Zapata, Emiliano (1879-1919)

Mexican Indian revolutionary leader. He led a revolt against dictator Porfirio Díaz from 1910 under the slogan ‘Land and Liberty’, to repossess for the indigenous Mexicans the land taken by the Spanish. By 1915 he was driven into retreat, and was assassinated in his stronghold, Morelos, by an agent of Venustiano Carranza.

Initially he was allied with the northern-based revolutionary leader Francesco Madero, but he dissociated himself from him because of Madero's timidity at land reforms. He also fought against the succeeding regimes of Victoriano Huerta and Venustiano Carranza, from 1913, recruiting an army of American Indians from local plantations and estates.

Born in Morelos estate, in south Mexico, Zapata was an illiterate tenant farmer of pure American Indian descent. He remains an ideal for American Indians in southern Mexico, and has inspired the Zapatista revolutionaries active in Chiapas state since the mid-1990s.