Narcocorridos and Mexican history

Hello dear readers, once again, to a new adventure into history. Now today let’s talk about the Mexican Revolution some more, along with how the Revolution helped influenced an entire musical genre and drug trafficking. With that out of the way, let's get down to business to defeat the drugs!

To start us off today, let’s talk about music in Pre-Columbian society. In Pre-Columbian society music was used for religious purposes and in their rituals. Because of this importance, there were many music conservatories, especially in the larger tribes such as the Mayan or the Mexica, also known as the Aztec. Additionally, musical instruments used were believed to house spirits or gods and would only be used by professionals and only in the most important religious ceremonies. The idea of using music in religious ceremonies was also an important aspect of religion in Europe, which became important for Spain during the conquest of modern day Mexico and converting the natives to Christianity. By taking advantage of their musical talent and abilities, the Spanish used church music to teach the natives about Christianity. In an attempt to teach the natives Spanish, in addition to religion, the Spanish used villancicos, folk songs about religious themes that weren’t necessarily Biblical. These songs helped introduce various religious themes to the natives and help teach them Spanish.

Let’s fast forward to the Mexican Revolution. (A quick recap to previous events can be found here for the Mexican War for Independence and here for some background to the racial problems that led to the Mexican Revolution.) If you’ve missed my previous post the Revolution, along with some background info click here. I won’t bore any of you readers with a recap of the Mexican Revolution, since I provided quite a few links, but I will go ahead and mention that these events were important in shaping corridos. Corridos are a traditional Mexican musical genre which have their roots in the Mexican Revolution. For most of Mexico’s history a majority of the population was illiterate because they lived in poverty and couldn’t afford to go to school. Because of this, during the Mexican Revolution the quickest and easiest way to learn news of battles and other events occurring was by having messengers deliver the news to people. The best and most entertaining way of this was through music.

Corridos are essentially narrative stories that tell people of events and stories that took place, sometimes the stories are about the death of an important figure. The beginning of most corridos tell the beginning of a story and calls for the listener to pay attention. An example of this is a popular corrido about the death of Emiliano Zapata, which you can hear here, begins with “Escuchen señores, oigan/El corrido de un triste acontecimiento.” (“Listen gentlemen, hear/The ballad of a sad event.”) This is a typical introduction for corridos to tell people listening about who the protagonist is and what the event is about. The next two lines establish who the main character or protagonist of the corrido is as well as where this story takes place, in this case Emiliano Zapata and Chinameca respectively. These lines say “pues en Chinameca ha muerto a mansalva/Zapata, el gran insurrecto.” (“Because in Chinameca dead at close range/Zapata, the great insurgent.”) The next line establishes the year that this event takes place which is 1919, while the rest of the Corrido tells the story of Zapata’s death and the ambush that lead to his murder.

This is why the corridos grew in popularity quickly, they allowed for people to learn about events quickly during a time when it was difficult to properly attain news about battles. At the same time, many corridos were used as propaganda to either promote certain Revolutionaries or attempt to dissuade peasants from siding with certain factions. An example of this would be various corridos that have Francisco “Pancho” Villa as a protagonist, particularly after the Pershing Expedition of 1916 until 1917, where Villa attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico. Time for some backstory for the Pershing Expedition. After Villa attacked the town, General John J. Pershing was ordered to capture Villa for his attack. Pershing and his forces tracked Villa down but were never able to capture him, due to the fact that Villa knew the terrain and locations and how many Mexicans helped Villa escape by either lying to Pershing or hiding Villa. This would continue for a year until the United States entered World War I and would have to recall Pershing and his troops in order to fight in the war. I would love to keep talking about Villa and his various accomplishments, but I’ll save that for some other time though, back to the corridos. Now Villa was one of the leaders of the various factions in the Mexican Revolution, and was one of the most popular among the peasant class.

One popular topic for corridos about Villa involved mainly him outsmarting his opponents at every turn, whether it be US soldiers or other enemies, Villa would never be beaten by anyone unless it was part of his plan. In reality, there were many cases of Villa being outsmarted by his enemies and wasn’t quite as unstoppable as many would think. An example of this is the corrido “La persecución de Pancho Villa” which can be heard here, talks about how Villa was able to outsmart the US soldiers that were searching for him. In the corrido it states that the President of Mexico at the time, Venustiano Carranza, allowed ten thousand American soldiers and six hundred airplanes to cross into Mexican territory and capture Villa. The corrido goes on to say that all the soldiers and airplanes were useless against Villa because of how clever he was and how the Mexican people were all helping Villa escape. In reality; however, there were only about 8 planes used initially, though because of the Mexican terrain, most were quickly destroyed by the mountain ranges and were unable to achieve enough altitude to properly pass the mountain ranges, along with many dust storms and other problems preventing the planes from being much help in reconnaissance. Later on 24 additional planes were bought, though this was still significantly less than the 600 the corrido states. Later on in the corrido it states that Villa managed to trick the US soldiers by stealing US uniforms for himself and his troops in order to infiltrate the US troops and stole some planes for their own use.

All of this leads to another important aspect of the corrido genre, “good guy” and “bad guy” figures where the protagonist is the good guy and the antagonist is the bad guy. In modern corridos the hero is typically a drug trafficker or a member of the cartel, while the “bad guy” is typically the Mexican government or the police force. These types of corridos are a subgenre of the corrido genre called narcocorridos. Initially narcocorridos began in the 1970s with a norteño genre band called Los Tigres del Norte, or The Tigers of the North. In the 70s, they began the narcocorrido genre by creating corridos based on events involving drug trafficking. They would primarily create fictional stories of real events. One of their most famous narcocorridos came out in 1974 and was titled “Contrabando y Traicion” which can be heard here, tells the story of two drug traffickers, a man named Emilio and a woman named Camelia la Texana, who go from Mexico all the way to Los Angeles. Once they reach Los Angeles, they drive their car and changed their tires, which was where they originally hid the marijuana they were smuggling. Once they sell the marijuana and each get their half of the money, Emilio tells Camelia that they now go their separate ways and that he is going to go the be with the woman he loves. Camelia, who had fallen in love with the man, has her heart broken and decides to kill him and steal his money. The end of the corrido goes on to say that by the time the police officers showed up, there was just the man’s body along with the car and that Camelia had escaped with no one knowing where she disappeared to.

This song was one of the first popular narcocorridos which quickly evolved into a separate subgenre all together. Many modern narcocorridos deal with either real events, people, or simply about showing off the power, weapons, and women that the drug dealers had. In this aspect, many modern narcocorridos become comparable to gangster rap in the United States where the point of the song was to show off the women, money, power, and weapons that the singer/protagonist has at their disposal. As time went on, the narcocorridos became more and more popular as the war on drug continued.

Time for a really quick history on the War on Drugs. In the 1980s the US became harder on drugs and began preventing drugs from Central America from reaching the US through the Caribbean, which meant that drug lords had to find a new way to smuggle drugs into the US, so they figured it would be easier to do this by using Mexico. This is roughly when drugs starting popping up more frequently in Mexico, sparking the beginning of the narcocorridos. As time went on, in the 1990s, more and more drug lords and high ranking leaders of cartels in Central and Southern America were beginning to be captured or killed, meaning that the few remaining cartels in those areas were no longer as powerful as previously, thus meaning that they would be unable to pay the Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs into the US. As a result of this the cartels would be paid in drugs. Because Mexico suddenly had a surplus of drugs, more were able to be sold in Mexico, thus making the Mexican cartels much more powerful and richer than the cartels in Central and Southern America. During this time the PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, was in power in Mexico and for the most part would turn a blind eye to the illegal actions perpetrated by the cartels. In the year 2000 something that many believed would never happen, happened; the PRI were defeated by the PAN, the National Action Party, won the election and Vicente Fox became the first non-PRI president in over 70 years. As a result of this both Fox and his successor Felipe Calderon, began to wage war on the cartels in Mexico with Calderon deciding to use the military instead of the police to wage his war, mainly due to the belief that many police officers were corrupt and were working with the cartels. So because of this, the cartels had been able to rise in power because since for a couple of decades there was a surplus of drugs, where the cartels were able to sell drugs, not only abroad, but to the Mexican population as well which was the main reason why they were able to rise to power.

How does this brief history of the War on Drugs relate to narcocorridos, well here’s why. As we’ve already established, corridos tend to be about heroes, good guys, and their triumph, as well as being one of the most defining Mexican musical genres. Because of this, many powerful cartel leaders desired to have corridos written about their exploits, their power, and their influences. This is something that essentially created the “true story” based narcocorridos compared to the fictionalized narcocorridos of the Tigeres del Norte. The consequence of this is that as these types of narcocorridos glamorized the violence of the War on Drugs, and due to the narcocorridos making the life of a drug cartel leader seem amazing and causes many young people want to live this lifestyle. This is especially prominent in smaller rural areas of Mexico where the Mexican government doesn’t have that much of a presence and the local drug cartels are the ones that are building roads, schools, etc. It’s for this reason that some people look up to cartel leaders as see them as good people, and thus compose or have others compose narcocorridos in their honor, whereas there are other narcocorridos that deal with the glamorization of the lifestyle. In many of the music videos for these types of narcocorridos, there are many scantily clad women, drugs (typically cocaine), and many weapons, including AK-47s and other weapons similar to this.  An example of this type of narcocorrido is Mafia Nueva, or New Mafia, by singer El Komander, where he sings about the new mafia in Sinaloa, where they have the fastest and newest sports cars, beautiful women and all these weapons, and that he began this early in life. Mafia Nueva can be seen here.

Here comes the interesting part of this, the Mexican government has banned many narcocorridos in certain states, as well as from airing on the radio. In addition to this, some bands have been banned from playing in Mexico all together, such as the aforementioned Los Tigres del Norte, who have been banned from playing in the state of Chihuahua due to the majority of their songs being narcocorridos, or at least related to the drug trade. This was done in an attempt to prevent the spread of the drug lifestyle, though as with other attempts to censor and ban music, it didn’t quite succeed. The lifestyle of the cartel leader is one that many people wish to have, especially young people, though not quite for the reasons you would think. As I previously mentioned, there is little government presence in some smaller rural villages of Mexico and as a result of this, there are many times where the people creating roads, building schools, and taking care of citizens living in those areas are the cartels. Sometimes they do this because this is where they grew up or have relatives living there, though this isn’t always the case. In some cases, the cartel leaders do this because they know that these people will be indebted to them, and have to repay this “kindness” through money or sometimes people. There are many cases where young people are forcibly recruited to serve as lookouts or as messengers. There are also cases where the children and teenagers choose to join the cartels for their own reasons, whether they be to help their families financially, or because they were drawn in by the allure of being rich and powerful is entirely circumstantial. Regardless of how people join the cartels, what matters that people join.

Due to recent events a popular motif for some narcocorridos are about Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and his arrest, later escape from jail and subsequent re-arrest. This is extremely noticeable in how many of the narcocorridos about how unstoppable he is, or in this case was. This is a clear example of how the fame and power of being a cartel leader is for those in that position of power. In addition to this, it’s important to note that it was his own hubris that allowed for the recapture of Juaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, since he wanted to do an interview with Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo in order to tell his life’s story, as well as showing the amount of power and influence he held. This is very important to note since this is clearly an example of the fame, power, and influence of a drug cartel leader being the reason of their downfall. Very soon after he escaped from jail in 2015, there were already narcocorridos written about him, one of which can be seen here and one by El Komander, who we hear from earlier, can be heard here. All in all, this clearly demonstrates the influence and power that El Chapo had prior to arrest, and that this power and influence was not easily lost, especially considering how he was able to escape from jail.

I will end here, since unfortunately, I do not have much more information, though if you are curious about learning more about the narcocorrido genre or how drug cartels have changed Mexican culture, go here to read an article about that on cracked.com or here to go see a video more about narcocorridos as well as how music has been used for propaganda by Mexico and the United States by thisexists on youtube. I hope you all enjoyed this, and perhaps next time we will tackle another topic. Though before I leave, let me give some words of encouragement. Never stop trying in life, don’t give up because we only live through life once. Make the most of your life and keep moving forward because we live in a cycle, there’s life then death, so make every second of your life count, because there is no moving back, because time can only go forward so make sure everything counts, and that you don’t leave behind any regrets. 

The Beginning of the Mexican Revolution

Hello dear readers and welcome once again. Today we’ll go on an adventure through history once again, and travel exactly 105 years into the past, to November 18^th 1910 to see the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. So with that out of the way, strap in and get ready for another exciting adventure into Mexican history!

Let’s start off by talking about Mexican political history. After the Mexican War for Independence (more info on that here) Mexico became an empire though the Emperor, Agustin de Iturbide, was quickly deposed and the empire was replaced with a republic. Because of this, there was much conflict over how the new government should be run. For decades, the president would be forcibly removed from office, only to be replaced with a new one. This trend of an unstable government would continue until the mid-1850s when then President, Benito Juarez and other liberals took power. While in office, Juarez wanted to weaken the power of the Catholic Church and the military. The Conservatives were against this and a civil war, known as the War of the Reform, was fought for about 4 years until 1861. This war weakened the Mexican government but ultimately the liberals won and Juarez asked foreign investors, specifically France, Britain, and Spain to wait until stability was returned to Mexico before repaying the debts owed to the Europeans. Those three European powers did not accept this and decided to take over the port of Veracruz in an attempt to force Mexico to pay the debts. France, under Napoleon III, wanted to colonize and take over Mexico and decided to move inland into Mexico. Once Britain and Spain saw this, they withdrew their support. This French invasion would be known as the French Intervention, and would last from 1861 until 1867 when Juarez and the Mexican forces managed to defeat the French and executed Maximilian, the Austrian that was put on the Mexican throne to rule Mexico in France’s place.

The execution of Maximilian

Once the French Intervention ended, both the Conservative forces and the Liberal forces managed to put aside their differences and work together to make Mexico great once again. This would lead to Juarez remaining in power and being re-elected in 1867 and 1871 until he died in 1872 from a heart attack. In 1872 after Juarez’s death, there were two other presidents until in 1876 when Porfirio Diaz rose to power and became president. Diaz’s regime as president is an era known as the Porfirato, named after him. During the Porfiriato there was a large increase in technology and growth for the country, especially creating large European-like cities and infrastructure. All of this was built on the backs of the poor and caused many social issues and problems between Diaz’s elite cronies and the poor and working classes. Another aspect of the Porfiriato era was that many foreign investors, often investors from the United States, would take precedence in legal problems, particularly in strikes. There were also some times that US soldiers would take control and put down rebellions or strikes. This would lead to more problems that Diaz would attempt to quench using the force of the Army and along with his rural police force, known as the Rurales. Diaz would use force to violently put down these revolts and strikes quickly and efficiently, though if there were many revolts to occur at the same time, Diaz would be powerless to stop them all. This is why the Mexican Revolution managed to start, because it started off as multiple different revolts and rebellions taking place at the same time.

Porfirio Diaz, the dictator of Mexico for three and a half decades

Let’s talk about the man that made the call for revolution, and would later become a martyr for the Revolution and become a symbol for the end of tyrannous rule, Francisco Ignacio Madero. Madero had been educated in France and the United States and later would go to University of California Berkeley. This would influence him and made him want to reform Mexico politically with little change for social conditions. In 1908 when Diaz said in an interview that he would not run for re-election in 1910, Madero took advantage of the moment to announce that he would run for president and he wrote a book titled La Sucesion Presidencial en 1910 (The Presidential Succession in 1910) in which he talks about how the country has problems, how Diaz having control over the political system caused various problems. This book became a national best seller and after Madero decided to run for presidency, he used the platform of “No reeleccion y sufragio effective” meaning “No re-election and effective suffrage” which essentially means that there should be secret ballots and that all men, regardless of class and social status, should be allowed to vote and that the president should only serve one term to prevent anyone from gaining too much power and not giving it up as necessary.

Francisco I. Madero, the Martyr of the Revolution

Madero ran for president and took advantage of the trains and other vehicles to help promote his presidential campaign. Overall, Madero was similar to Diaz, politically speaking, in the sense that he wanted to modernize Mexico as well and that Madero believed that the only real thing necessary to fix Mexico was by having new people involved in the political process. In June 1910 Madero would be arrested by Diaz’s orders due to trumped up charges of Madero having disturbed the peace. During this time that Madero was jailed, Diaz managed to win re-election, to no one’s surprise. Madero then used the connections that his father had to manage to get out of jail on a bail. Soon after he got out on bail, Madero escaped to the United States. Soon after this, Madero issued his famous Plan de San Luis Potosi, named after the city where he was jailed. The Plan de San Luis Potosi, which can be read here in Spanish, has Madero explain that the biggest problem to Mexico is Diaz and that the best way to fix this problem was for the people to take up arms and remove Diaz by force. If you recall, I earlier mentioned how Diaz was able to use harsh methods of violence and force to stop any and all revolts but that if multiple revolts were to break out simultaneously, he’d be helpless to stop all of the revolts. This is precisely what Madero wanted to happen, and it did. At the end of the Plan de San Luis Potosi, Madero calls for everyone to revolt against Diaz on a specific day, November 20^th, 1910 at 6 pm. The tl;dr version of the Plan de San Luis Potosi is this: 11/20/10 let’s kick Diaz out of power guys.

I’m sure some of you may be wondering if the Mexican Revolution happened the way Madero wanted, or if it ended up succeeding. The answer is yes and no. Initially Madero had promised various kinds of reforms but nothing ever entirely specific, preferring to give vague ideas and statements. One of the things he was vague about was land reform, stating that it would be something that would happen. Because of this, many campesinos decided to side with Madero and planned to arm themselves in preparation of this. You’d think that this would end up working greatly for Madero, but in actuality it wouldn’t. Two days before Madero’s plan was to be used, there was an issue. On November 18^th, 1910 while gathering supplies for the revolution, the Serdan family was ambushed by Diaz’s men. This ambush resulted in a violent attack and as a result the Mexican Revolution began two days prior to when Madero wanted. After this, the Mexican Revolution began and many battles would occur between the Diaz regime and the various revolutionary factions. In this initial part of the Mexican Revolution many of the revolutionaries were siding either with Madero or with local agrarian leaders, such as Emiliano Zapata in Morelos and Jose Doroteo Arango Arambula, better known as Francisco “Pancho” Villa, in the North. Villa and Zapata both admired Madero, though in different ways. While Villa firmly believed in Madero, and in fact (spoiler alert: Madero gets killed), openly wept at Madero’s funeral, Zapata was less of a believer in Madero and would later break away from Madero after (spoiler alert again: Madero becomes president) Madero became president.

Emiliano Zapata (right) and Pancho Villa (left) in Mexico City in 1914

As the spoiler alert above mentioned, Madero would become president, though only after the Treaty of Ciudad Juarez of May 1911, where Diaz and his vice president would step down from power and Francisco Leon de la Barra would become interim president until official elections could be held. An interesting saying often attributed to Diaz after the Treaty of Ciudad Juarez says that “Madero has a tiger by the tail, let’s see if he can control it.” After this, Madero officially declared the Mexican Revolution would end and that all insurgents would lay down their arms since the main objective, removing Diaz from power, was completed. This didn’t work since as soon as you let people take up arms it becomes difficult for the people to put their arms away, especially since many were trying to avenge family or improve their conditions against hacendados, or large land owners. After ordering the insurgents to put away their arms, Zapata refused saying that the goal of the revolution hadn’t been completed yet, which he believed to be more agrarian and land reforms to improve conditions for the poor campesinos. The greatest problem that Madero and the revolution faced as time went by was that for many people the Mexican Revolution held many different meanings. For Zapata and other agrarian leaders, there was a large focus on helping and reforming the working conditions for campesinos as well as distributing land for those that needed land, whereas for various political leaders, such as Madero, wanted to fix the political system by adding new blood, so to speak, and allowing a new generation to be involved in the political system. It was this problem that caused the Mexican Revolution to have completely different meanings for different people and prevent Madero from easily taking power after the Treaty of Ciudad Juarez.

Now, for Madero the Treaty of Ciudad Juarez was the end of the Revolution, Diaz was out of power and the political system could, theoretically, be improved and fixed. Because of this, Madero asked all the revolutionary fighters to put down their arms, but the campesinos were not going to put down their arms until they got the things they wanted and the reforms they wanted. Due to this, the Mexican Revolution continued for almost another decade and there would be very little political and social change during this era. Madero made a few mistakes after he managed to take power as president, one of which was keeping most of Diaz’s cabinet/assistants. One of the people that Madero allowed to remain in power was Victoriano Huerta. Huerta was a high ranking member of the military under Diaz’s regime. Huerta was initially used by Madero to put down any anti-Madero revolts, not necessarily because the revolutionaries were against Madero, but because they were revolts that disrupted Mexican life and would prevent the changes that Madero wanted. During this time, there were very few, if any, battles that took place in Mexico City but that all changed in 1913. Now, by 1913 popular support for Madero had been in decline mainly because he did not implement, nor did he plan to implement, any type of social and agricultural reform until the political process had been changed and reformed. You can easily see why the population did not fully support Madero at this point and it wasn’t just the general population that disliked Madero either. Many elites disliked Madero, even though most kept their jobs after he took over. One person that greatly disliked Madero by 1913 was General Manuel Mondragon. Mondragon was a top general in the Porfirio era and disliked Madero, wanting to take him out of power as soon as possible. In a (failed) coup, he and other conspirators planned to break Felix Diaz out of prison and take Madero out of power. This initial coup failed, though Diaz was able to break out of jail. For those wondering, yes, Felix and Porfirio were related the elder Diaz was Felix’s uncle.

 

The similarities are uncanny, just look at their hats, moustaches, shiny medals and military uniform.

Felix on the left and Porfirio on the right

Now back to the fighting. After this failed coup, Huerta began conspiring against Madero thanks to intervention from the United States ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson, (who really put the “ass” in “ambassador”) who convinced Huerta that Madero was unfit to be the true ruler of Mexico. Huerta then hatched a plan to remove Madero from power. Madero ordered Huerta to go out and put down an anti-Madero rebellion in Mexico City led by, who else but Diaz and Mondragon. Huerta initially fought against the anti-Maderista rebels, but later on sided with them to take Madero out of power. This coup against Madero is known as the Decena Tragica, the Ten Tragic Days, where Madero and his vice president, Pino Suarez, were essentially held hostage by Huerta from February 9 to the 19^th hence the name, the Ten Tragic Days. During this time, Madero and Suarez were held hostage by Huerta and this caused problems. On February 19^th Madero and Suarez were killed, though the circumstances surrounding this event are relatively unknown. While it is certain that Huerta either killed or ordered the death of Madero and Suarez, not much other than that is known. According to Huerta, both Suarez and Madero were trying to flee with assistance from pro-Maderista rebels, and of course no one believed him.

Victoriano Huerta, the "Usurper"

So where do we go from here? Well, honestly this is the highest point of the Mexican Revolution, with many different factions unite to depose Huerta, who would take power after Madero’s death. Huerta became known as “The Usurper” because he stole power and took it for him after Madero died. Because of this and because of the fact that Huerta was a crony of Diaz for some years, the general population didn’t like him and tried to get him out of power. As I mentioned above, Villa was a great supporter of Madero and because of that, Villa would want to avenge Madero. Zapata, now that Madero was dead, was able to focus more on fighting the government and attempt to create more agrarian reforms. Two other important players show up now as well, Venustiano Carranza and Alvaro Obregon. Collectively these men would help form the Constitutionalist Army, though Zapata, as expected, would not actually be a part of the Constitutionalist Army but would still assist them as needed. Carranza was more of a politician than a general which was why Obregon was assisting him as the general of his faction. Carranza, Obregon, and Villa were generals in the North while Zapata was primarily in the South, centered mainly in his home state of Morelos.

Venustiano Carranza, future president of Mexico

Throughout this time, the Constitutional Army fought united against Huerta until 1914 when, after numerous defeats at the hands of the Constitutionalist Army, Huerta decided to step down from power and fled to Germany until he decided to go to the United States to return to Mexico, but this was thwarted by US officials that arrested him and he died in 1916. On October 1914, after forcing Huerta into exile, the Constitutionalist Army united once again, this time to speak about the future of the nation, joining to form the Convention of Aguascalientes, which was described by Carranza as the “Great Convention of Commanding Military Chiefs and State Governors.” Ultimately this Convention would be the breaking point for the Constitutionalist Army since each of the leaders held a different opinion as to what where the Revolution was headed and what the government should be like in the future. One major problem with the Convention was that there was no real consensus as to what types of reforms and changes there should be. There was little talk of what should be done for the poor working class and as a result both Villa and Zapata split from the Constitutional Army. After this, both Villa and Zapata had a deal where neither would attack the other. The picture showing Villa and Zapata was taken in December 1914 and would be the last time that either Villa or Zapata would be in Mexico City after they took it in a joint effort. After this in 1919 Zapata was killed in an ambush by Carranza. It wouldn’t be until 1920 that the Mexican Revolution ended when Villa made a deal with the government, where Villa would go into retirement in exchange for an hacienda of over 20000 acres.

This is where I’ll end this history of the Mexican Revolution. I generalized and glossed over some points, primarily the events in between the various presidential eras and with the battles. Many more things happened, such as Villa making a film for the US about his battles and exploits against Huerta or Zapata’s various campaigns in Morelos, but those may show up on another day. I'd like to point out; however, that Madero's dream of a fixed political system happened with the Constitution of 1917, which had several clauses to prevent another regime like Diaz's, and the Revolution made clear that the working class would never be ignored again. I’ll end and remind all of my readers that they must work together for a brighter future and that only by working together, united in spite of our differences, can true peace be accomplished. Never forget how every person has their own story and their own lives each as different and complex as the next. 

Women and the Mexican Revolution

Hello all, and welcome once again. Today we will delve into the history of the Mexican Revolution and the participation of people in it. We’ll be talking about women’s roles in the Revolution, so strap in and enjoy the ride.

The Mexican Revolution started in November 18^th, 1910 when Francisco I. Madero, the political opponent of the current president, Porfirio Diaz, called for the Plan de San Luis Potosi while in exile in the United States. Under the Plan de San Luis Potosi, the oppressed agrarian people would rise up and rebel against Diaz’s regime, which exploited the lower classes in favor of the richer aristocratic classes. This plan worked and after some time, Diaz was exiled from Mexico and Madero became president. One would think that this would end the Revolution, but this was just the beginning. Madero had promised vague agricultural reforms, and the people were demanding they be heard. Madero refused to give the working class the social reforms they wanted. Because of this several of his supporters, including Emiliano Zapata and Pascual Orozco, left him to try and support the poor working class. As a result, Victoriano Huerta, a general, caused a coup d’état in 1913 where Madero, as President of Mexico, and the vice president were essentially held hostage by Huerta and his men, then executed.

This is where the Revolution becomes more chaotic. Different people fight for different reasons, and different geographical locations help determine the reasons for fighting. In the north of Mexico, a leader of the forces there known as Francisco “Pancho” Villa fights for land and reform, to fix Mexico and have all people have equal access to land and education, for the hacienda system to end. In central Mexico, primarily the state of Morelia, Emiliano Zapata was the leader in that area and he fought for land, with one of his major motto's was “Tierra y Libertad” meaning “Land and Liberty” where agricultural and land reforms were his main focuses, as I mentioned above. For the various political leaders, they either wanted political power or, if they wanted reforms, political reform to allow more people to vote.

Keeping in mind that the Revolution took place 1910-1920 and because of this time period, women were traditionally not meant to be involved in the Revolution, but at the same time, because of the fighting it was difficult to keep women home when what was considered home moved along with the battles. What I mean by this is that many women, especially lower class and working class women, were camp followers and would do the traditional woman roles, such as cooking, cleaning, and caring for children. Oh yeah, and the most important thing a woman (at the time) could do; have sex. This doesn’t mean that women were completely useless because they weren’t. Traditionally these women were called adelitas, named after a popular corrido, a traditional folk song that tells a story, that talks about a soldier’s girl named Adelita, who performed the tasks I just listed. More recently they became called soldaderas. Now, I know what some of you that don’t know the history behind these women may think “Oh the women are called soldaderas because they’re female soldiers.” And to those of you that are thinking this I say, “Good thinking, but wrong.” Soldaderas were called that because often times, when their husbands or other male relatives died or were busy fighting, the women would pick up the man’s salary called a soldada. This is why women became known as soldaderas.

A stereotypical picture of an Adelita or soldadera

Now I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Wait, so women didn’t fight in the Revolution?” Of course women did fight as soldiers, though once again, it depended on the social class and geographical location. Villa definitely had some women fight, and so did some other revolutionaries, though women still remained the minority in the fighting. Some factions fighting preferred not to use women at all, because they were "weak" or would be too much of a distraction to the men. Women still played a very crucial role, as I previously stated, and as a result of having previously been in dangerous situations during the Revolution. Being in those situations helped push women into wanting equal rights as men, considering that there were women fighting alongside with men in this Revolution to change and reform society. This led to helping create the feminist and woman’s rights movements in Mexico, which in 1953 women earned the right to vote. An important thing to note is that not all women fought, but many did; however within the soldaderas there was infighting and many other conflicts. There have been stories told of how some soldaderas would “accidentally” kill other soldaderas, along with innocent bystanders. This doesn’t lessen the role that the women played; however, as some soldaderas killed their companions, others fought valiantly for their cause. There were also many cases of women not fighting, but being spies or smugglers for the Revolutionaries, bringing them food, supplies, weapons, and other necessities for the fights.

A potentially staged photograph of soldaderas 

One important thing to note is that because this revolution took place in the 1910's, we have actual photographs of the fights, the participants, and others. While normally having photographs is a good thing, in this case not so much because it is difficult to tell what may have been staged for propaganda and what was an authentic action. For example below is an example of a potentially staged photograph. If these women were in fact aiming at an enemy, so many women wouldn't be needed, the women sitting below on the ground wouldn't be in a proper position to aim or fire properly, and some women only appear to be holding their rifles. This doesn't diminish from the true acts of heroism that many women did by fighting, smuggling goods, or spying but rather these potentially staged photographs add to the myth that all soldaderas were female soldiers and that they all fought, when in reality many did, but many more were still simple housewives in a time of war.
                       

This is where I’ll end this blog post, but don’t worry my dear readers, I’ll tackle the Mexican Revolution once more. Until then dear readers, remember that any dreams or goals you have will never be beyond your reach if you try hard enough. Never give up because someone says that you aren’t worth it. Always remember that with determination and perseverance you can succeed. And above all, remember that everyone on this world has a different life than yours, and that different opinions and perspectives are what makes everyone unique. Acknowledge your differences and respect them just as you want your differences to be respected.