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Most of the Mexican Revolutionary leaders were men commited to replascing Díaz, but not to a social revolution. Emiliano Zapara Pancho Villa were peasant leaders who wanted more. A major factor in the campaign against Huerta were the two key peasant leaders, Pancho Villa in the north and Emiliano Zapata in the south. Emiliano Zapata in the south. Emiliano Zapata is perhaps the figure modern Mexicans most think of as aymbol of the Revolution. (Americans tend to think more of Villa because Villa operated in the north and conducted a campaign against Americans.) Zapata was born in San Miguel Anencuilco in the southern state of Morelos (1879). His father was a farmer. Zapata was an intitove leader and he spoke Náhuatl, the local Native American languae. (In fact it was the language of the Aztecs and related tribes.) He was elected leader of his village (1909). He proceeded to organize an army to challenge Díaz before Madero launched his rebellion against Díaz. Zapata was disapointed with the palid reforms promoted by Madero. Instead he issued his pronouncement--the Plan de Ayala (November 1911). Zapata joined the Constinuionalist cause after Huerta killed Madero and attempted to restanlish a new Porfiriato. After Huerta's defeat, Zapata and radical even ararchist elements dominated the Convention in Aguascalientes which was to decide the future of Mexico. There the Zapatistas demanded 'tierra y libertad' - land and freedom. - for their people. This was not the vision of of Mexico that the more conservative Constitutioinalists (Carranza and Obregón) held. Zapata was strongly supported by the pesantry of Morelos in their mountaneous stronghold. The peasant soldiers of the Army of the South was, however, unwilling to venture far out of their bastion. They were defeated by the more moderate Constituionlists led by Carranza and Obrgón. Actually destroying Zapata in his Morelos stronghold proved much more difficult. Zapata continued to resist the Caranza Government. Eventually he was trecherously led in to an ambush (1919). TZapata was killed, but became the soil of the Revolution. Zapata's reforms (especially land reform) were not achieved during the Revolution itself. They came during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1930s). Zapata's Plan de Ayala, resonated throughout the Revolutionary period and influenced the Land Reform of the PRI Government which followed it.
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