Zapata asked Guajardo to join his side. Guajardo agreed. Eventually, they met and as a sign of good faith Guajardo killed fifty-nine of his own men. He also brought the one thing all those in revolt consistently want for: weapons and ammunitions.
Still, Zapata was wary. As the day became hotter, Zapata continued to ride. In Anenecuilco—his home, some twenty kilometers north of the Hacienda de Chinameca he was riding outside of—his family had fought for far longer.
They also fought against the French Intervention. He waited. While waiting he heard reports federal troops were near. Zapata and his men investigated. They found nothing. He waited longer. He waited so long, in fact, that Guajardo sent a formal invite from inside the house hosting their meeting.
Zapata, not yet ready, declined. When Guajardo sent Zapata a beer—to combat the escalating heat—he again declined. Perhaps it was a poisoned drink, Zapata thought. Perhaps, as some of his spies suspected, this was all a ruse. Finally, hours since dawn, in the early afternoon—pm to be exact—Zapata decided to meet. He told ten of his men to follow.
The rest stayed behind and rested, trying to stay cool under the shade of the surrounding trees. The house they would meet in was inside the hacienda gates. He and his ten men rode inside. There he was: Emiliano Zapata. The man who Mexico City newspapers called a bandit, a terrorist, a barbarian whose savagery inspired comparisons to Attila. Emiliano Zapata, who had not just inspired fear but also a devotion so intense his followers would rather die than turn against him.
Emiliano Zapata. They wrote songs about him. They praised him. This is who they saluted. They raised their rifles in the air and shot at the sky. And as Zapata and his men rode closer, the entire thing looked something like preparations for a parade. Then days later, on July 20, , Villa was on his way back home after having visited some friends and one of his former wives.
Villa sent word to Lara to send him three cheeses. This was code for the three-armed escorts who were to meet Villa on the outskirts of Parral. Unknown to Villa, was the fact that Lara and his men had left Parral that same day.
They had gone to the nearby town of Maturana to allegedly rehearse for the Diez y Seis military parade, which was a Mexican national holiday. This was a bit odd since the celebration was two months away.
Villa may not have continued his trip had he known Lara and his men were out of town. However, as they drove into Parral, Villa was now at the wheel and in a good mood. Pancho Villa's body after his assassination in No photo Credit Available.
Villa was hit nine times and was killed instantly. Three members of his escort were also hit. Two others began running, Ramon Contreras who was badly wounded, managed to pull out his gun and kill one of the assassins before he managed to escape.
The other escort who ran was later cornered next to a river and was shot and killed. These bullets expand after entering their target and shred the interior of the object or person they enter.
After making sure Villa was dead the killers casually rode off on horseback. Obregon doubted this and told his staff and generals this. A photo montage of Pancho Villa's corpse was put together by a seller of postcards so that Americans could immerse themselves in morbid fantasies of death over the demise of Villa.
No photo Credit. During this time, and for many years to follow, Zapata continued to faithfully campaign for the rights of the villagers, using ancient title deeds to establish their claims to disputed land, and then pressuring the governor of the region to act.
Finally, in the face of the glacial pace of governmental response and the clear favoritism toward the wealthy plantation owners, Zapata started to use force, simply taking over the disputed land and distributing it as he saw fit. In Madero, Zapata saw an opportunity to promote land reform in Mexico, and he made a quiet alliance with Madero. Zapata was wary about Madero, but he cooperated once Madero made promises about land reform, the only issue Zapata truly cared about.
A week later, he resigned and headed to Europe, leaving behind a provisional president. Francisco Madero entered Mexico City in victory, and Zapata met him there to ask him to exert pressure on the provisional president to return misappropriated land to its original landowners, again returning to the cause most deeply embedded in his heart. Zapata rejected the offer but began to disarm his forces regardless.
He soon stopped the process, however, when the provisional government sent the military to confront the guerrillas. Attempts at compromise between the two fell flat in November , days after Madero became president of Mexico, and Zapata fled to the mountains. The Plan promised to appoint a provisional president until there could be legitimate elections and pledged to buy back a third of the stolen land area held by the haciendas and return it to the farmers.
Any hacienda that refused to accept this plan would have their lands taken, without recompense. Zapata also adopted the slogan "Tierra y Libertad" "Land and Liberty". Huerta soon approached Zapata, offering to unite their troops, but Zapata rejected Huerta's offer.
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