Emiliano Zapata

Emiliano Zapata Salazar was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, the main leader of the peasant revolution in the state of Chiapas, and the inspiration of the agrarian movement called Zapatismo.

Zapata was born in the rural village of Anenecuilco in Morelos State, where peasant communities were under increasing pressure from the small landowning class who monopolized land and water resources for sugar cane production with the support of dictator Porfirio Daz. Zapata early on participated in political movements against Diaz and the landowning hacendados, and when the Revolution broke out in 1910 he was positioned as a central leader of the peasant revolt in Morelos. Cooperating with a number of other peasant leaders he formed the Liberation Army of the South of which he soon became the undisputed leader. Zapatas forces contributed to the fall of Daz, defeating the Federal Army in the Battle of Cuautla, but when the revolutionary leader Francisco I. Madero became president he disavowed the role of the Zapatistas, denouncing them as simple bandits. In November 1911, Zapata promulgated the Plan de Ayala which called for substantial land reforms, redistributing lands to the peasant

Source: Wikipedia