EMILIANO ZAPATA

Mexican revolutionary leader and agrarian reformer

He was born on August 8, 1879 in Anenecuilcans, Morelos (Mexico)

It was the ninth of ten children of Gabriel Zapata and Cleofas Salazar Gertrudis, small
landowners, natives of Nahua and Spanish descent. His paternal grandfather participated in
the storming of Cuernavaca in the war against Maximilian.

Given their poverty, the family diversified its Zapata aiming at the small livestock
activities. Thus the animals were allowed autonomy of the neighboring sugar plantation.

Zapata followed the primary education in the village school receiving his limited education
teacher, Emilio Vara. At 16 he lost his mother and 11 months later, his father. The assets he
inherited was small, but enough to not have to be used as a pawn in one of the richest
haciendas surrounding Anenecuilcans. From an early age, he noticed the great injustices
committed against those who worked the land. Years before the outbreak of the revolution,
he worked in one of the estates of the tower Ignacio, son of Porfirio Diaz. Zapata was the
only one he trusted to care for their horses.