Emiliano Zapata (1879 - 1919)

Fri Aug 08, 1879

Emiliano Zapata Salazar, born on this day in 1879, was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, the main leader of the peasant revolution in the state of Morelos, and the inspiration for the name of the modern Zapatista movement.

Zapata was born in the rural village of Anenecuilco in Morelos State, where peasant communities were under increasing pressure from the small landowning class who had monopolized land and water resources for sugar cane production with the support of dictator Porfirio Díaz.

Early on, Zapata participated in political movements against Díaz and the landowning hacendados. When revolution broke out in 1910, he was positioned as a central leader of the peasant revolt in Morelos. Zapata was responsible for defeating and ousting various invading armies from Morelos on multiple occasions.

On April 10th, 1919, Zapata was assassinated, double-crossed by a member of the Mexican Army who had pretended to switch sides. When Zapata attempted to meet with the would-be defector, he was ambushed and shot to death.

"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."

- Emiliano Zapata

• Date: 1879-08-08
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.thoughtco.com, www.leftvoice.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

If you're interested in learning more about the Mexican Revolution, the "Revolutions" podcast (season 9) by Mike Duncan is great. Zapato features in it, along with some other potentially known figures like Pancho Villa.

The "Revolutions" podcast was pitched to me as "listen to a historian get radicalized". The first two seasons (English and American revolutions) don't have as much depth as he wanted so he switched up the format and goes in deep for the following seasons. I can't speak for his "Revolutions" podcast, but his previous "History of Rome" was at an equivalent university course's depth of information, so I expect his "Revolutions" season 3+ had the same level of information.

The seasons/revolutions do kind of build of each other (chronologically), so I think its best to start at the beginning, but I think Mike does a good enough job of bringing people up to speed if they didn't listen to any previous season/revolution. The most important/relevant previous season for the Mexican Revolution is probably the decolonization of Central and South American (season 5).

"Zapata fathered a total of 16 known children with 9 women. Because Zapata is believed to have had relationships with as many as 14 women, there is some conjecture that he may have had more children who are unaccounted for."

Wow!

I mean, do you see his mustache?