Mexican Revolution Photographs

The Mexican Revolution began as a result of widespread discontent with la encomienda, a system under which a minority of wealthy landowners benefited from the work of agricultural laborers while the laborers lived in poverty. In 1910, Francisco I. Madero (who had been exiled for his political activism) authored the Plan of San Luis Potosí, which called for an uprising beginning on November 20, 1910 that would replace dictator Porfirio Díaz (who had been in power since 1877) with a provisional government and restore the Constitution of 1857 in order to establish a democratic republic. This document was widely distributed among revolutionaries, including prominent figures like Francisco Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. The revolution was well established by 1911 and Díaz resigned and left the country on May 11 of that year.

Francisco I. Madero was elected President in 1911 but was assassinated in 1913 by federal commander Victoriano Huerta, who had joined counterrevolutionaries led by Díaz's nephew. Huerta dissolved the congress and assumed power but was unseated after the United States sent Marines to Vera Cruz, Mexico to support the revolutionaries in 1914. After Huerta's fall, Venustiano Carranza, a wealthy landowner and chief of the Northern Coalition, gathered revolutionary leaders to discuss Mexico's future. This conference began talks that led to a constitutional convention. The final constitution, approved in 1917, formalized agricultural reform and granted Mexico's citizens unprecedented economic rights. Carranza won the 1917 presidential election and proceeded to ignore the new constitution. He was assassinated in 1920 and replaced by General Álvaro Obregón, thus formally ending the Mexican Revolution.