The Mexican Revolution

Latin revolution emerged due to the huge difference in lifestyles between social classes that was noticed across all Central America. Indeed, the disparity between the underrepresented groups and the small number of the wealthy and people in power in comparison to the vast poverty-stricken increased dramatically. There was no political influence that propelled the revolution to establish a better economic share for themselves. Mostly, the Mexican revolution can be attributed to the introduction of enlighten ideas and the exemplary French revolution which the Mexican followed. However, the lessons given by the French revolution were not enough to bring about a revolution since the move for independence required more forces to be used. Due to the commitment of America’s bold leaders they put the colonial rule to an end. In fact, the military struggle was the backbone to the success of achieving independence for people in South America. However, infighting among royal intrigue undermined the road to independence for Mexico and Brazil.

First, the Napoleon war was one of the major factors that triggered the revolutions in Latin America. Critically, the Napoleon’s invasion of the Spanish that was called the Peninsular War and took place in 1808 led to the conquest of Spain, did affect the emergence of the revolution in Latin America. A revolution is defined a tremendous change in the economic, social and political hierarchy of the society. Revolutions are usually violet and result in change of the status quo. In the cases of Latin American, revolutions were typical exceptions to some extent since they were solely characterized by a series of bloody wars that resulted in Declaration of Independence of Latin America. It is noteworthy that the Latin American revolutions would not have happened if the prior revolutions had not set the pace for them.

Secondly, the hierarchy of the social structure of Latin America before the revolution was the hindrance since the authority had their assigned respective roles and, thus, they initiated certain actions to trigger the revolution, but the Napoleon invasion turned the events to another direction.

Between 1808 and 1826, the Latin America Empire under Spanish colonization was at its highest point in the initial years of the U.S colonization. Although having renounced most of its territories in Florida, it remained in control of several islands and vast geographical region of South America. The Iberian rule was brought down by twelve republics, which emerged after replacing the single monarchy of the Portuguese and Spanish colonialists. The decline of the imperial power left South America free to rule on its own and make decisions concerning economic and political issues. In 1807, the Napoleon invasion marked the decline of the Iberian rulers after managing to scatter Spanish and Portuguese by using the Imperial army to attack them. The invasion was quite intense and it left the government in disorder and as the result it lost the control. The authority did not have any other choice but to flee to Brazil. The vacuum of power left by the colonialists open a room for the natives to take up authority and come up with their own identity different form that of their colonizers. The natives worked on revolutionizing new ideas and flourishing a new society. The society which they had desired was similar to the one before whereby they would have a primary say and would create a free market economy.

The final stage of the American Revolution was the northern victory in which there was a more social type of the revolution. This revolution frustrated the Spaniards to the extent of granting independence to the locals. The entire Spanish empire was destroyed, and the whole imperial venture turned into a fiasco that was defeated in the end. The ultimate failure marked Spanish as defeated people worldwide, citing Napoleon’s influence at the beginning of the Latin America revolutions, which illustrates that the French Revolution had played a substantial role in the achievement of independence for Latin America.

The account of Latin American revolutions that led to the further development cannot be concluded without a mention of the influence the U.S. had on this matter. Given the fact that the U.S. attained its independence from the European power, this was a key factor in the uprising of the insurgence that led to the defeat of the imperial powers. In fact, the policies implemented by the U.S. government were mainly anti-colonial ones since they advocated recognition of states that attained independence and tried not to allow Europeans influence former colonies. The emergence of new states was a peaceful and successful transition, which brought the feeling of pertinent since there was no external pressure on the newly established states.

The Latin American revolutions involved social changes, which Keen describes in his book Latin American Civilization: History and Society, 1492 to the Present, chapter

 “For Land and Liberty.” In fact, the major stages of Mexican revolution occurred between 1910 and 1920. The 1910 revolution was propelled by the aggravation caused by political corruption, growing food shortages, deplorable working conditions and living conditions of urban workers, as well as the discriminatory policy of the limited number of companies dominating the ownership of vast amounts of public land. In 1910, dictatorial President Diaz resolved to conduct an election to be selected for another term, which was unconstitutional. Diaz thought that he had no strong opponents hence he could easily win the elections again. However, his assumption was yet to be proven right. During the polls, Francisco I. Madero, an intellectual from a wealthy family decided to run against him. The test to his assumption of having eliminated strong opposition took him by surprise. Francisco I. Mandero gained laudable support, although due to Diaz’s harshness the young candidate was put in jail. The official election polls announcement declared Diaz to be the winner of the elections, which resulted in a sweeping fiasco that sought to overthrow Diaz. The elections result was not welcome by the majority of the Mexicans since the opposition was strongly against the rumors that Francisco I. Mandero only managed to get a few hundreds of votes. The revolution was amplified by Madero’s document in which he appealed to the Mexicans to take their weapons and fight against the government. This revolution is dated back to November 20, 1910 whereby Porfirio Diaz’s government was overthrown. Francisco I. Madero managed to flee to San Antonio and got his plan processing to take over power after the revolution he was able to overthrow Diaz’s government. This is what today is referred to as the Mexican revolution. In 1911, Francisco I. Madero combined efforts with other leaders such as Venustainno Carranza and Emilliano Zapata to resolve the political reforms and establish a democratic government.

However, these revolutionary leaders were characterized in terms of different perspectives. For instance, Madero, Emilliano and Zapata all had different objectives of governance. Madero was a liberal minded leader whereas such radical leaders as Emilliano sought for other ideas that were more straightforward hence contrasted to Madero’s objectives. This made it cumbersome for them to merge and rule in harmony as they had foreseen it. This resulted in a struggle to control the Mexican government, which brought a conflict that lasted approximately twenty years.

There were major differences endorsed by various leaders who were at the forefront of the revolution. Therefore, the Mexican revolution was exceptional in several ways with various progressive issues such as land reform, which had a lengthy and logical history up to 1917 when the Constitution was enacted and it is currently in use. The reforms could be better traced with eras of different leaders. The minority of a few wealthy class of people possessed land ownership rights during Diaz’s era, which existed before 1910. Most of the Mexican populations were oppressed and the land equity was necessary for their liberation.

 Francisco I. Madero’s government lasted between 1910 and 1913. He overthrew Diaz’s government and it was during this time when people wanted liberation not bread. However, the civilization was yet to get to its optimum level, hence the society was not ready for the new government. Madero retained press and political freedom of the democratic society, and allowed reform proposals to be freely discussed in the Congress. He also established significant labor organization that protected children and women, reduced working hours and legalized workers’ right strikes. However, Madero’s reforms were too idealistic aiming at satisfying both sides oblivious of the swift spirit of the reform among the Mexicans. Consequently, Victorian Huerta overthrew his reform in 1913.