Revolution of 1910 and the Agrarian Movement

How did the feelings of heritage contribute to the Revolution of 1910?

The definition of agrarian must be established before continuing on. By establishing this, the pattern of agrarian culture and economic effects can be seen in Mexico’s history. The term agrarian simply means agriculture or based upon the cultivation of land. In most North or Central American countries, it meant that the economies would revolve primarily around the cultivation, growing, and selling of crops. In these new European colonies, the cultivation of the land would include plants native to the Americas, which allowed for the introduction of those plants into Europe and European crops into the Americas. With the cultivation of the land being the primary means of income, it would follow that the land itself would be an important commodity in the Spanish colony and modern-day Mexico.

In the Revolution of 1910, several leaders called for agrarian reform, or reform of who owned agrarian lands and could access the profits of it. One of the most well-known leaders was Emiliano Zapata. Though he was not the first leader, he became a leader of the movement nearest to Mexico City, in Morelos, which was one of the most prosperous agrarian regions of Mexico. In response to one of the other leaders of the Revolution, Francisco Madero, becoming president of Mexico and not fulfilling the promises he made in the Revolution, Zapata issued the Plan of Ayala along with other revolutionaries. Within his plan, which called for a number of reforms in the Mexican government and country, he stated in Section 7 and 8 that the haciendas and other plots of agrarian land should be redistributed to Mexican citizens.[1] Additionally, there were other calls for agrarian and land reform from other revolutionaries.

In addition to Zapata, Luis Cabrera called for further reform to the land. Cabrera suggested that a new communal way of owning and working the land. This communal practice was called an ejido and had previously been in practice in the mid-19th century before the presidency of Diaz.[2] In a speech to congress in 1912, Cabrera called for the restoration of this practice.[3] This restoration would not immediately take place after the Revolution of 1910, as there would be reconstruction of the government for some years afterwards. However, the restoration of the ejido and further land reform and redistribution would take place in Mexico as a result of Mexico’s heritage ties to the land and the work of revolutionaries in the Revolution of 1910.

The creation of the heritage ideology in the Agrarian movement began with the history of the resentment towards the hacendados and the feeling of ownership towards the land. To get a complete image of this ideology, one must go back prior to major European contact in Mexico. It began with the Aztecs’ communal treatment of the land. It dissolved somewhat when the Spanish Empire took control of the area in the early 1500s. It took on a different path when the Spanish colony of New Spain began evolving and growing roots. It became a matter of whether or not a person was born in Spain or the colony, then it became a question of heritage. As time went on, it became a matter that the person with the most Mexican heritage had the bigger tie to the land. As the Revolution of 1910 approached, and subsequently the formation of the Agrarian movement, those with a familial history of lower class and mixed ancestors felt more and more resentment towards the hacendados who owned the land. This resentment would culminate in pressure for more agrarian reform and the proper redistribution of land in Mexico.

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Full citations and bibliography can be found on the About Me page.

[1] Emiliano Zapata, “Plan of Ayala,” In The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics, ed. Gilbert M. Joseph and Timothy J. Henderson (London: Duke University Press, 2002), 342.

[2] Deeds, Meyer, and Sherman, The Course of Mexican History, 286.

[3] Luis Cabrera, “The Restoration of the Ejido,” In The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics, ed. Gilbert M. Joseph and Timothy J. Henderson (London: Duke University Press, 2002), 344.