Title: Plan of Ayala

Description

John Womack, historian of the Mexican Revolution, has called the Plan of Ayala the "Sacred Scripture" of the Zapatistas. Written by Emiliano Zapata and Otilio Montaño, and signed on November 25, 1911, the plan was proclaimed in Ayala, Morelos, on November 28 of the same year. It became the blueprint for the Zapatista rebellion after its break with the initiator of the Mexican Revolution, Francisco I. Madero. Besides condemning the "treason" of the more conciliatory Madero, the Plan of Ayala puts forward the demands of the Zapatista agrarian rebellion: restitution of lands taken from villages during the Porfiriato, and agrarian redistribution of the larger haciendas, with compensation. Zapatista peasants, based in the southern state of Morelos, would claim these rights by arms, continuing the rebellion started, but not completed, by Madero.