Emiliano Zapata Timeline

The flawed 1910 elections were a major reason for the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. When the Revolution broke out in 1910, Zapata became a leader of the peasant revolt in Morelos.

Image source: Mexican Revolution

When Zapata's army captured Cuautla after a six-day battle on 19 May 1911, defeating the Federal Army, it became clear that Díaz would not hold on to power for long.

Image source: Battle of Cuautla (1911)

In August 1911, Huerta led 1,000 Federal troops to Cuernavaca, which Madero saw as provocative amid rising tensions between the new government and Zapatista forces.

Image source: Victoriano Huerta

The dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz fell in 1911 after revolutionary victories including the capture of Ciudad Juárez forced his resignation. On 20 August 1911, Zapata married Josefa "La Generala" Espejo Merino, with whom he had two children.

Image source: Porfirio Díaz

Compromises between Madero and Zapata failed in November 1911, days after Madero was elected president, deepening the rift between the new government and the Zapatistas.

In November 1911, Zapata promulgated the Plan of Ayala, which called for substantial land reforms redistributing lands to the peasants. It declared Madero a traitor and named Pascual Orozco, the general who captured Ciudad Juárez in 1911, as head of the revolution. It called for all lands stolen under Díaz to be immediately returned.

Image source: Plan of Ayala

In a coup against Madero in February 1913, Huerta took power in Mexico. A coalition of Constitutionalist forces in northern Mexico, led by Venustiano Carranza, Álvaro Obregón and Francisco "Pancho" Villa, would eventually oust him with the support of Zapata's troops.

On 21 April 1914, U.S. forces occupied the port of Veracruz, further destabilizing the Huerta regime as Constitutionalist forces pressed toward victory.

Image source: United States occupation of Veracruz

Together the revolutionary factions made short work of Huerta, who resigned and fled in June 1914 after repeated military losses, with the support of Zapata's troops contributing to his ouster in July 1914.

In the aftermath of the revolutionaries' victory over Huerta, they attempted to sort out power relations in the Convention of Aguascalientes, held from October to November 1914.

Image source: Convention of Aguascalientes

Through 1915 there was a tentative peace in Morelos. Zapata began reshaping Morelos after the Plan of Ayala, redistributing hacienda lands to the peasants and largely letting village councils run their own local affairs. The peasants had more to eat than they had had in 1910 and at lower prices.

Even when Villa was retreating, having lost the Battle of Celaya in 1915, and Obregón took the capital from the Conventionists, who retreated to Toluca, Zapata did not open a second front.

Image source: Battle of Celaya

By the summer of 1915, Zapata's forces had taken the southern edge of the Federal District, occupying Milpa Alta and Xochimilco, and were poised to move into the capital.

Through 1916, Zapata attacked federal forces from Hidalgo to Oaxaca, and Genovevo de la O fought the Carrancistas in Guerrero. Through low-scale attacks on González's positions, Zapata drove González out of Morelos by the end of 1916.

Zapata re-took Morelos in 1917 and held most of the state against Carranza's troops until he was killed in an ambush in April 1919.

Meanwhile, Carranza mounted national elections in all state capitals except Cuernavaca, and promulgated the 1917 Constitution, which incorporated elements of the Plan of Ayala. Article 27 was drafted in response to Zapata's agrarian demands and codified an agrarian reform program.

Image source: Constitution of Mexico

In the fall of 1917, a force led by González and ex-Zapatista Sidronio Camacho, who had killed Zapata's brother Eufemio, moved into the eastern part of Morelos, taking Cuautla, Zacualpan, and Jonacatepec.

Image source: Pablo González Garza

In the winter of 1918, severe cold weather and the onset of the Spanish flu caused the loss of a quarter of the total population of the state, almost as many as had been lost to Huerta in 1914.

Image source: Spanish flu

In December 1918, Carrancistas under González undertook an offensive campaign, taking most of the state of Morelos and pushing Zapata to retreat.

Unwilling to compromise with domestic foes, Carranza wanted to demonstrate that he was the only viable alternative to anarchy and radicalism. In mid-March 1919, General Pablo González ordered his subordinate Jesús Guajardo to begin operations against the Zapatistas in the mountains around Huautla.

Image source: Emiliano Zapata

Zapata answered Guajardo's letter on 1 April 1919, agreeing to all of Guajardo's terms, unaware of the deception being planned.

On 10 April 1919, Guajardo invited Zapata to a meeting, intimating that he intended to defect to the revolutionaries. Zapata was killed in the ambush at Chinameca, ending the life of the great revolutionary leader.

As Carranza moved to curb his former allies in 1920 to impose Ignacio Bonillas as his successor, Obregón sought to align himself with the Zapatista movement against Carranza. Despite González's attempts to sully Zapata's name during his 1920 campaign, the people of Morelos continued supporting Zapatista generals.

Image source: Álvaro Obregón

Genovevo de la O and Magaña supported Obregón in the coup by former Constitutionalists, fighting in Morelos against Carranza and prompting him to flee Mexico City toward Veracruz in May 1920. In 1920, Zapatistas obtained important positions in the government of Morelos after Carranza's fall, instituting many of the land reforms envisioned by Zapata.

A great deal of the significant land distribution which Zapata sought would later be enacted after Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas took office in 1934, fulfilling much of the agrarian vision of the Plan of Ayala.

Image source: Lázaro Cárdenas

Marlon Brando played Emiliano Zapata in the award-winning movie based on his life, Viva Zapata! in 1952.

Image source: Viva Zapata!

There was the stage musical Zapata (1980), written by Harry Nilsson and Perry Botkin, with a libretto by Allan Katz, which ran for 16 weeks at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut.

Many popular organizations take their name from Zapata, most notably the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), the Neozapatismo group that emerged in the state of Chiapas in 1983.

Image source: Zapatista Army of National Liberation

The EZLN precipitated the 1994 indigenous Zapatista uprising which still continues in Chiapas, carrying forward the name and ideals of Emiliano Zapata.

A movie called Zapata: El sueño de un héroe (Zapata: A Hero's Dream) was produced in 2004, starring Mexican actors Alejandro Fernandez, Jaime Camil, and Lucero.

In the 2011 Mexican TV series El Encanto del Aguila, Zapata is played by Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta.

Image source: Tenoch Huerta

In December 2019, an arts show commemorating the 100 year anniversary of Zapata's death was held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.

Image source: Palacio de Bellas Artes