Left-Wing and the 'Other' History: Indigenous Peoples and the Mexican Revolution

Yaquis in Sonora, c.1911

On this series we have not managed to look at the 'Others' in history so far, and looking at Mexico's indigenous community during the Mexican Revolution shows an interesting way to view the event. Despite being at the forefront of the revolution, indigenous communities have regularly been sidelined in how the Mexican Revolution is remembered. Looking at the Mexican Revolution from below we can see how important indigenous peoples were in shaping the events of the revolt.

The Mexican Revolution - A Brief Overview

The Cananea Strike in 1906

To understand the role of indigenous peoples in the Mexican Revolution we first have to understand the chronology of the revolution itself. Unfortunately, the Mexican Revolution was a long and complex affair lasting over a decade - historians heavily debate about when we can consider the Mexican Revolution 'ending'. As a result, we'll just go over a broad overview of the revolution to keep things easy to understand. Mexico prior to the revolution was dominated by extremely wealthy landlords owning large plantations named haciendas, and the Catholic Church dominated any land not owned by landlords. From the second half of the nineteenth century foreign based companies began purchasing Mexican land placing further pressure on the landless peasantry. On top of society was Porfirio Diaz who had been president since 1876, bar a brief four year absence. Diaz relied on support from the wealthy landowners, much to the chagrin of the peasantry and urban workers. Before the revolution there had been steady opposition to Diaz's regime - most notably from syndicalist Ricardo Flores Magon. By 1910 things came to ahead, the elderly Diaz failed to find a political successor, and the election was contested by landowner Francisco Madero. The election was rigged in Diaz's favour sparking a revolt led by Madero and local figure in Chihuahua Pancho Villa on 20 November. Villa and other revolutionaries started seizing hacienda land, with Diaz's support coming from haciendas, and, eventually, the revolution spread to include the peasantry. In the south, Emiliano Zapata helped lead peasants into revolt against landowners. Diaz was forced to hold free elections in October 1911 bringing Madero to power.

Pancho Villa (L) and Emiliano Zapata (R)

However, the revolution did not end here. Madero just wanted Diaz out; he was disinterested in dismantling the Porfirito state which had been the objective of Villa, Magon, Zapata, and other radicals. Also, as he had not dismantled the existing power structures, conservative forces in Mexico challenged Madero. In 1913 Madero and his allies were overthrown and assassinated by conservative general Victoriano Huerta who aimed to crush the liberal and radical forces in Mexico sparking a new phase of the revolution. Opponents of Huerta united under a banner of 'Constitutionalists', wanting a new constitution, thanks to the work of Venustiano Carranza. Carranza helped unite the anti-Huerta forces, such as Villa in the north and Zapata in the south, to form a united front - this was also aided by the fact that the US occupied Veracruz in 1914. That same year they succeeded, and Carranza was made president, but this did not end the conflict. Carranza's Constitutionalists were largely made up of urban, middle class communities, so opposed the urban and rural radicals. Carranzistas battled for support against the Villistas and Zapatistas for five years. Due to the popularity of the radical Zapata, the government decided to introduce the radical Constitution of 1917 promising extensive land reforms and rights for indigenous peoples. Zapata was also assassinated in 1919 causing widespread grief in the south where he was immensely popular. In 1920, Carranza was assassinated and democratic socialist Alvaro Obregon became president, often seen as the 'end' of the revolution. Villa retired to become a hacienda owner, but was assassinated in 1923 - possibly by the government as Villa had expressed interest in re-entering politics. For the purpose of this post we will say that the revolution 'ended' in 1929. In 1926, conservative forces rose up in response to the government implementing land reform and secularisation. Obregon was assassinated, and concessions were made. We can argue that even today the Mexican Revolution continues, but that is a discussion for another day.

Indigenous Peoples before the Revolution

"Uprising of the Yaqui Indians - Yaqui Warriors in Retreat," by Frederic Remington, 1896

Indigenous Mexicans fit well into the 'subaltern' category as described by Antonio Gramsci - centuries of direct oppression, racially discriminated against, alienated from traditional hegemonic structures, and even linguistically isolated from the rest of Mexico. Of course, there was not one indigenous experience, even among the same communities - indigenous women faced oppression based on race, gender, and class. There were a few norms - since the establishment of Spanish rule in 1521 indigenous communities had faced persecution from the hegemonic power, whether it be Spain or Mexico. The Yaqui in the northern state of Sonora had consistently resisted oppression since 1533, but this often caused harsh reprisals against Yaqui communities. Following the Yaqui Uprising of the 1890s Diaz hoped to permanently end the 'Yaqui Question' by forcibly moving Yaqui communities from Sonora to Yucatan and Oaxaca in the south; the idea behind this was that by moving them to the other side of the country it would separate them from their cultural identity and would force them to become 'Mexican citizens'. From 1902 to 1908 over 7,000 Yaqui were forcibly moved to Yucatan alone; many more were killed, deported elsewhere, or sold into slavery until the outbreak of revolution in 1910. Elsewhere, the situation of indigenous communities were bleak - most were rural, landless, and poor. In 1910, three-quarters of Maya in Yucatan had to work on haciendas for little pay, and 95% of family heads lacked any form of land. Indigenous women were also unfortunately at risk of sexual abuse from landowners and overseers, racist courts and a dependency on haciendas for life meant that resistance to this was difficult. When indigenous people did go to court to air their grievances they were forced to refer to themselves as 'poor people' or 'mestizo', (mixed white and indigenous parentage), as they would be ignored by the court - dismissed as backward and childlike. 

While being persecuted indigenous communities were simultaneously used to identify what it is to be 'Mexican'. Mestizaje, the valourisation of mestizo identity, was emphasised by Mexican intellectuals following independence - Mexico was great as it mixed the glory of the Aztecs with European culture. However, they argued that, thanks to colonialism, indigenous peoples were left backward compared to their ancestors - the current ruling classes positioned themselves as the 'true' heirs. Indigenous communities were further used to forge identity based on conflict. At Namiquipa, Chihuahua an identity emerged of 'white, masculine, civilisation' against the 'savage barbarians' of the Yaqui and Apache dating back to the eighteenth century. The 'border' peoples, often accused of being backwards and not being 'true' Mexicans, used the conflicts with indigenous as a way to define their own identity within the Mexican state.

Indigenous Peoples and Revolution - 1910 to 1917

Zapatista forces entering Cuernavaca, 1911

As Madero relied on figures like Pancho Villa the revolution soon spread to the peasantry who were largely indigenous or mestizo. Emiliano Zapata himself was from a rural, mestizo family. Mexico's southern states, (especially Yucatan, Oaxaca, and Chiapas), have significant indigenous populations, so the rural revolt naturally brought many indigenous peoples into the revolution - Zapata was the main revolutionary in the south. Morelos, Zapata's home state, became a focal point for indigenous activity as indigenous communities rose up in support of a radical break from the past. In 1911, revolutionaries in Morelos, including Zapata, forged the 'Plan of Ayala' which historian John Womack would describe as the Zapatistas' 'Sacred Scripture'. Although not as radical as the 1917 Constitution, the Plan of Ayala emphasised seizing power 'for the benefit of the oppressed peoples' by redistributing 'hacendados...who directly or indirectly oppose the present Plan', i.e. virtually all landowners. The Plan of Ayala's cry of 'Tierra y Libertad!' (Land and Liberty!) inspired the landless, indigenous peasantry to rise up to claim lost land. The Mexican Revolution offered indigenous communities in the north, as well as the south, chances to reclaim their identity and land. Despite centuries of dispossession and genocide, the Yaqui managed to retain a solid cultural identity. Yaqui in Sonora used the opportunity opened by revolution to reclaim their lost land, but when their requests were rejected in October 1915 they decided to take it by themselves. It took a brutal war with Obregon, ending in 1916, to end the land seizures. Racial stereotypes were used to lambast the radical forces. As argued by John Womack, for years peasantry and indigeneity were seen as synonymous, so the pr-Huerta yellow press attacks on rural revolts became racialised. For example, the paper La Imparcial decried 'Zapata and his trogolodyte hosts' as the 'Modern Attila the Hun'. It is notable that the white Obregon and Carranza were not described as modern Huns, but the mestizo Zapata was.

Indigenous Peoples and Revolution - 1917 to 1929
The Constitution of 1917 was passed in order to draw support away from Zapata, but by doing so it brought indigenous rights to the forefront of the Mexican state. Directly inspired by the Plan of Ayala, the Constitution of 1917 became one of the most progressive political documents of the twentieth century. It was particularly important for indigenous peoples; it vowed to protect the 'ancient rights' of peoples, and the radical Article 27 aimed to end land monopolies and expropriate land for 'centers of population that lack communal land'. With the exception of a few states, such as Yucatan, it would take twenty years for land redistrubution to take place, and even then it would be far from complete, but its presence in the Constitution served as a way for communities to express their rights. Mary Vaughan has highlighted how the Yaqui used Article 27 to represent their claims to land, and both the Yaqui and Tzotzil used this period as a way to ensure a cultural revival. The Mexican Revolution further brought indigenous peoples into Mexican political hegemony even in the remotest of places. The Chamula in Chiapas even today remain excluded from society, but Ricardo Pozas recorded the experience of Juan Perez Jolote and how the revolution impacted his life. Juan was forcibly conscripted to serve in Huerta's army, and he changed sides regularly based on circumstances, but throughout he never knew what each side fought for. Each just said 'you fight for us now'. However, moving around and meeting new peoples gave Juan agency to understand who he was as a person, and gave him the courage to challenge his father at home.

The Constitution of 1917

Unfortunately, indigenous peoples remained oppressed following the revolution, however, things had changed. As rural, indigenous peasants had managed to exercise agency hegemonic figures feared a reassertion of this - as argued by Gramsci, any movement of the subaltern will see a counterrevolutionary movement from the hegemonic power. This is seen in the diary of landowner Rosalie Evans who in 1921 described the newly elected member of Congress, Manuel Montes, the 'arch-devil' for his advocacy of land access and peasants rights. She specifically stated that 'the Indians have elected' Montes, and even called them a 'rabble'. Fear of the 'other' reasserting its rights following the revolution and civil war meant that peaceful assertion of rights were seen as terrifying. Conversely, mestizaje and indigismo were used to heal the divides of the last decade - an idealised shared indigenous identity, while actually excluding indigenous peoples, aimed to unite Mexico. This was also due to demographic and external events. Racism flourished in the north as nativists attacked Chinese workers, and anti-American feeling had grown thanks to US involvement during the war. The US occupation of Veracruz in 1914 was one of the few things uniting Mexicans over the last decade, the paper El Independente proudly declared that ‘While Mexicans cut Gringo Pigs Throats in the Churches the Gloria rings Out’. Mestizaje and indigismo were therefore used to forge a new, exclusionary, identity. Poet Carlos Pellicer in Ode to Cuauhtemoc (1923) honoured the last emperor of the Aztec Empire and declared that ‘The civilised monarchies of my America fell’ and that ‘in the crater of my heart/burns the faith that will save your people’.  Meanwhile, philosopher and politician José Vasconcelos argued that through mestizaje ‘We in America shall arrive…at the creation of a new race fashioned out of the treasures of all previous ones: The final race, the cosmic race’. However, the people who could claim indigenous ancestry were exlcuded from this process - mestizaje and indigismo were constructed by elite white, or at times mestizo, communities.

Yucatan and the Revolution

Mural of Salvador Alvarado by Fernando Castro Pacheco

I want to discuss Yucatan as a specific case study about how indigenous revolution took place. Being in the south Yucatan had a large indigenous peoples, and contained many of the famous Mayan pyramids. With large haciendas and indigenous populations Yucatan saw intense sympathy for the radical nature of the Mexican Revolution, and in 1915 a progressive socialist general became governor. Salvador Alvarado had allied himself to the syndicalist Ricardo Flores Magon, specifically returned to Mexico to fight Diaz, and became entanced by feminist theory. Upon arriving in the capital of Merida he began issuing 3,000 decrees over the next three years aiming to help Mayans, women, and the poor (many fit into all three categories). Immediately, he began passing laws liberating Mayans from a destitute and brutal life on the haciendas, banned corporal punishment, ended forced guardianship for indigenois children, and prohibited discriminatory laws. His dream was to transform Mayans and women into a proletariat class, so he implemeted laws to protect urban, domestic, and rural workers (especially women). Working with local Mayans he implemented Agricultural Committees to oversee local conflicts to benefit rural peoples, as well as building up Yucatan's infrastructure. In three years over 1,000 schools were built. However, Alvarado did hold paternalistic attitudes towards women and indigenous peoples. Alvarado believed that Maya had to abandon their culture and adopt a ‘modern’ culture – as late as 1968 historian T.G. Powell viewed integration as a non-racist policy.  In 1917 Alvarado wrote in La Voz de la Revolution that Maya should be equal, but their ‘backwardness’ and moral ‘sickness’ meant that they had to be brought into the ‘robust health’ of ‘civilization’ through education.  The Ciudad Escolar de los Mayas was seen as replacing Catholic and indigenous belief with secular rituals to inspire ‘love for the patria’. Although progressive, Alvarado did hold these paternalistic views towards the Maya. In 1918 Carranza moved Alvarado away from Yucatan, but his support of Victoriano de la Huerta (not to be confused with Victoriano Huerta) over Obregon meant that he was executed by Obregon's forces in 1924.

Elvia Carrillo Puerto

In 1922 democratic socialist, and co-founder of the Mexican Socialist Party, Felipe Carrillo Puerto became governor of Yucatan. Building of Alvarado's reforms, and relying on local indigenous activists, this meant that land reform was most successful in Yucatan. Elvia Carrillo Puerto, his sister, was a key figure in his cabinet, so she managed to ensure that a socialist and feminist attitude towards reform managed to persist in Yucatan. Building on older reforms, the Carrillo Puerto's encouraged education for women, access to family planning, entry into trade unions, and better health care for women and children. Thanks to the influence of Mayan allies Carrillo Puerto helped encourage a resurgence of Mayan identity which persists today - there are now cities named after him in Yucatan for this reason. In defiance of policies coming from Mexico City, Mayan was encouraged in schools, Mayan architecture was implemented in cities, and Mayan ruins were rebuilt or restored, the most famous being the pyramid of Chichen Itza in 1923. However, Carrillo Puerto did express the paternal views of Alvarado and other white progressives. As argued by Jo Smith, Carrillo Puerto conflated female and Mayan identity – he argued that both were out of step with modernity thanks to the Church and were intensely traditional by nature.  The ‘other’ was prevalent in his thought. Poor standard of living and exploitation that Maya and women experienced, and a lack of resistance, was blamed on culture, and gender, instead of societal structures based on exploitation and patriarchy. Although Carrillo Puerto did blame societal institutions, mainly the Church and haciendas, he still blamed the marginalised for their own oppression. As this was happening when mestizaje was being promoted we see the paradoxes of national identity. Those who lacked a voice in society were further excluded from a new social identity being constructed – despite being of the vaulted culture, they were deemed (ironically due to Spanish-Mexican culture) not worthy of being members of the new state. Elvia Carrillo Puerto wanted Maya to have smaller family sizes and use birth control, as she saw large families as keeping women back.  Not only does this policy ignore the key point that many rural could not afford birth control, but it highlights continued paternal, or maternal in this case, overrule. Policies were implemented without the consultation of those who were affected and with a semi-understanding of grassroots issues.

Despite the clear faults in Alvarado's and Carrillo Puerto's approaches, reinforcing oppression instead of solving it, they did offer a space for indigenous peoples to express their own agency. Mayans were integral in implementing the reforms and served in the state government - the positive aspects of their governorships were heavily reliant on the support from Mayans. As a result, the success of the Mexican Revolution in Yucatan came not from the caudillos, but instead the Mayans themselves. Like the Yaqui in the north, Mayan identity flourished and went through a revival, beginning properly in the 1930s, thanks to their involvement with Felipe Carrillo Puerto's cultural policies. In a twist of fate, during the De la Huerta Rebellion Carrillo Puerto found himself on the opposite side of the war to Alvarado, but met a similar fate. He was captured by rebels loyal to de la Huerta and executed in 1924. However, Mayans went to fight with Carrillo Puerto as they saw him as the best way to secure the rights which they had been fighting for. Indigenous peoples managed to involve themselves with the wider politics of Mexico. The Mexican Revolution had gave them the opportunity to do this.

Conclusion

An EZLN mural depicting Zapata

Looking at the Mexican Revolution through how it impacted indigenous communities shows the paradoxes a revolution has on subaltern peoples. They were integral to the revolution, but have often been sidelined. They were spoken for, but found their own voice. They saw success, and setbacks. Indigenous peoples allowed the forging of a new Mexican identity, and their impact influenced the forging of one of the most radical consitutions. Throughout the twentieth century, when inequality in Mexico was being challenged, people would look to the Constitution of 1917 for support. Indigenous peoples took this up as well. In preparation for the passing of NAFTA in 1994 Article 27 of the Consitutution was redrafted to allow for US and Canadian ownership of Mexican land. In response, indigenous and mestizo communities in Chiapas rose up on 1 January 1994 to resist neo-liberalism, racism, and sexism. Creating a link between the past and present they named themselves the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Indigenous involvement in the Mexican Revolution forged Mexico and will continue to do so.

The sources I have used are as follows:
-‘The Constitution of 1917: Articles 27 and 123’, in Joseph, G., and Henderson, T., (eds.), The Mexico Reader, (Duke, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 398-402
-Evans, R., ‘An Agrarian Encounter’, in Joseph, G., and Henderson, T., (eds.), The Mexico Reader, (Duke, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 403-405
-Pellicer, C., ‘Ode to Cuauhtemoc’, in Gilbert, G., and Henderson, T., (eds.), The Mexico Reader, (Duke, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 406-410
-Vasconcelos, J., ‘The Cosmic Race’, in Joseph, G., and Henderson, T., (eds.), The Mexico Reader, (Duke, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 15-20
-Zapata and Others, ‘Plan of Ayala’, in Joseph, G., and Henderson, T., (eds.), The Mexico Reader, (Duke, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 339-343
-Eiss, P., ‘Deconstructing Indians, Reconstructing Patria: Indigenous Education in Yucatan from the Porfiriato to the Mexican Revolution’, The Journal of Latin American History, 9:1, (2004), 119-150
-García, N., ‘”What we want is for the Whites and Soldiers to Leave”, Yaqui and Mexicans in Times of Revolution (1910-1920)’, Historia Mexicana, 66:4, (2017), 1863-1921
-Gilly, A., The Mexican Revolution: A People’s History, (New York, NY: The New Press, 2005)
-Joseph, G., ‘Caciquismo and the Revolution: Carrillo Puerto in Yucatan’, in Brading, P.A., (eds.), Caudillo and Peasant in the Mexican Revolution, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 193-221
-Katz, F., ‘Violence and Terror in the Russian and Mexican Revolutions’, in Grandin, G., and Joseph, G., (eds.), A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America’s Cold War, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 41-61
-Powell, T.G., ‘Mexican Intellectuals and the Indian Question, 1876-1911’, The Hispanic American Review, 48:1, (1968), 19-36
-Smith, J., Gender and the Mexican Revolution: Yucatan Women and the Realities of Patriarchy, (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009)
-Vaughan, M., ‘Cultural Approaches to Peasant Politics in the Mexican Revolution’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 79:2, (1999), 269-305
-Womack, J., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution, (New York, NY: Random House, 1968)

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. We have a list of Left-Wing and the 'Other' posts here if you are interested. For future blog posts please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.