Heroes of the Revolution
Sadly for Mexico, what began in the Age of Reform did not continue. Instead, Mexico entered the era of Porfirio Diaz. Diaz brought stability and unity to the country, but for 30 years he also brought autocracy. The Constitution of 1857 remained intact, but without meaning, and for whatever transient economic progress occurred, the country as a whole was marked by overwhelming poverty and widespread social inequality. Inevitably, challenges to Diaz finally began to occur. In 1901, in San Luis Potosi, a new Liberal Party was formed, determined to put life back into the principles of the reform and the Constitution of 1857. Labor unrest began to spread across the country and Francisco I. Madero entered the political arena. The revolution began in 1910. Its end is a little more difficult to pinpoint. A new constitution was drafted in 1917, and Venustiano Carranza assumed the presidency, but the charismatic and idealistic peasant leader, Emiliano Zapata, pursued his own revolutionary vision until 1919, when he was ambushed and killed. Pancho Villa did not surrender to the new government until 1920.
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