Craig White's Literature Courses Historical Backgrounds   Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919) "El Tigre del Sur": the Tiger of the South

Zapata 1914

With Pancho Villa, Zapata was a charismatic military leader and founder of modern Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.

Villa was the leading military chieftain in the north, while Zapata's base of operations was in Southern Mexico. Of Spanish and Nahua (Aztec) descent, he grew up as a peasant in a Nahuatl-speaking community. He married a middle-class Mexican woman whose family owned a rancho, but retained an interest in land reform throughout his life.

Zapata & staff, 1910s

Zapata 1914

Pancho Villa & E. Zapata at Presidential Palace, 1910s