painting. Ah, yes, the
painting titled La Revolucion by Fabian Charez.
This was part of an exhibition at the Palacio
de Bellas Artes to commemorate the centenary
of his death. Describe it for the listeners who
haven't seen it. It depicts Zapata naked, wearing
high heels and a pink sombrero riding a white
horse that is, well, visibly aroused. The pose
is effeminate, seductive. And the reaction was
not polite art criticism. No, it was explosive.
Farmer unions, the campesinos who revere Zapata
as their saint, stormed the museum. They physically
attacked LGBTQ activists who were there to support
the artist. Zapata's grandson threatened to sue
the government. They called it a desecration.
The artist, Chérez, said he wanted to challenge
the machismo associated with the revolution to
present a different kind of masculinity. But
for the campesinos, it was an insult to their
identity. It shows that 100 years later, Zapata
isn't just a dusty figure in a textbook. He is
still a live wire. His image still has the power
to incite violence and passion. And they had
put a label next to it in the end, right? They
eventually had to put a label next to the painting
stating that the family disagreed with it. A
compromised label. That feels like such a modern
solution to a historical fight. It really does.
But it highlights the tension we started with.
Who owns Zapata? Is he the hyper masculine hero
of the farmers or is he a symbol of liberation
that can be reinterpreted by the queer community?
So we've unpacked the man, the myth, the horse
trainer, the radical, the martyr. Yeah. What
are we left with? We are left with a man of contradictions,
a well -off horse trainer who died for the poorest
of the poor, a labeled bandit who established
a functional government in Morelos when the actual
government couldn't. A symbol of machismo whose
personal life and modern interpretations challenge
that very concept. And a man who is still, in
a very real way, walking with us. That chant
is the most poignant part of his legacy. Si Zapata
viviera con nosotros anduviera. If Zapata lived,
he would walk with us. So here's the thought
I want to leave you with today. If Zapata did
walk into modern Mexico or any modern nation
really wearing his charro suit, holding his rifle,
and demanding that the land belong to those who
work it, would he be hailed as a hero? Right.
Or would he be considered a dangerous radical
and hunted down all over again? That is the question.
We love the icon on the T -shirt. I'm not sure
we are always ready for the man himself. Something
to think about. Thanks for listening to this
deep dive into Emiliano Zapata. We will catch
you on the next one.