Friday, October 28, 2011

Enrique Flores Magon murio hoy Oct 28, 1954

Enrique Flores Magón

Esta entrada la hare sobre otro personaje muy importante,el hermano de Ricardo Flores Magon,Enrique
Enrique Flores Magón
1877 – 1954
Periodo: Revolución de 1910
Área: Periodista
Nació en Teotitlán del Camino, actualmente Flores Magón, Oaxaca en 1877. Vivió los primeros años de su infancia en Oaxaca y su familia migró a la Ciudad de México. Estudiaba en la capital del paísen 1892 cuando participó en las manifestaciones contra la tercera reelección del general Porfirio Díaz. Junto con Ricardo y Jesús se inició en el periodismo; en 1904 fue expulsado del país, vivió en distintas ciudades de los Estados Unidos.
Fue uno de los redactores del Programa del Partido Liberal Mexicano, editor del periódico Regeneración y organizó la red clandestina para la distribución de este diario en México. En varias ocasiones fue perseguido y encarcelado en Estados Unidos; en 1923 tras la muerte de su hermano Ricardo regresó al país, tuvo desavenencias con otros magonistas y finalmente se retiró a la vida privada.
Falleció en la Ciudad de México en 1954.
         
«¿Por qué temer a la guerra? Si se tiene que morir aplastado por la tiranía capitalista y gubernamental en tiempo de paz, ¿por qué no morir mejor combatiendo lo que nos aplasta? Es menos espantoso que se derrame sangre que conquista la libertad y el bienestar, que continúe derramándose bajo el actual sistema político y social en provecho de nuestros explotadores y tiranos.»
Regeneración, 17 de diciembre de 1910
www.oaxaca-mio.com/celebres/flores_magon

El Porvenir Maasacre by Texas Rangers and US Army

El Porvenir Massacre 1918


FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2009

Did you know the Texas Rangers massacred 15 mexican people in Texas in 1918? Here is an article from Wikipedia. This excerpt is from the "Texas Ranger" page.

The Mexican Revolution that began in 1910 against President Porfirio Díaz changed the relatively peaceful state of affairs along the border drastically. Soon after, violence on both sides of the frontier escalated as bands of Mexicans took over Mexican border towns and began crossing the Rio Grande on a near-daily basis. Taking over trade routes in Mexico by establishing themselves as road agents, Mexican banditos turned towards attacking the American communities for kidnapping, extortion, and supplies. As Mexican law enforcement disintegrated with the collapse of the Diaz regime, these gangs grouped themselves under the various caudillos on both sides of the border and took sides in the civil war most simply to take advantage of the turmoil to loot.[13] Then, as the lack of American military forces for defending the border was made more abundantly clear, the scope of the activities soon turned to outright genocide with the intention of driving Americans out of the Southwest entirely and became known as the Plan de San Diego in 1915. In several well rehearsed attacks, Mexicans rose up and in conjunction with raiding Mexican guerrillas among the Villistas within weeks killed over 500 Texan women, children, and men.[14]

The political decision of the Texans was clear: restore control and order by any necessary means. As Governor Oscar Branch Colquitt instructed Ranger Capt. John R. Hughes: ...you and your men are to keep Mexican raiders off of Texas territory if possible, and if they invade the State let them understand they do so at the risk of their lives.[15] Hundreds of new special Rangers were appointed by order of the state, which neglected to carefully screen aspiring members. Rather than conduct themselves as law enforcement officers, many of these groups acted more like vigilante squads. Reports of Rangers abusing their authority and breaking the law themselves became numerous.[16] The situation grew even more dramatic when on March 9, 1916, Pancho Villa led 1,500 Mexican raiders in a cross-border attack against Columbus, New Mexico, increasing the high tension that had already existed between the communities.

The final straw that broke the camel's back was the killing of innocent villagers wrongly accused of raiding the Brite Ranch Store on Christmas Day in 1917. On January 1918 a heavily armed group of Texas Rangers, ranchmen and members a troop of U.S. Cavalry descended upon the tiny community of Porvenir, Texas on the Mexican border in western Presidio County. The Texas Rangers and company rounded up the inhabitants of the village and searched their homes. The vigilantes then proceeded to gather all the men in Provenir ( fifteen Mexican men and boys ranging in age from 72 to 16 years) were marched off into the cold and bitter darkness. A short distance from Porvenir, the innocent men were lined up against a rock bluff and shot to death. The innocent men were Manuel Morales, 47, who possessed a deed to 1,600 acres (6.5 km²), Roman Nieves, 48, who possessed a deed to 320 acres (1.3 km²), Longino Flores, 44, Alberto Garcia, 35, Eutimio Gonzales, 37, Macedonio Huertas, 30, Tiburcio Jaques, 50, Ambrosio Hernandez, 21, Antonio Castanedo, 72, Pedro Herrera, 25, Viviano Herrera, 23, Severiano Herrera, 18, Pedro Jimenez, 27, Serapio Jimenez, 25, and Juan Jimenez – the youngest victim at age 16. In January 1919, the Porvenir massacre came under the scrutiny of the Texas House and Senate Investigation of the State Ranger Force.

Before the decade was over, thousands of lives were lost, counting Texans and Mexicans alike; although by far, the wanton rape, murder, and execution of innocent civilians fell greater upon the former. In January 1919, at the initiative of Representative José T. Canales of Brownsville, the Texas Legislature launched a full investigation of Rangers' actions throughout these years. The investigation found that from 300 up to 5,000 people, mostly of Hispanic descent, had been killed by Rangers from 1910 to 1919 and that members of the Rangers had been involved in many sordid misdeeds of brutality and injustice.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Juan N Cortina: Anti imperialist, Anti expansionist, anti racist y liberal republican patriot

Juan N. “Cheno” Cortina: Republican Patriot, Hero and Revolutionary General and Anti imperialist! 1824-1884.

RubenSolisGarcia Oct. 2011

Tribute to 127 years since his death 
'the lion of the border'

Why was Cheno (Juan N) Cortina an anti-imperialist Hero and national patriot?

To answer this question we must 'resurrect' Cheno Cortina and the Cortina Revolution in South Texas and northern Mexico, and to correct the way historians have portrayed him and his revolution. Cortina and his army have been labelled as border bandits by most historians while a more progressive group labels him as a social bandit. But none dare call him by his real identity, a revolutionary liberal republican. Cortina believed and defended with his life and at risk for all of his extended familia and ranchos, livestock, everything for the patria; the Republic of Mexico liberal and secular constitution of 1857 and the revolutionary principals of nation building and sovereignty. To Cortina the sovereignty of the (republic) nation was sacred and had to be defended with honor, valor and sacrifice, something he proved over and over again in his whole life trajectory and actions.

Cortina fought the Republic of Texas in 1836 to protect his lands, he did not recognize the Slave Texas Republic because he was against slavery, and he experienced how the gringos in the Austin colony wanted to take over Tejano-Mexicano lands. Cortina recognized the Texas-Mexico border at the Nueces River and not the Rio Grande River as falsely claimed by the Slave Republic of Texas. The Nueces strip as it has become known in history became the contested lands and in 1845 when the US annexed Texas, the US military immediately invaded the Nueces Strip in hopes of sparking a conflict and possible war with Mexico. The War against Mexico by the United States started in the battle of Palo Alto near present day Brownsville, homelands of Cheno Cortina. He enlisted and fought in the Mexican Army as Calvary and he defended the nation from the imperialist expansion of the northern neighbor.
Cortina's anger with the new system of the Texas Republic and later the United States, grew as he witnessed the land grab, violence and numerous injustices against the Tejano-Mexicano population with the gringo Justice system doing nothing; crimes with impunity. He grew tired of the gross injustice and fought back 'Defending the Mexican name in Texas' (Jerry Thompson's book).

Cortina organized an army 'Los Aguilas Negras', and fought a protracted guerrilla armed struggle and revolution against the Slave Republic of Texas; against the United States federal troops, the Texas Rangers, the Civil Militias, and the Mexican Army beginning in 1859. It was then he took over Brownsville, Texas and issued his first revolutionary proclamation. He fought until his imprisonment by Dictator Porfirio Diaz in 1877, (in exchange for US recognition of his Presidency). Cortina died on October 30, 1884 in Mexico City still under house arrest and unable to return to the lands he loved a defended on the border.

With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed in 1848, the Rio Grande River became the new border dividing Mexico and Texas. Many families on the river ended divided by the border with family relatives and lands holding on either side of the rio grande river. Cortina while in Mexico defended President Benito Juarez against the Bonaparte French invasion of Mexico and the forceful installation of Maximiliano and Carlotta as new emperors of Mexico. Juarez was driven into exile in El Paso and CD Juarez. Cortino fought against the French in the famous battle of Pueblo on the Cinco de Mayo, defeating the French invaders momentarily. Cortina was an avowed Republican and hated the monarchy. By the end of the war of reform and then against the French imperialists, Cortina rose to military general and later governor of Tamaulipas. Juan Cheno Cortina fought the Confederate States of the South, during the Civil war and from Mexico's border attacked confederate forces occupying Texas. His attacks on the port of Matamoros were strategic in making it more difficult for the Confederacy to export its cotton through that port, since most ports in the south were blockaded by the federal navy. King cotton was financing the war against the north by the confederate south.
After the Civil war ended Cortina again was attacking the Texas Rangers and the local militias and ranchers who constituted the 'establishment, stealing cattle and horses and extracting revolutionary justice against his enemies and the enemies of Tejano-Mexicanos. Cortina explained to a Mexican Border Commission that he was merely getting back what was originally stolen from the Tejano-Mexicano ranchers by the corrupt and thieving Gringos and Tejano-Mexicano reactionaries. When porforio Diaz violated the no-re-election clause of the constitution of 1857, Cortina rose up against Diaz and allied with Juarez. Diaz held power from 1876 until 1910 when the Madero and Partido Liberal Mexicano (Magonistas) overthrew his rule and forced him to flee Mexico.

Cortina before his death met with Catarino E Garza who came from Brownsville to visit him in Mexico DF and to consult with him in the plans to over throw Diaz by force. It is believed that this meeting took place and Cortina gave Garza all of his support network in South Texas and Northern Mexico in order to enable the republican revolution to continue now under Garza's revolution and reinstitute the 1857 constitution and make the nation whole again. The Garza revolution went from 1888 until 1898 and with some isolated revolts until 1901.
  • Cortina fought the Texas Slave Republic
  • Cortina fought the racism, terror and savagery of the Texas Rangers
  • Cortina fought the US military invasion of Mexico and defended Mexico in the War of 1846-48
  • Cortina fought for the Liberal republican Mexican constitution of 1857
  • Cortina fought the French imperialist invasion and occupation of Mexico and monarchy
  • Cortina fought slavery and the Confederacy during the US Civil War
  • Cortina's army included African Americans, Japanese, and Indians, and the poor
  • Cortina fought for justice his whole life
  • Cortina never surrendered nor was ever defeated even when he lost battles
YES !
Juan N Cheno Cortina was a general, and a anti slavery, anti racist, anti imperialist, republican liberal and avenger of the injustices against Tejano-Mexicanos by gringo expansionists, racists, and capitalist adventurers in Texas and northern Mexico.

Monday, October 24, 2011

CARLOS ESPARZA: REVOLUCIONARIO y REPUBLICANO RADICAL EN TEXAS 1828=1885

ESPARZA, CARLOS

ESPARZA, CARLOS (1828–1885). Carlos Esparza, South Texas separatist and supporter of Juan N. Cortina, was born in September 1828 in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, to Pedro and Felicidad (Villareal) Esparza. He was privately educated. With his father he managed a ranch twenty miles from Brownsville on the lower Rio Grande. On February 27, 1850, Esparza, his father, Enrique Sánchez, and other citizens of the area attempted to establish a territorial government and separate themselves from the rest of Texas. It was to be named the Territory of the Rio Grande and to be designed to protect the interests of Hispanics. The proposal became politically complicated and was dropped. Also in 1850 Esparza married Francisca García, daughter of Ramón García, who joined him as a guerilla strategist and spy against the Texas Rangersqv and other enemies of Cortina. Esparza chose his aids for their merit and strict discipline. With Cortina he managed to aid Union and Confederate forces against each other while promoting the Cortinista cause. From 1860 to 1876 he provided military supplies and funds for the Cortinistas. He was to all appearances an ordinary rancher, possessing neither Cortina's striking appearance nor leadership qualities. The eccentric, sharp-tongued Esparza remained Cortina's man in the shadows. Cortina gave him an honorary superintendent's position in Matamoros so that he would have access to city resources and information. In 1873 Esparza was appointed special deputy inspector of hides and animals in Cameron County. Texas Ranger Leander H. McNelly was probably referring to Esparza when he referred on January 24, 1876, to the Cortinistas' "organization...called the 'rural police.' The chief man is owner of a ranch, or the superintendent...He is a civil officer...He sends an alarm to one ranch, and it is sent from ranch to ranch in every direction." After Cortina was arrested in 1875, Esparza retreated to his ranch. Except for his activities as a stockholder with the Rio Grande Railroad Company in Brownsville and other business matters, he became a recluse to avoid criminal charges for his controversial political activities. He also managed to save himself with his witty sayings and business talents. He died on September 28, 1885.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: 
Frank H. Dugan, "The 1850 Affair of the Brownsville Separatists," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 61 (October 1957). Carlos Larralde, Carlos Esparza: A Chicano Chronicle (San Francisco: R&E Research Associates, 1977).
Carlos M. Larralde

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Mi Pueblo!!!! Viva La Grulla Mentada!

LA GRULLA
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La Grulla is located on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande from Camargo, and a few miles downstream. It is situated in Porcion 94, originally granted to Pedro Longoria in 1767. Juan Longoria was probably the first Longoria to actually reside in La Grulla. In “Memories from La Grulla on the Rio Grande” Josefina Vera writes "In the year 1836, Juan Longoria Flores, his wife Yrinea Villarreal, and their small children moved across the Rio Grande to settle in that part of their Porcion 94, and called the settlement "Los Mesquititos"...The portales and jacales were hidden by dense mesquite and retama. Thick log fences were built around the yards. Armed men guarded the place day and night. Through a small peep hole in the fence, they could see anyone approaching." This was the beginning of the settlement known today as La Grulla (official post office designation is “Grulla”).The timing of Juan's move across the river is very interesting. It was on March 2, 1836, that Texas declared its independence from Mexico. The Alamo fell on March 6, 1836, and Santa Anna was defeated in the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. With Texas now a republic, many "gringos" started forcing non-Anglo landowners off their lands and confiscating them as their own. To maintain possession of their lands, the non-Anglo citizens had to live on them and fight to keep them. I believe this is what prompted Juan Longoria to relocate his family from Camargo to the future La Grulla in 1836.  And he succeeded in maintaining possession of his lands.  To this date, some of Juan Longoria's descendants still live in La Grulla.
One of the landmarks in La Grulla is the San Roque church, originally constructed in 1891. It was built by Juan and Yrinea Longoria to honor the memory of one of their sons, Eugenio, who had been killed in 1870. Eugenio had gone to visit friends and relatives in Las Cuevitas, but was never seen again after he departed La Grulla. Family members searched for weeks but could find no trace of him. Months later, the skeleton of a man and his horse were found in thick brush just off the trail near Penitas, Texas. The man’s hand still had a gold ring with the initials E.L., identifying the remains as those of Eugenio. The skull of the horse had three bullet holes in it. The cause of Eugenio’s death was never determined. The San Roque church was restored in the mid-1990’s and is still in use today.
Juan Longoria was born about 1815, when Mexico had not yet gained its independence from Spain, and died in 1892. Thus, it can be said that Juan Longoria lived under "five flags of Texas": the Spanish, Mexican, Republic of Texas, Confederate, and United States flags. If one also includes the flag of the short-lived Republic of the Rio Grande, then Juan Longoria lived under “six flags of Texas” (not the same six as claimed by the modern state of Texas, which includes the French flag).
Ranching provided their sustenance and it was their main means of raising the cash needed to buy other necessities.  This meant however that the cattle would have to be driven to other places where there were ready buyers.  The cattle drives were not easy, and they could be perilous. On July 10, 1874, Juan Longoria went before the District Clerk of Starr County and signed a document granting his son Ponciano a Power of Attorney “...to drive, handle, sell and dispose of my stock consisting of horses and cattle running on the range at San Ysidro del Encinal in said County of Starr and State of Texas branded and marked with my brand…...and authority to execute in my name good and valid bills of sale for any animal or hide sold by him by virtue hereof, and to reclaim from any persons having the same in possession without the necessary bill of sale, any hide or animal branded as above, giving to him my said son full power and authority to do every act and thing necessary to be done in the premises as fully as I myself could do if personally present”. Apparently, Juan was giving his son full authority to do everything that a rightful owner of cattle or horses could legally do to a cattle thief or horse thief.
Ponciano’s cattle drives probably went from La Grulla to Corpus Christi, passing through the La Encantada land grant in what is now Brooks County. La Encantada was purchased by Gregorio Villarreal in 1872.  Four years later in 1876, Ponciano Longoria married Maria Rita Villarreal, one of the daughters of Gregorio Villarreal.  It was sometime around 1915 that Ponciano decided to relocate his family from La Grulla to the La Encantada land grant.
Back Home Next
Juan & Yrinea'a home (click to enlarge)
Juan & Yrinea Longoria’s last home
Longoria Cemetery (click to enlarge)Longoria Cemetery 
San Roque (click to enlarge)San Roque Church
Ponciano & Rita's home (click to enlarge)Ponciano & Maria Rita Longoria's home
ceiling rafters (click to enlarge)Ceiling in Ponciano Longoria home.
 
Copyright © 2001.  Raul N. Longoria.  All rights reserved.

Friday, October 21, 2011

PRESENCIA REVOLUCIONARIA DE MARÍA ANDREA VILLARREAL GONZÁLEZ 1900's


PRESENCIA REVOLUCIONARIA
DE MARÍA ANDREA
VILLARREAL GONZÁLEZ

Por J. Jesús Ávila Ávila
Archivo General del Estado de Nuevo León

"En toda revolución hay dos tipos de personajes:
los que la hacen y los que se aprovechan de ella".
Napoleón.
INTRODUCCIÓN
El próximo mes se conmemorará el aniversario número ochenta del inicio de la Revolución Mexicana. Este movimiento social, profundo, que sacudió nuestro país recién entraba el siglo xx, dando fin al régimen que gobernó la nación durante 30 años, se ha convertido con el correr del tiempo en objeto de reflexión y estudio de investigadores nacionales y extranjeros.
Motivo de valoración constante en la historiografía sobre dicho fenómeno social son entre otras: las causas que le dieron origen; los actores sociales principales partícipes de ésta; el tipo de transformaciones de índole económica, política, social y cultural que introdujo el movimiento revolucionario y que en buena medida quedaron contenidas en el texto constitucional aprobado en febrero de 1917; los hechos y sucesos políticos, sociales y militares que tuvieron lugar en la etapa previa y desde 1910 a 1917; los personajes que al encarnar las aspiraciones e intereses materiales de los grupos y clases sociales de la época, condujeron a la contienda armada a éstos.
Al respecto cabe mencionar que la diversidad de enfoques, la descripción e interpretación sobre este hito histórico, se ha venido enriqueciendo los últimos años a partir de las investigaciones historiográficas regionales y locales, que han encontrado en archivos públicos y privados, la materia prima para sacar a la luz del conocimiento histórico, nuevas perspectivas de análisis y estudio de los acontecimientos que se desarrollaron en las primeras dos décadas del siglo.
Hechas las anteriores consideraciones, queremos indicar que el trabajo que se presenta a este Congreso Internacional sobre la Revolución Mexicana, trata de un personaje, de una mujer nuevoleonesa, lampacense de nacimiento, que al igual que otras mujeres y hombres de su época, tuvieron la entereza de saber corresponder al momento que les tocó vivir, pretendemos resumir a grandes rasgos su perfil revolucionario.
Es común que las reseñas del México prerrevolucionario consignen con harta profundidad, múltiples y documentados testimonios de los precursores indiscutibles del gran movimiento socio-político que conmocionó a la nación en la segunda década del siglo.
Sin embargo, muchas de estas historias obvian conscientemente o no, la participación de otros personajes, que imponiéndose al anonimato, virtieron en las páginas de los diarios de combate al régimen de Díaz, sus palabras de aliento, denuncia sin cuartel y llamado a la rebeldía.
Estas cuartillas son esbozo de un proyecto de investigación, a mediano plazo, cuya intención y propósito es recuperar la personalidad y presencia de María Andrea Villarreal González.
DESDE EL PRINCIPIO
En las llanuras semi áridas del norteño municipio de Lampazos de Naranjo, Nuevo León, el 20 de enero de 1881, nació Andrea Villarreal, hija de Próspero Villarreal e Ignacia González.
Andrea era dos años menor que su hermano, Antonio I. Villarreal. La vida de ella, al igual que su hermana Teresa, estaría indisolublemente ligada a la de Antonio.
Por ello, es común que en distintos pasajes del exilio en Estados Unidos de su hermano, esté presente la figura de Andrea, con sus artículos en el periódico Regeneración, órgano de la Junta Organizadora del Partido Liberal Mexicano; además, en el diario La Prensa, del nuevoleonés Ignacio Lozano, oriundo de Marín, Nuevo León, quien hubo de trasladarse a esa población texana, debido a la represión huertista. El periódico se fundó en 1913. (1)
Al establecerse la redacción del periódico Regeneración en San Luis Missouri, en febrero de 1905, participan los tres hermanos activamente.
Es en el Partido Liberal Mexicano, organización que aglutinó a las más dispares tendencias ideológicas contra el régimen imperante de Porfirio Díaz, donde Andrea forjó su carácter militante.
No está por demás mencionar que actualmente dos de las prensas que sirvieron para difundir la palabra de los revolucionarios en el exilio se encuentran en Monterrey, forman parte del patrimonio de la familia Vázquez Santos, sobrinos de los Villarreal.
Éstas fueron el legado de Andrea, traídas de Cleveland, Ohio, desde la Compañía Chandler and Price. En ellas se imprimieron Regeneración, El Hijo del Ahuizote y El Nieto del Ahuizote. (2)
Existen varios episodios que denotan el temperamento de nuestra biografiada: entre 1906 y 1907 tienen lugar algunos levantamientos armados organizados por el Partido Liberal, en Jiménez, Viesca, Las Vacas -hoy Acuña- y el de Palomas, todos en el estado de Coahuila; en el de Las Vacas tuvo injerencia personal Antonio I. Villarreal, tocando a Andrea conducir parque y armas desde San Antonio, Texas. (3)
En una nota periodística, publicada en inglés, del St. Louis Post-Dispatch de noviembre 22 de 1906, hacía mención del juicio federal contra "connotados miembros de la Junta Revolucionaria Mexicana en San Luis", ellos eran Aarón López Manzano y "un hombre que se cree es" Librado Rivera.
A Manzano se le acusaba de violar las leyes postales, al abrir una carta dirigida a otro miembro de la Junta y Rivera era buscado en México, por los cargos de robo y asesinato, su juicio sería de extradición.
Ante tal hecho, un reportero del periódico entrevista a Andrea Villarreal González, contestando ella que no sabía:
"si el hombre arrestado por las autoridades federales es Rivera... todo lo que sé del arresto, dijo la señorita Andrea, que habla bien el inglés, es lo que he leído en el periódico. Sé que Rivera dejó San Luis hace tres meses con mi hermano y otros miembros de la Junta. Dijeron ellos que iban a Europa... estoy segura que no es".
El entrevistador concluía describiendo que:
"Las hermanas viven en la colonia mexicana de Convento con cinco mujeres, tres niños y un anciano. Viven modestamente. Andrea dice, no regresará a México hasta que las condiciones cambien. No podemos hablar con la verdad en nuestro país y consecuentemente hasta que nos lo permitan, regresaremos y diremos la verdad". (4)
El cerco implacable que la dictadura había tendido contra los magonistas, las derrotas y fracasos a pesar de su obstinada lucha; aunado a las discrepancias que surgían en su propio seno, iban abonando terreno fértil que minaba la unidad de estos obcecados y tenaces revolucionarios.
Las insurrecciones liberales de 1906 y 1908 -en Coahuila y Chihuahua-, que a pesar del empeño puesto terminaron en la derrota, creando un ambiente de incertidumbre, que se expresaría poco a poco en un distanciamiento en los dirigentes mismos de la Junta Liberal.
A finales de 1908 se hace por demás patente la división y discrepancias en la organización, refiriéndose a Antonio I. Villarreal y Manuel Sarabia, Ricardo Flores Magón se expresa de ellos así:
"... No necesitamos la cooperación de Manuel ni la de Antonio para nada, al contrario, la continuación de éstos... en el seno de la Junta sería de gran perjuicio para la libertad de la clase trabajadora. Ellos... no quieren a la clase pobre... los miembros de la Junta... estamos... en desacuerdo con Manuel y Antonio, porque nosotros luchamos por la libertad y felicidad de esa clase desamparada y ellos no... " (5)
Los años previos a la rebelión maderista entre 1900 y 1910 fueron años de acumulación de fuerzas, de organización, pero también rígidos, de persecución severa por el Porfiriato, contando con la complicidad de las autoridades norteamericanas.
Para el Partido Liberal Mexicano significó tenaz resistencia, denuncia, planes conspirativos, de clanndestinaje y radicalización; en torno a éste, se habían nucleado la más disímbola gama de intereses y corrientes opositoras al inmovilismo del anciano caudillo, coexistían con un mismo objetivo: anarquistas, demócratas, socialistas, jacobinos, etc.; empero, el parteaguas decisivo que socavó la cohesión de los intransigentes revolucionarios fue la actitud y la conducta, táctica y estrategia a adoptar, ante el movimiento antirreeleccionista que encabezaba Francisco I. Madero.
Para terminar el año de 1910, la formación ideológica de los hermanos Ricardo y Enrique Flores Magón y Librado Rivera devino en el anarquismo radical.
Éstos acuerdan furtivamente remover de sus cargos directivos a Antonio I. Villarreal y Manuel Sarabia, voceros del ala socialista del partido, motivando así las bases de la escisión del obcecado grupo de luchadores sociales; en 1911 se materializaría la división, Antonio rompe con el magonismo, adhiriéndose al maderismo. Andrea hace suya la convicción de su hermano.
Antonio V. Lomelí, cónsul en El Paso, Texas, informa al Secretario de Relaciones Exteriores:
"Rumórase que grupos magonistas existentes en frontera americana, se lanzarán a la lucha el 15 de enero de 1911, uniéndose a los bandos maderistas... La Andrea Villarreal, que afirma la proclama manuscrita, es la secretaria de la Junta magonista en San Antonio, Texas y hermana del revoltoso Antonio I. Villarreal". (6)
En marzo de 1911, en Regeneración, se notifica de la expulsión de Villarreal.
"... por sus afinidades con Madero (ya) que trabaja de acuerdo con Madero, el jurado enemigo de las clases trabajadoras... Villarreal, es un conservador... Es necesario hacer constar, igualmente, que las hermanas de Antonio... no han sido ni son Delegadas de la Junta". (7)
Las diferencias políticas de Ricardo Flores Magón y Antonio I. Villarreal crecían y maduraban, a la par que el movimiento opositor a Díaz, hasta llegar, incluso, a la exacerbación, al insulto y calumnia: desde Regeneración, se le imputa a Villarreal de pederasta.
Éste, en El Diario del Hogar, periódico dirigido por Juan Sarabia, increpa a Ricardo de "chantajista, estafador, cobarde y degenerado", retando a Magón y a los radicales al combate contra él y los moderados:
"Si caigo en sus manos, que me ahorque desde luego; si yo lo aprehendo, le escupiré el rostro y lo mandaré a un manicomio". (8)
Andrea, al triunfo de la Revolución, retorna a México, donde contrajo matrimonio, enviudando poco después, emigrando de nuevo a su natal Lampazos y mudándose posteriormente a Monterrey.
En una entrevista, Elsa María Vázquez Santos, sobrina de Andrea, comentó:
"Sé que ella peleó mucho con la pluma por la gente humilde, vivía en Héroes del 47 en el número 447, también tenía una casa cerca de La Cigarrera, porque decía que tenía que estar en contacto con la gente obrera para ayudarles en lo que se necesitara". (9)
Murió en Monterrey a la edad de 82 años, el 19 de enero de 1963, en la pobreza.
Andrea Villarreal fue de las que hicieron la revolución, no gozó del usufructo de aquélla.
Valga este esbozo general de Andrea, a manera de preámbulo de un proyecto a mediano plazo, hurgando en archivos familiares y públicos, trataremos de contradecir y contrariar el proverbio que dice:
"El olvido es planta que florece a orillas de las tumbas."
Hasta ahora, lamentablemente, éste ha sido el epitafio de Andrea.
Por último, queremos señalar que nuestro trabajo pretende revalorar críticamente para la historiografía regional nuevoleonesa, a otras mujeres como: Belén Campos (a) "La Coronela", partícipe del ataque a Monterrey, en octubre de 1913, por las fuerzas constitucionalistas; María Elena Villarreal de Peña, de Salinas Victoria, N.L.; la profesora y escritora Julia Ruiz Nava, de Galeana, N.L.; y María de Jesús de la Rosa (a) "La Coronela Sabinense".
Ellas, al igual que Andrea, nuestros historiógrafos las han soslayado y por qué no decirlo, hasta marginado. Fuera de algunas (ya cuentagotas) líneas, que por indulgencia se les conceden, al momento de historiar el proceso, antes o después de 1910, no hay mucho al respecto.
¿No será que en algunos casos prive el concepto de que la mujer fue reserva o "apéndice" necesario de los caudillos y jefes militares, sólo útil como soldadera o adelita inmortal de las huestes revolucionarias?
Andrea Villarreal no fue adelita ni soldadera, más bien fue escritora; además, escribía bien.
En la década de los 30's obtuvo el 1er. lugar en unos Juegos Florales, ganando una Rosa de Plata, por cierta obra literaria.
Ese primer lugar que obtuvo, se lo ganó en buena lid a Alfonso Reyes, que hubo de conformarse con el segundo lugar.
Algunos historiadores, que forman parte del círculo de escritores estudiosos de la obra de don Alfonso, le han escatimado reconocimiento. Quizás aún no le perdonen a Andrea.
BIBLIOGRAFÍA
GONZÁLEZ Ramírez, Manuel (Prólogo, ordenación y notas). Epistolario y textos de Ricardo Flores Magón. Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 1976.
LOZANO, Fortunato. Antonio l. Villarreal. Vida de un Gran Mexicano. Monterrey, N.L., Impresora Monterrey, S.A., 1959.
CAVAZOS Garza; Israel. Diccionario Biográfico de Nuevo León. Monterrey, N.L., Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. Capilla Alfonsina. 1984, tomo II.
SÁNCHEZ Azcona, Gloria. El general Antonio l. Villarreal. Civilista de la Revolución Mexicana. México, 1980.
ZERTUCHE González, Ernesto. Lampazos, mi hidalga tierra. Monterrey, N.L., México, 1982.
GARZA Guajardo, Celso. El Gobierno Revolucionario de Antonio l. Villarreal. 1914. Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. Centro de Información de Historia Regional. Folletos de Historia del Noreste No. 4, 1988.
LÓPEZ, Chantal y Cortés, Omar. Compiladores. El Programa del Partido Liberal Mexicano de 1906 y sus antecedentes. Ediciones Antorcha. México, D.F., 1985.
LÓPEZ, Chantal y Cortés, Omar. Investigación, ordenación, notas y diagramas. El Partido Liberal Mexicano (1906-1908). Ediciones Antorcha. México, D.F., 1986.
HART, John M. El Anarquismo y la clase obrera mexicana, 1860-1931. Siglo XXI editores. México, D.F., 1980.
Notas:
1.- GARZA Guajardo, Celso. El 'Gobierno Revolucionario de Antonio l. Villarreal. 1914. 1988, p. 104.
2.- Periódico El Porvenir, 14 de septiembre de 1990. "Las imprentas de Andrea, patrimonio histórico", por María Luisa Medellín C.
3.- ZERTUCHE González, Ernesto. Lampazos, mi hidalga tierra. 1982, p. 287.
4.- GARZA Guajardo, Celso, op. cit., p. 14.
5.- GONZÁLEZ Ramírez, Manuel. Epistolario y textos de Ricardo Flores Magón. Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1976, p. 192.
6.- SÁNCHEZ Azcona, Gloria. El Gral. Antonio l. Villarreal. Civilista de la Revolución Mexicana. 1980, p. 116.
7.- lbid., p. 37.
8.- lbidem, p. 41.
9.- Periódico El Porvenir. op. cit.
.
Fuente:
J. Jesús Ávila Ávila. "Presencia revolucionaria de María Andrea
Villarreal González ", en Memoria del Congreso
Internacional sobre la Revolución Mexicana.

Gobierno del Estado de San Luis Potosí / Instituto Nacional
de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana de la
Secretaría de Gobernación. Del 1o. al 5 de octubre de 1991,
en el Teatro de la Paz, de la ciudad de San Luis Potosí, S.L.P.
México, 1991, Tomo I – Páginas 198-203.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

1915 plan de san diego

PLAN OF SAN DIEGO

PLAN OF SAN DIEGO. With the outbreak of revolution in northern Mexico in 1910, federal authorities and officials of the state of Texas feared that the violence and disorder might spill over into the Rio Grande valley. The Mexican and Mexican-American populations residing in the Valley far outnumbered the Anglo population. Many Valley residents either had relatives living in areas of Mexico affected by revolutionary activity or aided the various revolutionary factions in Mexico. The revolution caused an influx of political refugees and illegal immigrants into the border region, politicizing the Valley population and disturbing the traditional politics of the region. Some radical elements saw the Mexican Revolution as an opportunity to bring about drastic political and economic changes in South Texas. The most extreme example of this was a movement supporting the "Plan of San Diego," a revolutionary manifesto supposedly written and signed at the South Texas town of San Diego on January 6, 1915. The plan, actually drafted in a jail in Monterrey, Nuevo León, provided for the formation of a "Liberating Army of Races and Peoples," to be made up of Mexican Americans, African Americans, and Japanese, to "free" the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado from United States control. The liberated states would be organized into an independent republic, which might later seek annexation to Mexico. There would be a no-quarter race war, with summary execution of all white males over the age of sixteen. The revolution was to begin on February 20, 1915. Federal and state officials found a copy of the plan when local authorities in McAllen, Texas, arrested Basilio Ramos, Jr., one of the leaders of the plot, on January 24, 1915.
The arrival of February 20 produced only another revolutionary manifesto, rather than the promised insurrection. Similar to the original plan, this second Plan of San Diego emphasized the "liberation" of the proletariat and focused on Texas, where a "social republic" would be established to serve as a base for spreading the revolution throughout the southwestern United States. Indians were also to be enlisted in the cause. But with no signs of revolutionary activity, state and federal authorities dismissed the plan as one more example of the revolutionary rhetoric that flourished along the border. This feeling of complacency was shattered in July 1915 with a series of raids in the lower Rio Grande valley connected with the Plan of San Diego. These raids were led by two adherents of Venustiano Carranza, revolutionary general, and Aniceto Pizaña and Luis De la Rosa, residents of South Texas. The bands used the guerilla tactics of disrupting transportation and communication in the border area and killing Anglos. In response, the United States Army moved reinforcements into the area.
A third version of the plan called for the foundation of a "Republic of Texas" to be made up of Texas, New Mexico, California, Arizona, and parts of Mississippi and Oklahoma. San Antonio, Texas, was to serve as revolutionary headquarters, and the movement's leadership continued to come from South Texas. Raids originated on both sides of the Rio Grande, eventually assuming a pattern of guerilla warfare. Raids from the Mexican side came from territory under the control of Carranza, whose officers were accused of supporting the raiders. When the United States recognized Carranza as president of Mexico in October 1915, the raids came to an abrupt halt. Relations between the United States and Carranza quickly turned sour, however, amid growing violence along the border. When forces under another revolutionary general, Francisco (Pancho) Villa, attacked Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916, the United States responded by sending a large military force under Gen. John J. Pershing into northern Mexico in pursuit of Villa. When the United States rejected Carranza's demands to withdraw Pershing's troops, fear of a military conflict between the United States and Mexico grew. In this volatile context, there was a renewal of raiding under the Plan of San Diego in May 1916. Mexican officials were even considering the possibility of combining the San Diego raiders with regular Mexican forces in an attack on Laredo. In late June, Mexican and United States officials agreed to a peaceful settlement of differences, and raids under the Plan of San Diego came to a halt.
The Plan of San Diego and the raids that accompanied it were originally attributed to the supporters of the ousted Mexican dictator Gen. Victoriano Huerta, who had been overthrown by Carranza in 1914. The evidence indicates, however, that the raids were carried out by followers of Carranza, who manipulated the movement in an effort to influence relations with the United States. Fatalities directly linked to the raids were surprisingly small; between July 1915 and July 1916 some thirty raids into Texas produced only twenty-one American deaths, both civilian and military. More destructive and disruptive was the near race war that ensued in the wake of the plan as relations between the whites and the Mexicans and Mexican Americans deteriorated in 1915–16. Federal reports indicated that more than 300 Mexicans or Mexican Americans were summarily executed in South Texas in the atmosphere generated by the plan. Economic losses ran into the millions of dollars, and virtually all residents of the lower Rio Grande valley suffered some disruption in their lives from the raids. Moreover, the plan's legacy of racial antagonism endured long after the plan itself had been forgotten.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: 
Don M. Coerver and Linda B. Hall, Texas and the Mexican Revolution: A Study in State and National Border Policy, 1910–1920 (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1984). Charles C. Cumberland, "Border Raids in the Lower Rio Grande Valley-1915," Southwestern Historical Quarterly57 (January 1954). Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler, "The Plan of San Diego and the Mexican-U.S. War Crisis of 1916: A Reexamination," Hispanic American Historical Review 58 (August 1978). Friedrich Katz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States and the Mexican Revolution(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). James A. Sandos, "The Plan of San Diego: War and Diplomacy on the Texas Border, 1915–1916," Arizona and the West 14 (Spring 1972). James Sandos,Rebellion in the Borderlands: Anarchism and the Plan of San Diego, 1904–1923 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992).
Don M. Coerver

Aniceto pizana Revolucionario

PIZANA, ANICETO

PIZAÑA, ANICETO (ca. 1870–1957). Aniceto Pizaña, poet and revolutionary, was born about 1870 at Rancho del Sombrento, Cameron County, Texas, to Rafael Pizaña and Dionicia Davila. His parents were from Tamaulipas. In time he owned a ranch, Los Tulitos, eighteen miles north of Brownsville. Pizaña and his wife, Manuela, had three children, but one son died shortly after birth. In 1904 he metRicardo Flores Magón and became a follower of Flores's crusade. With Luis De la Rosa he helped formed the Floresmagonista movement in 1904 to redress the injustices done to Mexicans on both sides of the Rio Grande. In Brownsville Pizaña helped to form a branch of the Mexican Liberal party. By 1915 the party had joined other Floresmagonistas in using the Plan of San Diego to combat injustices by guerrilla warfare. The plan called for the American Southwest to become an independent republic. At first Pizaña did not fully support the PSD and headed a moderate faction favoring reform over revolution. His views changed, however, after an incident of August 3, 1915. A posse of Texas Rangersqv investigating a raid near Brownsville rode to Los Tulitos. A gunfight ensued. Several rangers were wounded, and Pizaña's wife, brother, and son were captured. The son was shot in the leg. Pizaña escaped intending revenge and decided to support the PSD. He was mostly responsible for the guerrilla activities of the revolutionaries, generally swift nocturnal attacks. He commanded a raid on the Dodds pumping station in Hidalgo County. Except for one or two attacks, however, he did not directly participate, but commanded the raiders from the Mexican side of the river. He used regular Mexican troops in the raids, weeded out ineffective men, and used strict discipline to produce troops of combat quality. By 1916 Mexican provisional president Venustiano Carranza was being pressured by the United States government to stop Pizaña's raids. Pizaña was arrested in Monterrey in February 1916. He later lived in El Encino, near Matamoros, Tamaulipas, until his death, on March 1, 1957.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: 
Brownsville Herald, September 23, 1915. Charles C. Cumberland, "Border Raids in the Lower Rio Grande Valley-1915," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 57 (January 1954). James Sandos, Rebellion in the Borderlands: Anarchism and the Plan of San Diego, 1904–1923 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992).
Carlos M. Larralde

Citation

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.

Luis de la Rosa y el plan de San Diego 1914-19

DE LA ROSA, LUIS

DE LA ROSA, LUIS (ca. 1865–ca. 1930). Luis De la Rosa, revolutionary and follower of the Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón, was born around 1865. He believed in direct action to correct injustices done to Hispanics on both sides of the Rio Grande. One of his notices called for Mexicans to "unite with our brothers...in Texas...and take the same chances they are taking, for this is the solemn moment of the vindication of right and justice lost to us for so long a time." At various times he was a Cameron County deputy sheriff, a successful butcher in a small grocery store that he owned in Rio Hondo, and a cattleman east of San Benito. He suffered from consumption and had a deformed left arm and hand, with one or two fingers missing due to accidents. Confined to a bed most of the time, he read political ideology, especially Marxism and other revolutionary theory. He enjoyed readingRegeneración, which embodied Flores Magón's anarchist ideas. While writing his political reflections, now lost, De la Rosa fused his ideas with Flores Magón's views. As one newspaper noted in 1916, "De la Rosa, a large man in size, is said to have been the brains of what was known among Mexicans as the revolution of Mexicans in Texas." With Aniceto Pizaña he formed the Floresmagonista movement, which lasted from 1904 to 1919. By 1915 De la Rosa had split it into two groups, the combative Sediciosos and Pizaña's moderates. Shortly after Pizaña joined him, the two conducted raids from the Mexican side into South Texas. De la Rosa was in command of a force that took part in the Norias Ranch Raid, in which he was said to have "visited death and destruction upon the oppressors and left behind a bitter legacy." On October 18, 1915, he caused a train crash at Tandy's Station, eight miles north of Brownsville. He raised an army of 500 men whose raids and guerrilla fighting on the Mexican border of Texas became known as the Plan of San Diego, an effort to return the American Southwest to Mexico. In 1916 De la Rosa was known as the military commander of the PSD. Gen. Frederick Funston requested United States forces to respond, and army and federal investigators declared that the raids were part of PSD. Venustiano Carranza and his aids cooperated with American troops to stop the guerrilla raids along the lower Rio Grande by 1919. By June 1916 De la Rosa set out with a bodyguard for Monterrey to confirm his Mexican authority. En route a Mexican officer, Alfredo Ricaut, arrested him. Shortly after, he disappeared in Mexico, where he died of consumption about 1930.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: 
Brownsville Herald, September 23, 1915. Charles C. Cumberland, "Border Raids in the Lower Rio Grande Valley-1915," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 57 (January 1954). James Sandos, Rebellion in the Borderlands: Anarchism and the Plan of San Diego, 1904–1923 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992).
Carlos M. Larralde

Citation

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.
Carlos M. Larralde, "DE LA ROSA, LUIS," Handbook of Texas Online

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Ricardo Flores Magon

Magon, Ricardo Flores, 1873-1922

Ricardo Flores Magon
A short biography of Ricardo Flores Magon, the Mexican anarchist who took part in the Mexican revolution and was imprisoned several times throughout his life.
Ricardo Flores Magon
Born 1879 - Mexico, died November 22nd 1922 - Kansas, USA
Inside modern Mexico the name of Ricardo Flores Magon is well known. But outside Mexico few have heard of him. Born to a poor family in 1873, he became a journalist on the opposition paper 'El Demócrata' after finishing school. In 1900, along with his brother Jesús, he founded "Regeneración', a radical paper opposed to the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz.
After release from a second prison sentence arising from his campaigning journalism, he moved across the border to the USA. Despite continual persecution and imprisonment by the U.S. authorities, at the instigation of the Mexican dictatorship - who had put a price of $20,000 on his head after he wouldn't be bought off with the offer of a place in the government. He would not be silenced.
In 1905, Magon founded the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM), a reformist organisation opposed to the excesses of the regime, which organised two unsuccessful uprisings against Diaz in 1906 and 1908. During his early years of exile he became acquainted with the legendary anarchist Emma Goldman, and it was partly through her that he moved from reformism to become an anarchist.
With the outbreak of the revolution of 1910, the revolution that he and the PLM more than any other group or person, had paved the way for, Magon devoted the rest of his life to the anarchist cause. Through the influence of his ideas, large areas of land were expropriated by the peasants and worked in common by them under the banner of 'Land and Liberty', the motto of the PLM. This motto was later adopted by Emiliano Zapata, whose legacy inspires the EZLN rebels of the 1994 Southern Mexican uprising whose struggle continues today.
As the revolution began on November 20th 1910, Magon summed up the aims of PLM:
"The Liberal Party works for the welfare of the poor classes of the Mexican people. It does not impose a candidate (in the presidential election), because it will be up to the will of the people to settle the question. Do the people want a master? Well let them elect one. All the Liberal Party desires is to effect a change in the mind of the toiling people so that every man and woman should know that no one has the right to exploit anybody."
A fortnight later he explained the difference between the PLM and other opposition movements:
"Governments have to protect the right of property above all other rights. Do not expect then, that Madero will attack the right of property in favour of the working class. Open your eyes. Remember a phrase, simple and true and as truth indestructible, the emancipation of the workers must be the work of the workers themselves".
By January, PLM forces were fighting in six of Mexico's states. Major towns, as well as rural areas, were liberated by anarchists. In March a peasant army led by Zapata, and influenced by the Magonistas of the PLM, rose up in Morelos. By now the nationalist opposition of Madero had turned some of its guns away from the troops of Diaz and begun to attack the anarchists of the PLM.
In April, the PLM issued a manifesto to "the members of the party, to the anarchists of the world and the workers in general". Vast quantities were produced in Spanish and English to explain their attitude to the revolution:
"The Mexican Liberal Party is not fighting to destroy the dictator Porfirio Diaz in order to put in his place a new tyrant. The PLM is taking part in the actual insurrection with the deliberate and firm purpose of expropriating the land and the means of production and handing them over to the people, that is, each and every one of the inhabitants of Mexico without distinction of sex. This act we consider essential to open the gates for the effective emancipation of the Mexican people."
In massively illiterate Mexico, where many villages had only a handful of people able to read, the circulation of "Regeneración" had reached 27,000 a week. When Tijuana was liberated in May, most of Baja California came under PLM influence. They issued a manifesto "Take possession of the land...make a free and happy life without masters or tyrants".
That month saw Madero sign a peace treaty with Diaz and take over as President of Mexico. Military attacks on the PLM increased, and towns were retaken by government troops. Prisoners were murdered by the new regime, sometimes after being made to dig their own graves. At a meeting in Los Angeles, Magon was asked to accept the treaty but replied "...until the land was distributed to the peasants and the instruments of production were in the hands of the workers, the liberals would never lay down their arms".
Along with many leading PLM organisers, Magon was arrested (again) by the US authorities. The rebels were slandered as "bandits" and repression in both Mexico and the US reached new heights. Despite the setbacks caused by their relatively small size in a gigantic country, the attacks they suffered from the armies of two countries, and the terrible revenge exacted by the rich and their agents, new uprisings broke out in Senora, Durango and Coahuila.
Such was the support for their ideas, that even the conservative British TUC felt obliged to invite Honore Jaxon, Treasurer and European representative of the PLM, to address their 1911 conference. One solidarity action especially worth mentioning was the 24-hour strike by two army units in Portugal protesting against the arrest of PLM militants by the US government.
A new manifesto, emphasising their anarchism, was issued in September:
"The same effort and the same sacrifices that are required to raise to power a governor - that is to say a tyrant - will achieve the expropriation of the fortunes the rich keep from you. It is for you, then, to choose. Either a new governor - that is to say a new yoke - or life redeeming expropriation and the abolition of all imposition, religious, political or any other kind".
PLM and Zapatista rebellions continued until 1919, but their numbers and inadequate arms were not sufficient to defeat the state forces. However all was not in vain. In 1922 the anarchist CGT trade union was founded in Mexico city, and today the rebellion in the state of Chiapas can be seen as, partly at least, a continuation of Magon's struggle.
During the years of struggle Magon opposed and fought successive so-called "revolutionary regimes," resisting both the old and new dictatorships with equal vigour. Imprisoned by the U.S. authorities in 1905, 1907, and 1912 he was finally sentenced to 20 years under the espionage laws in 1918. He died, apparently after suffering beatings, in Leavenworth Prison, Kansas, on November 22, 1922.
When his body was brought back across the border, every town where the cortege stopped was decked out in the red and black flags of anarchism. In Mexico City, 10,000 working people escorted his body to Panteon Frances where it is buried. A flame had been lit that will not burn out until liberty becomes a living reality.
Written by Alan MacSimóin
Edited by libcom