Leaders of Latin American Revolutions Fact Sheet - Galileo ...

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Simón Bolívar
Grandiose in his schemes, headstrong and difficult, Simón Bolívar nevertheless conquered enormous
obstacles in gaining South American independence from Spain, particularly in his homeland of Venezuela.
Bolívar was born on July 24, 1783 in Caracas, Venezuela to a wealthy family of Spanish descent. By the
time he was nine years old, he had lost both his parents, and his maternal uncle, Carlos Palacios, supervised his
upbringing. From a tutor, he learned Enlightenment ideas and was especially attracted to the philosophy of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In 1799, he was sent to Europe, where he completed his education. He lived in Spain
for three years and married Maria Teresa de Toro, the daughter of a Spanish nobleman. Soon after Bolívar
returned to Venezuela in 1802, his wife died of yellow fever.
Bolívar again journeyed to Europe in 1804 and visited Italy and France, where Napoleon I's grandeur
impressed him. He traveled to the United States in 1807 and then sailed to Venezuela. The following year, the
Spanish Empire trembled when Emperor Napoleon I conquered the Iberian peninsula and appointed his brother
ruler of Spain. In Spanish America, confusion resulted. Although the colonies unanimously refused to recognize
the new ruler, some colonists opted to remain loyal to the deposed king, while others decided to fight for
independence. Bolívar sided with the latter and in 1810, joined a revolutionary group that expelled the Spanish
governor from Venezuela. The ruling junta then sent Bolívar to England in search of assistance. Although the
English refused Bolívar's requests, the revolutionary convinced Francisco de Miranda, a prominent Venezuelan
nationalist, to return home and help the rebellion.
In 1811, Venezuela declared its independence, and early the following year, Miranda became head of
the revolutionary government (the rebel Congress eventually granted him dictatorial powers). Bolívar won an
important battle at Valencia, an engagement that earned him the loyalty and admiration of his men. A split
developed in the revolutionary leadership, however. Miranda gained Bolívar's enmity when he signed an
armistice with Spain—a move engendered in part by Bolívar's having lost a harbor fortress to the enemy.
Bolívar then delivered Miranda to the Spanish. In gratitude, Spain decided not to jail Bolívar and instead
rewarded him with passage to Curacao, a Dutch Caribbean island.
After journeying to New Granada (Colombia), Bolívar planned another attack and in August 1813, led
an army triumphantly into Caracas, proclaimed the country a republic, and was made its leader with the title of
"Liberator." He had not, however, secured his position, and in 1814, the Spanish, supported by Venezuelan
llaneros, or cowboys, defeated the Liberator, who fled to Jamaica. Bolívar then wrote one of the most important
works in Latin American history, "The Letter from Jamaica," in which he expressed his grand scheme to
establish republics throughout Spanish America with representative bodies and presidents chosen for life.
Anxious to continue the fight, he obtained weapons and money from Haiti and in March 1816, sailed for
Venezuela. However, Spanish forces again turned him away.
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Despite this setback, several factors converged to work in Bolívar's favor. For one, the llaneros, led by
José Antonio Páez, a daring cavalryman who became one of the founders of Venezuela, shifted their loyalty to
the revolutionaries. Second, Bolívar changed his strategy to focus on the resource-rich Orinoco River basin,
rather than Caracas with its heavy fortifications. Third, several thousand adventurers arrived from England to
help Bolívar.
In 1817, Bolívar led his army into the Orinoco region and established a temporary capital, Angostura.
He then surprised the Spanish by attacking New Granada. In 1819, he and his men trekked through steamy
tropical jungles and across the frigid 11,000-foot Andes and on August 7, met the enemy at Boyacá, scoring a
stunning victory.
Even though Spain still held substantial territory, Bolívar audaciously formed a new state, Gran
Colombia, encompassing Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. By now, he held the initiative, and turmoil within
Spain disrupted the Spanish war effort. In June 1821, Bolívar, leading an army of 6,500 men, won a crucial
battle at Carabobo, and the following year, Antonio de Sucre, Bolívar's foremost general, defeated the Spanish
at Pichincha, in Ecuador. On June 16, Bolívar marched his army into Quito. Thus Gran Colombia had been
liberated, and Bolívar ruled under a new constitution that made him president.
Spain still maintained control of Peru, however, and at this point, Bolívar met with José de San Martín,
the great Argentinean revolutionary who had liberated his homeland and Chile. San Martín had already entered
Lima and declared Peruvian independence, but the Spanish retained a grip on the interior. On July 26, 1822,
Bolívar and San Martín conferred at Guayaquil in Ecuador. Details of their discussion have been lost, but San
Martín left Ecuador, apparently resigned to Bolívar's dominance, and went into exile.
In August 1824, Bolívar and Sucre defeated the Spanish at Junin in Peru, and four months later, Sucre
defeated them at Ayacucho. The country was now free of Spanish influence, and Bolívar was made president of
Gran Colombia and Peru. In 1825, Sucre eliminated the last Spanish opposition in Upper Peru, which upon
independence became the country of Bolivia, named after Bolívar. Bolívar drafted the constitution for that
republic, complete with a weak legislature and a lifetime president, a position filled by Sucre (after Bolívar
ruled on an interim basis for five months).
Bolívar, meanwhile, battled severe illness and a spreading discontent with his rule. In 1826, he crafted a
league of Hispanic-American states that held a congress in Panama. Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and the Central
American Federation sent delegates, and they agreed to a treaty of alliance. Plans for a joint military and a
regular congress proved unsuccessful, however.
Civil war soon erupted in Gran Colombia when Venezuelan and Colombian forces clashed. Bolívar
quickly left Peru and arranged a new constitution that granted Venezuela greater autonomy. Elections to a
national convention in 1828 produced more opposition to Bolívar, who then assumed dictatorial powers over
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Gran Colombia. That autumn, dissidents tried to kill Bolívar but failed. As he battled tuberculosis, Venezuela
seceded from Gran Colombia in September 1830, followed by Ecuador.
On May 3, 1830, Bolívar left Bogotá, headed for exile in Europe, but he made it only to Santa Marta on
the Caribbean coast, where he died on December 17.
Further reading:
Angell, Hildegarde, Simón Bolívar: South American Liberator, 1930; Del Rio, Daniel, Simón Bolívar, 1965;
Johnson, John J., Simón Bolívar and Spanish American Independence, 1783-1830, 1968; Masur, Gerhard,
Simón Bolívar, 1969; Trend, J. B., Bolívar and the Independence of Spanish America, 1946; Wepman, Dennis,
Simón Bolívar, 1985.
Source:
"Simón Bolívar." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
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5

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla
Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was the author of the "Grito de Dolores" ("Cry from Dolores"), the
passionate speech in his parish of Dolores that ignited the independence struggle in Mexico on September 16,
1810. Leading a rebellion of Indian peasants and mestizos (mixed-bloods) against Spanish colonial rule,
Hidalgo became wildly popular and badly frightened the colony's white elite, who joined forces to defeat his
army in 1811.
Hidalgo was born on May 8, 1753 in Guanajuato, Mexico on the Corralejo hacienda of which his father
was the manager. He entered a school in Valladolid (now Morelia) and studied theology under the strong
influence of the Jesuit Order. People he knew began to call him "the Fox" because they considered him sly and
crafty. Upon his graduation in 1782, Hidalgo became a Roman Catholic priest and a professor at the famous
seminary of San Nicolás, where he wrote two treatises concerning theology.
Hidalgo was assigned to fulfill his priestly duties in a wealthy parish in San Felipe Torres Mochas.
Before long, however, his parishioners began to complain that Hidalgo's activities and thoughts were too
radical. He critics went before the Inquisition to accuse him of gambling and womanizing, complaining of his
continual celebrations that they referred to as "little France." His opponents also accused Hidalgo of public
heresy, claiming they had heard him deny the existence of hell, lampoon Santa Teresa, and argue that
"fornication is not a sin." The wayward priest also read banned books. Despite these accusations, Hidalgo
continued untouched by the authorities.
In his parish work, Hidalgo did not like the mundane aspects of the priesthood; he consumed money
lavishly and was often late to repay his loans. He preferred to preach and enjoyed the tasks of paternal
humanitarianism. He learned the language of the Indians of his parish and taught them trades. In Dolores, he put
particular effort into cultivating silk from silkworms, one of the more famous of his large-scale projects.
Hidalgo was part of an intellectual circle of priests who had access to all varieties of European and
colonial literature. His friend Bishop Manuel Abad y Queipo enjoyed such liberal writers of the Enlightenment
as Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In contrast, Hidalgo preferred earlier critics of monarchy and
absolutism. Hidalgo agreed with early 17th-century Spanish philosopher Francisco Suárez, who had written that
political sovereignty resided in the people, not the king. Hidalgo supported these ideas and their implication that
Mexican-born Spaniards—criollos or Creoles—were the sovereigns of Mexico.
Hidalgo and several other Creoles in the local government began to conspire against the Spanish crown.
Throughout Latin America, the Creole population was denied access to the privileged government positions it
was qualified to hold by a crown policy that insisted on sending officials directly from Spain to run the colonies.
Resentment about Spanish preferment was very strong in some regions, as Creoles hoped to free the colonies
from Spain in order to assume the privileges of Spanish government themselves. Hidalgo had other motives as
well. In 1804, the Spanish government had passed a controversial law, the Consolidación de Vales Reales, in an
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attempt to raise royal revenues. As a result of these measures, the government had taken money from the
Hidalgo family, almost ruining the family fortune and pushing Hidalgo's brother toward madness.
In September 1810, one member of the anticrown conspiracy betrayed the others by informing royal
officials of the plot. Now forced to make his move, Hidalgo claimed that his rebellion was not only for the
Creoles but for all Mexicans. Proclaiming his authority in the name of the Mexican nation, on September 16,
1810, Hidalgo rang his church bell. Once the parishioners assembled, he delivered the legendary "Grito de
Dolores." He cried, "Death to the Spaniards! Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!" Riding an emotional high,
Hidalgo took an image of the virgin on canvas and placed it on a stick to lead the rebellion. Without delay, the
group followed his call to sack and destroy the homes of all Spaniards. More than 20,000 of the region's poor
and oppressed Indians and mestizos followed him. Creole observers characterized the rebellion as a crude and
unruly mob. This upset Hidalgo, since he wanted the revolution to free Creoles of Spanish rule. Less than 100
Creoles would ever join, however, so Hidalgo made do with his roving horde.
Hidalgo and his unorganized rebellion moved toward the city of Guanajuato. News of the rebellion and
its violence reached the city ahead of them. Some of the Spanish population fled, while others remained to
defend their wealth. Once the army entered the city, the rebellion killed any white people it found, followed by
looting and destruction of property. One survivor described the scene as a frenzy of racial hatred. The rebellion
and its violence against all white Mexicans galvanized the Spaniards and Creoles of Mexico. Instead of
dwelling on their differences, these two groups were inspired by Hidalgo's threat to view each other as allies.
After the sacking of Guanajuato, Hidalgo was unsure of his next move; he did not have a specific
military strategy. The army moved forward and captured Valladolid, after which his old friend, Bishop Abad y
Queipo, excommunicated Hidalgo. To show his indifference, Hidalgo proceeded in a more radical direction and
declared the abolition of slavery in Mexico.
Hidalgo's army consisted of mostly Indians and mestizos to whom the respective ideals of republicanism
and absolutism were far less important than the opportunity to escape the domination of Europeans and take up
their own lives in an unfettered fashion. Moreover, a central aspect of their lives was their spiritual belief
system, and Hidalgo's banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe had brought out their devotion to this popular
religious icon whose brown skin associated her with the poor. Many believed that they were fighting for the
Virgin of Guadalupe against the white devils. One witness remembered that the insignia of the Virgin was
everywhere, even on hats and banners.
By October, the number of rebels had reached 80,000, and the enthusiastic horde reached the outskirts of
Mexico City, ready to plunder the largest jewel in the Spanish Empire. As they waited, a Creole-Spanish army
appeared and fired artillery rounds into Hidalgo's irregular army. For reasons unknown to anyone, then or now,
Hidalgo stopped his advance, departing instead to Guadalajara. There, he declared the restoration of Indian
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lands to their communities and the abolition of taxes. While garrisoned in Guadalajara, Hidalgo and his army
continued to massacre whites, including the execution of 350 prisoners at Hidalgo's request.
Stalled in Guadalajara, the movement began to break apart. The recruits began to leave as mysteriously
as they had appeared a few months before. They removed the Virgin from their hats and went back to their
villages. Without an army, Hidalgo fled to the North with only the remnants of his rebellious followers. A
royalist officer captured Hidalgo in Chihuahua, where he endured a military and ecclesiastical trial. During the
trial, he defended his actions as humanitarian and claimed that he had underestimated the Indians' desire for
Spanish blood. To the Inquisition, he recanted all of his previous heresies. The courts defrocked him and
sentenced him to death by firing squad. After three rifle volleys failed to kill him, the commander ordered two
soldiers to walk up to Hidalgo and shoot him in the heart. Hidalgo died on July 30, 1811.
Further reading:
Anna, Timothy, The Fall of Royal Government in Mexico, 1988; Hamill, H. M., The Hidalgo Revolt: Prelude to
Mexican Independence, 1966; Krauze, Enrique, Mexico: Biography of Power, 1997.
Source:
"Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
.
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9

Benito Juárez
Despite the limited effectiveness of Benito Juárez' reforms, he remained the hero of Mexican
nationalism, a leader who weakened colonial practices and created a new Mexico in the mid-19th century.
Juárez was born on March 21, 1806 in San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca State. His parents were peasants and
full-blooded Zapotec Indians. They died when Juárez was three years old, and he subsequently lived with an
uncle. Juárez received little education and worked tending his uncle's sheep. One day, he lost one of the sheep
and, fearful that his uncle would punish him, ran away to Oaxaca City. There, a Franciscan lay brother
introduced him to books and the ideas that subsequently stirred him to change Mexico.
At one time, Juárez considered entering the priesthood, and toward this end, he studied theology and
Latin. In 1829, however, he began pursuing science and law at the Oaxaca Institute of Arts and Sciences. Two
years later, he obtained his law degree and won election to the municipal council. As a lawyer, he at first earned
little money, representing mainly the impoverished. By 1843, however, he acquired sufficient finances to marry
into a prominent family.
During the 1840s, Juárez advanced politically and attracted national attention. He became a judge and
then governor of Oaxaca State. He criticized the aristocracy and the Catholic Church, with its massive hold on
land, for stifling Mexico, and he supported capitalist growth that would break monopolies and stimulate the
economy. He also desired a federal political system that would give Mexico's states more authority.
By 1853, President Antonio López de Santa Anna had developed a despotic regime, and in 1854, an
uprising began in the nation's southern highlands. Led by Juan Álvarez, the rebels espoused liberal ideas and
demanded a new constitution. Many middle-class mestizos (people of Spanish and Indian blood) supported the
rebellion, particularly after the rebels rejected radicalism and issued a moderate declaration for change in 1854.
Juárez' support for this uprising resulted in his exile by Santa Anna. For two years, beginning in 1853, he lived
in New Orleans, where he plotted with fellow exiles. Late in 1855, Juárez returned home and joined the rebel
force that captured Mexico City without a fight and toppled Santa Anna. Álvarez emerged as president and
appointed Juárez minister of justice.
Álvarez soon resigned the presidency, and Ignacio Comonfort succeeded him. Juárez and Comonfort
differed on many issues, but the administration pursued a liberal program that Juárez helped shape, including
forcing the church to sell its lands with the intent of offering them at low prices to the landless. Unfortunately
for the poor, the land was purchased mainly by wealthier Mexicans, and the peasants benefited little.
In yet another reform, a new constitution in 1857 established a federal political system. Elections that year
resulted in a victory for Comonfort, and Juárez became vice president and chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Conservatives, however, rebelled against the liberal victory and forced Comonfort to resign, an upset that
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unleashed a civil war between the conservative government and the liberals, who named Juárez as Mexico's
president.
At first, the army of the conservatives gained the upper hand, partly due to funds supplied by the
Catholic Church. In reaction to this, in 1859 Juárez ordered the confiscation of all church property not used for
religious services. He also separated church and state and proclaimed religious liberty. As the civil war
continued, Juárez established close ties with the United States that led to charges he was a tool of the
Americans. By 1860, the army of the liberals had obtained the advantage, and in December, it entered Mexico
City. Victorious, Juárez presided over all of Mexico. He displayed leniency toward the conservative rebels and
allowed full freedom of speech. The conservatives took advantage of this, severely criticized him, and through
their control of Congress nearly removed him from office.
Juárez' greatest threat, though, entailed the national debt. The nation's treasury was empty, yet Mexico
still owed money to foreign investors. In July 1861, Juárez ordered the suspension of payments on the debt,
bringing an angry response from Europeans, including the severing of diplomatic relations. France went even
further: with the United States preoccupied by the American Civil War, the French government under Emperor
Napoleon III decided to install Archduke Maximilian of Austria as Emperor Ferdinand-Joseph Maximilian of
Mexico. Within a year after French troops invaded in 1862, Juárez was forced to flee Mexico City. The
conservatives hailed Maximilian's arrival, thinking they had a fellow believer, but Maximilian stunned them
when he announced his support for liberal reforms.
This position, however, proved his undoing, for the conservatives deserted him and the liberals
distrusted him. Then, when the American Civil War ended, the United States informed France it would not
allow Maximilian's government to continue. Once the French withdrew their troops, Juárez and the liberals
defeated Maximilian and in 1867 executed him. Despite the turmoil, the Maximilian affair boosted Mexican
nationalism when large segments of the population united to expel the foreigners.
Unity did not, however, mark Juárez' return to power. He won reelection to the presidency in 1867 but
ruled increasingly without consulting Congress. At the same time, his health deteriorated, and Mexico's
financial situation remained bleak. Juárez angered many liberals with his unilateral approach, his decision to
grant amnesty to the conservatives, and his unsuccessful attempt to alter the constitution and increase executive
power. Furthermore, he angered the army when he reduced its size by two-thirds. In 1871, Juárez ignored
liberal requests that he step aside; he sought reelection and won in voting marred by fraud. One of the defeated
candidates, Porfirio Díaz, led an armed revolt, but Juárez crushed it. The president's health, however, worsened,
and he died on July 18, 1872.
Further reading:
Roeder, Ralph, Juárez and His Mexico, 2 vols., 1947; Smart, Charles A., Viva Juárez, 1963; Weeks, Charles A., The Juárez Myth in
Mexico, 1987.
Source:
"Benito Juárez." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2010. .
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12

Toussaint L'Ouverture
Toussaint L'Ouverture was the dominant figure in the largest slave revolt in the Western hemisphere and
the only one to be fully successful. He rose from enslavement to the military and political leadership of the
Haitian struggle for independence within the French Revolution. He abolished slavery and established an
autonomous nation based on the concept that all men should be equal. L'Ouverture became a symbol of black
power, dignity, and autonomy, inspiring both those who supported and those who opposed those ideals.
L'Ouverture was born on May 20, 1743, to slave parents on the Breda sugar estate outside of Cap
Français, one of the leading cities of the island colony Saint-Domingue. Tradition holds that his father was once
a chief of the West African Arada tribe. Whatever his background, L'Ouverture did not grow into a field hand
but became a domestic worker, probably a coachman. As a child, he had learned various folk and herbal
remedies from his mother and achieved some fame as a healer. At the same time, he was a devout Catholic and
later outlawed voodoo from his armies. By 1779, Toussaint de Breda, as he was known before the revolution,
was a free black growing coffee on rented property with a work force of 12 slaves, leased from a wealthy
planter. He learned to read and write when he was about 30, taught by an ex-priest.
During L'Ouverture's youth, Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) was the most prosperous of France's
colonies. Its economy was based on the plantation and slavery system. More than 3,000 plantations produced
coffee, sugar, cotton, indigo, tobacco, and cocoa. Under the mercantilist system practiced by France, Saint-
Domingue could not develop its own industries but was forced to purchase finished goods from France. All
trade was carried by French ships. Although many planters became fabulously wealthy, they harbored some
resentment against the royal government.
The population on Saint-Domingue comprised three separate groups. Whites held most of the power in
the colony; in 1789, they numbered about 45,000 persons. Free blacks or mixed bloods occupied an
intermediate position. Many members of this group were wealthy in their own right and owned slaves and
plantations. They were, however, systematically discriminated against by the whites and excluded from real
power in the colony. Free blacks and mulattos totaled about 30,000 persons. Most of the population of Saint-
Domingue were slaves of African descent. Their numbers were approximately 450,000.
The French Revolution began in 1789 and quickly spread to the colonies. On Saint-Domingue, the
whites were divided between those supporting and those opposing the revolution. Free blacks and mulattos also
took sides, and fighting began between the different factions. In Saint-Domingue, the fighting centered around
the idea of racial equality, which weakened the control of slave owners.
On August 22, 1791, the slaves of the Cap Français hinterland rose up in revolt. L'Ouverture apparently
joined the revolt as a doctor. He is said to have saved the lives of the Breda plantation manager and his family
early in the revolution. L'Ouverture's first recorded activity with the rebels, however, was on December 4, 1791,
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when he participated in negotiations between white and black leaders. Negotiations broke down, and the
revolution spread to slaves in other parts of the island.
L'Ouverture quickly became chief lieutenant to slave general Biassou, and in 1793, the two men allied
their forces with the Spanish in Santo Domingo on the eastern side of the island. As war broke out in Europe
between revolutionary France on the one hand and England and Spain on the other, the latter countries invaded
Saint-Domingue. In those circumstances, many blacks presented themselves as counterrevolutionaries, loyal to
the French king and willing to fight with the Spanish. Tens of thousands of slaves were mobilized and armed to
fight. In one month, more than 1,000 plantations were burned. To prevent total defeat, the representatives of the
revolutionary government in Paris abolished slavery in September 1793.
L'Ouverture quickly changed sides, joining with the French against the Spanish and British, who sought
to continue the institution of slavery. He soon became the leading black general for the French and defeated
those of his former colleagues who were still allied with the Spanish. Fighting continued until the Treaty of
Bayle in 1795 ended the war between France and Spain.
By 1796, L'Ouverture was the leading figure on Saint-Domingue. He was named deputy governor and
proved to be an excellent military leader. The French-educated, mulatto class sought to replace the largely
destroyed white class and take control of the colony, but L'Ouverture limited them for the most part to the
southern peninsula of the island. Many of his black officers took over the abandoned plantations and revived
their production, using compulsory, but paid, labor of former slaves.
L'Ouverture used his army and influence with the free blacks to increase the autonomy of Saint-
Domingue from France. He engineered the forced return to France of various representatives of the central
government. He also negotiated a trade agreement with the United States and an agreement with the British to
withdraw their troops and open trade with British colonies.
Supported by Great Britain and the United States, L'Ouverture entered into civil war in July 1799 with
his mulatto counterpart, André Rigaud. The so-called War of the South ended with a total victory for
L'Ouverture's blacks over the mulatto class. Yet the violence of the war made it impossible for blacks and
mulattos to reunite. By the end of 1800, L'Ouverture had also conquered Spanish Santo Domingo, against
orders from Paris. In that and other situations, L'Ouverture displayed increasing independence from the French
government. He promulgated a new colonial constitution that made him governor-general for life. He did not
declare complete independence, however, for fear of alienating Britain and the United States and ending their
support. L'Ouverture maintained a strong attachment to French culture. He sent his children to school in France.
He valued education and ability above race. Unqualified blacks who asked for positions were rejected, while his
entourage included three white priests and several white advisers.
In early 1802, Napoleon I sent a military expedition to reassert French control over Saint-Domingue. In
a brief but costly campaign, L'Ouverture was defeated and exiled to France. Many blacks had turned against
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L'Ouverture during the fighting. Once the campaign ended, however, they quickly realized that the French
planned to reestablish slavery. Under the general and future monarch of Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines,
combatants of all colors united to expel the French. The colony was declared free on November 29, 1803, and
given the name of Haiti to emphasize the break with European colonialism.
The first modern black state was established. Much of the credit for laying the groundwork belongs to
L'Ouverture, who demonstrated that blacks were capable of self-rule. He never saw the fruit of his labors,
however. He died in prison in France on April 7, 1803.
Further reading:
James, C. L. R. The Black Jacobins; Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. 2nd ed. New
York: Vintage Books, 1963; Ott, Thomas O. The Haitian Revolution, 1789–1804. Knoxville: University of
Tennessee Press, 1973; Parkinson, Wenda. "This Gilded African": Toussaint L'Ouverture. New York: Quartet
Books, 1978; Tyson, George F., Jr., ed. Toussaint L'Ouverture. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973.
Source:
"Toussaint L'Ouverture." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
.
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16

José de San Martín
José de San Martín led the rebellion against Spain that liberated Argentina, Chile, and Peru. This came
after he made an abrupt change in 1812 from commanding Spanish forces to allying with nationalist rebels.
San Martín was born on February 25, 1778 in a small village called Yapeyú, located on the northern
frontier of Argentina. His father served as an official in the Spanish colonial government that controlled the
area. In 1785, his parents returned to Spain, where they had both been born, and took young José with them. He
attended an aristocratic school, the Nobles' Seminary, in Madrid and began his military career when he entered
the Royal Academy and became a cadet in the Murica infantry regiment. He subsequently fought in battles
against the British and Portuguese and by 1804 advanced to the rank of captain. Following this, he fought in the
war between Spain and Napoleonic France.
After Napoleon occupied Spain, San Martín continued to fight for the Spanish Crown, earning
promotion to lieutenant colonel and in 1811 commanding the Sagunto Dragoons. The following year, he made
his puzzling and unexpected transformation, quitting the Spanish military in 1812 and returning to Argentina
where he allied with the rebels in Buenos Aires who demanded independence from Spain. To this day,
historians are uncertain as to why San Martín switched his loyalty; he may have been influenced by a British
agent who sought to undermine Spain, or he may have become disgusted with the prejudice he encountered
from Spaniards who looked down upon him as an inferior Creole, a person of Spanish blood born in the
Americas.
Whatever the case, in 1812 he helped found the Lautaro Lodge, a secret organization committed to
independence. He organized Argentine troops against the pro-Spanish royalist forces and in 1813 won an
important battle at San Lorenzo, which secured supply lines with Montevideo. The following year, he was
appointed general and ordered to attack Upper Peru (today, Bolivia). He publicly balked at the impossibility of
this mission, while privately he concluded that independence from Spain could not be secured without a victory
in Peru, which had become a royalist stronghold. In a skillful maneuver, he resigned his command—claiming ill
health—and requested an obtained appointment as governor of Cuyo Province, located near the Andes, where
he could supposedly recuperate. he actually used this move to gather his forces in western Argentina and
develop a plan to cross the Andes into Chile, acquire reinforcements, and attack Peru.
With little support form Buenos Aires, San Martín gathered his men over a three-year period and joined
with the Chilean liberator, Bernardo O'Higgins. Early in 1817, San Martín led his men over the Andes, scaling
incredible heights and fighting Spanish forces in a campaign that enhanced his reputation as a great general.
About this feat, he observed: "The difficulty that had to be overcome in the crossing of the mountains can only
be imagined by those who have actually gone through it." In February, he captured Santiago and was offered
the Chilean governorship. He refused, however, so that his friend O'Higgins could rule, a move that also
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allowed him to secure Chile militarily and prepare for his attack on Peru. In 1818, he defeated the last Royalist
troops in Chile.
San Martín then aimed at Peru. After gathering his force, he departed aboard a ramshackle naval fleet in
1820 and landed at Pisco. Rather than directly assault the heavily fortified capital, Lima, San Martín waited out
his enemy. The Royalist troops failed to get supplies and reinforcements. When they retreated into the
mountains in 1821, San Martín entered Lima. On July 28, the revolutionaries declared Peru independent and
San Martín their nation's protector.
Trouble soon arose, however, for Spanish troops remained in Peru and many Peruvians feared San
Martín's intentions—perhaps he would make himself dictator, weaken the Catholic Church, or destroy the large
landholdings. As disorder threatened, San Martín indeed became dictator, and to defeat the Royalists he decided
to form an alliance with Simón Bolívar, the great South American liberator. Bolívar had recently defeated the
Spanish in Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador.
In July 1822, the two leaders met at Guayaquil in Ecuador. Little is known about what transpired, but
after two days of talks, San Martín unexpectedly returned to his ship and, under the cover of darkness, set sail
for Peru. He likely believed it impossible to reconcile his differences with Bolívar, who did not offer him an
adequate number of reinforcements and opposed the idea of San Martín serving under him in the final assault
against the Spaniards. The two men may also have disagreed over territory, with San Martín opposing Bolívar's
having declared Guayaquil a part of Colombia.
In any event, San Martín apparently believed his presence would bring discord and disrupt the war. In
September 1822, he resigned as protector and, while suffering from illness, he traveled to Chile. After his wife
died in 1824, he sailed for England with his daughter and settled in Belgium. In 1829, he decided to return to
Buenos Aires, but when he received news aboard ship that political strife had intensified, he headed back to
Europe without having entered Argentina. He lived in Paris and then Boulogne, where he died on August 17,
1850. The "Liberator of the South" eventually returned home: in 1880, his remains were moved to Buenos
Aires.
Further reading:
Metford, John C. J., San Martín: The Liberator, 1950; Mitre, Bartolomé, The Emancipation of South America,
1969; Rojas, Ricardo, San Martín: Knight of the Andes, 1945.
Source:
"José de San Martín." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
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19

Antonio López de Santa Anna
One of Mexico's most influential leaders of all time, president and general Antonio López de Santa
Anna directed the Mexican government and military from September 1846 to September 1847, when Mexico
City was seized by Gen. Winfield Scott.
Born in Jalapa in 1794 to a middle-class family, Santa Anna received little schooling before he joined
the Spanish Army in 1810 as a cadet. As a soldier, he helped suppress Indian tribes, public uprisings against the
Roman Catholic Church, and Mexican and U.S. settler uprisings in Texas. His bravery led to recognition and
promotions. As did many other officers in the Spanish Army, Santa Anna embraced the revolution of Augustín
de Iturbide, which resulted in independence from Spain in 1821. Soon afterward, Santa Anna was promoted to
brigadier general and supported the overthrow of Iturbide.
In 1829, Santa Anna gained widespread recognition by raising and commanding a 2,000-man army that
defeated a Spanish expeditionary force in 1829 at Tampico. His success at Tampico resulted in his election as
the (liberal) president of Mexico in 1833, with Valentín Gómez Farías as vice president. By 1834, mostly for
reasons of self-preservation, he adopted a centralist platform, exiled his vice president, shut down Congress, and
declared himself dictator. In 1836, Santa Anna replaced the constitution with the "Seven Laws," which
eliminated self-rule in the states of Mexico and lengthened his term to eight years. As dictator, he spent much of
his time acquiring vast land holdings around Veracruz.
Santa Anna continued to rule with a heavy hand, repressing rebellious cultures in the Yucatán and
Tabasco. In 1836, with an army of 6,000 men, he defeated Texan rebels at the Alamo and Goliad, but was badly
beaten by Sam Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto, where he displayed poor tactical judgment and a keen
interest in self-preservation. He ultimately signed the Treaties of Velasco, which granted Texas its freedom
from Mexico. A few months after his return to Mexico in 1837, Anastasio Bustamante had been chosen as
president by the centralist regime, and Santa Anna retired to his hacienda at Veracruz.
In 1838, Santa Anna was called upon to expel a French force at Veracruz; during the skirmish, he was
wounded by a cannonball, and his left leg was amputated below the knee. The bone was not properly cut, and
he lived with pain for the rest of his life. Back in favor, and with the help of generals Mariano Paredes y
Arrillaga and Gabriel Valencia, Santa Anna regained the presidency in 1843. His severed leg was disinterred
from his estate at Veracruz and, in a formal military procession, escorted in an urn to the cemetery of Santa
Paula, where it was placed in a vault.
In 1844, Santa Anna ordered a levy of 30,000 new troops. Under his leadership, the country was nearly
bankrupt through the misuse of government funds. Santa Anna's preoccupation with regaining Texas was not
embraced by other Mexican leaders. The political and military arenas grew increasingly unstable, and uprisings
increased. After he left Mexico City to deal with a revolt by former ally Paredes y Arrillaga, Mexico City rioted,
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and Santa Anna's severed limb was dragged through the streets. Santa Anna was captured in disguise and
imprisoned at Perote Castle until he was exiled to Cuba for life in May 1845.
After discussions between President James K. Polk and Alexander J. Atocha in 1846, and Cmdr.
Alexander Slidell Mackenzie and Santa Anna himself in Cuba, Polk allowed Santa Anna to pass through the
U.S. naval blockade to Veracruz in August 1846. Polk had been assured that Santa Anna would easily regain
the presidency and then seek a negotiated peace. Santa Anna's return at Veracruz was marked by celebratory
cannon discharges and fireworks. In September, he rode into Mexico City in an elegant carriage bedecked with
tricolored ribbons with Valentín Gómez Farías by his side.
Mexico felt momentarily redeemed and hopeful with the return of Santa Anna as president. Up to this
point, the war with the United States had gone badly—Gen. Zachary Taylor had won three straight battles,
inflicted terrible losses on the Army of the North, and controlled northern Mexico. While Vice President Gómez
Farías ran the day-to-day government, Santa Anna, with his usual energies (and wanton waste of funds),
reorganized the Army of the North into a 20,000-man army with which he planned to destroy Taylor.
After leaving cheering crowds in San Luis Potosí in late January 1847, Santa Anna returned with his
broken army two months later, having lost the close Battle of Buena Vista (La Angostura) and over half the
strength of his army. By the time he returned to Mexico City, it was wracked by civil unrest and the Polkos
Revolt, and a U.S. army under Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott had landed without the loss of a single man at
Veracruz. To face Scott, Santa Anna rushed to organize the makeshift Army of the East, which he personally
led during the bloody defeats that led to the fall of Mexico City in September 1847.
Santa Anna resigned as president of Mexico on September 16, 1847. After surrendering to U.S. forces at
Puebla, he voluntarily exiled himself in 1848 to Venezuela, where he lived in a comfortable hacienda and
enjoyed his favorite hobby of cockfighting.
Mexico, again adrift and leaderless in 1853, asked the aged dictator to return, which he did. Santa Anna
quickly sold the Mesilla Valley to the United States for $10 million (Gadsden Purchase) to generate badly
needed revenue. Overthrown by the liberals in 1855, he left for Havana, Cuba. Allowed to return to Mexico
City in 1874, he died there in 1876 at the age of 82.
Further reading:
Calderón de la Barca, Frances Erskine, Life in Mexico, 1982; Callcott, Wilfrid H., Santa Anna, 1936; Costeloe,
Michael P., The Central Republic in Mexico, 1835-1846, 1993; Hanighen, Frank C., Santa Anna, 1934; Olivera,
Ruth R., and Liliane Crete, Life in Mexico under Santa Anna, 1822-1855, 1991; Ruiz, Ramon Eduardo, ed., The
Mexican War, 1963; Santa Anna, Antonio López de, The Eagle, 1967.
Source:
"Antonio López de Santa Anna." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
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22

Pancho Villa
Pancho Villa was one of the great revolutionary heroes of Latin America. A general in the epic struggle
of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Villa took on a legendary importance in Mexico for his social ideals and
daring military exploits. Though his actions during the revolution were very real, today he remains a symbol of
nationalism and social justice easily recognizable to all Mexican people.
Francisco Villa was born Doroteo Arango on June 5, 1878 on a large hacienda in San Juan del Río,
Durango to sharecropper parents. Villa's father died shortly thereafter, and his mother was left to raise five
children. Much of Villa's early life is difficult to pinpoint not only because of a lack of official records but also
because his later fame engendered many legends about his youth. He was an illiterate ranch hand who witnessed
the abusive labor practices of landowners against his family and others of their social class. According to
legend, in 1894, Villa entered his home to find his mother trying to prevent the rape of his younger sister by a
landowner. After wounding the man, Villa fled to the Durango Mountains as a fugitive. He survived as a bandit
and cattle rustler, roaming and scrounging in the mountains.
In January 1901, Villa was arrested and forcibly inducted into the Mexican Army. A little over a year
later, he deserted, having acquired a good deal of military knowledge and skill. Shortly after his desertion, Villa
settled in Parral, Chihuahua, near the Durango border. It was around this time that he took the name of
Francisco Villa. Opinions differ, but in all likelihood he chose that name because his father was the illegitimate
son of a wealthy man named Jesus Villa.
Over the next eight years, Villa continued to live as an outlaw while intermittently finding work as a
laborer for foreign companies. In 1910, Chihuahuan authorities had placed him on the most wanted list,
primarily for the killing of Claro Reza, a former bandit companion who had become an informant for the secret
police. An attack on the hacienda of a prominent local businessman had also gone unsolved.
On a more momentous level, 1910 was the year that the Mexican Revolution erupted, and Villa offered
his services to Francisco Madero, the liberal politician whose victory in presidential elections had been
cancelled by Porfirio Díaz, the longstanding ruler of Mexico. In the early rounds of fighting against Díaz, Villa
commanded a company of 28 men. The revolutionary forces soon forced the aging Díaz into exile, and Madero
assumed his place as president of Mexico. Madero did not, however, alter the structure of the national army,
assuming that it would be loyal to him as it had been to Díaz.
Villa served in this army under Mexican general Victoriano Huerta, but a rift soon developed between
the two men, culminating in charges of insubordination against Villa. He was sentenced to death but escaped to
the United States, where his exploits during the revolution had attracted considerable attention. In fact, military
advisers to U.S. president Woodrow Wilson urged him to support Villa because they thought Villa would
become "the George Washington of Mexico."
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The revolution was far from over, however, and in 1913, Madero was assassinated as Huerta seized
control of the government. Villa returned to Mexico, allying with other revolutionary contingents in the effort to
bring down the Huerta government. Several of these leaders commanded armies in the north of Mexico.
Venustiano Carranza, a politician from Sonora, proclaimed himself the first chief of the Constitutionalists, and
for some time, Villa and his División del Norte were content with the alliance with Carranza.
Villa was a charismatic leader, and the ranks of the División del Norte swelled with recruits. Unlike the
guerrilla forces in the Mexican south led by Emiliano Zapata, Villa organized his men as a regular army. Men
on horseback were an important part of his forces in the vast arid expanse of the Sonoran Desert, but Villa also
pioneered in the use of the railroad not only for troop transport but also for hospital services. His men did not
fight for land but rather for pay. Villa was able to finance the army by selling the cattle confiscated from the
large haciendas. Sold across the border in the United States, the revenue from these cattle enabled Villa to buy
guns (also in the United States) and to pay his soldiers.
Huerta was defeated in 1914. With the exile of their common enemy, however, the alliances between the
revolutionary armies began to deteriorate. By 1915, Villa had grown impatient with Carranza's growing
conservatism and pretensions to lead the country. Villa faced the forces of Carranza led by Alvaro Obregón at
the Battle of Celaya. Obregón, familiar with the new tactics of defense through machine guns and barbed wire
that were being employed with such devastating effects in World War I, was able to defeat the Villista cavalry
in spite of the personal courage of Villa and his men. The División del Norte suffered massive losses, and Villa
retreated to Chihuahua, maintaining a precarious control over the local area.
By October 1915, the U.S. government recognized Carranza as its choice to lead Mexico while declaring
Villa an outlaw and ordering an arms embargo. Villa believed that the backing of the United States would not
only allow Carranza to consolidate his control of the Mexican government but also that Carranza would grant
U.S. leaders the measures they sought to control the Mexican economy and domestic programs. On March 9,
1916, in order to undermine the relations between Carranza and U.S. government leaders, Villa crossed the
border with nearly 600 men and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico. Seventeen U.S. citizens were
killed in the raid. U.S. president Woodrow Wilson sent an expeditionary force under U.S. general John J.
Pershing into Chihuahua on a punitive mission against Villa.
Even using such new military machinery as tanks, trucks, and planes, the Mexican Expedition failed to
capture or even engage Villa's forces. In Parral on April 2, a skirmish between U.S. soldiers and townspeople
left several more U.S. citizens dead. Two months later, 150,000 troops were on active duty from Texas to
California. Though U.S. leaders had expected that Carranza would remain neutral as they hunted Villa, the
nationalist Carranza could not allow Mexico to be occupied by U.S. troops without losing the support of the
Mexican population. Carranza announced that Villa was no longer a threat and formally demanded the
withdrawal of the U.S. troops in Mexico, but Wilson refused.
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On June 18 in the town of Carrizal, several more U.S. soldiers were killed and 24 were taken prisoner
when they clashed with townspeople. Wilson threatened full-scale war and delivered an ultimatum to Carranza,
demanding the release of the soldiers. Within days, the soldiers were freed. Villa, however, was still at large and
soon captured a number of towns previously held by Carranza's forces. The unstable situation continued to
develop, but Pershing's mission was turning into a fiasco. By early 1917, Wilson was forced to negotiate a
settlement with Carranza, ordering the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Mexico in spite of the fact that Villa was
never captured.
By this time, Villa was a tremendously popular hero. Common people in the North had believed
throughout the revolution that Villa had their interests at heart, and his conduct in their towns during the years
of war reinforced this idea. His great victories early in the revolution added to his reputation, and his defiance of
the U.S. Army sealed his fate as a character of legend.
In 1920, after the assassination of Carranza, Villa struck a deal with the new government under recently
elected Mexican president Obregón. In exchange for a 25,000-acre hacienda in Durango, Villa ended his armed
struggle and retired from politics. In addition, his men were given land and one year's military pay. Villa the
landowner remembered the experiences of Villa the farmhand. He instituted a number of progressive agrarian
measures on his property. He studied the U.S. techniques of contour plowing and crop rotation and founded a
bank that made loans to farmers at low interest rates. Villa also provided a school for the children living on the
hacienda. The management of his property mirrored some of the aspirations he had harbored for his country.
On the morning of July 20, 1923, Villa was en route to a christening in Parral when he and five
companions were shot to death by seven gunmen. Several days later, Jesus Salas Barraza, a local politician, said
he had planned the killing in retaliation for "Villa's many crimes." Most Mexicans believed, however, that the
order had come from high-level government officials.
In 1976, Villa's remains were transferred from Durango to the Monument of the Revolution in Mexico City as
the current government struggled to rouse support for itself by asserting its origins in the revolution. For most
Mexicans, however, the importance of Villa has less to do with government monuments than with the old
photographs, movies, and songs that keep his legend alive.
Further reading:
Harris, Larry, Pancho Villa: Strong Man of the Revolution, 1989; Herrera, Celia, Pancho Villa Facing History,
1993; Katz, Frederick, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa, 1998; O'Brien, Steven, Pancho Villa, 1994.
Source:
"Pancho Villa." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
.
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26

Emiliano Zapata
According to legend, Emiliano Zapata, a tenant farmer in Mexico, began his revolutionary crusade after
he noticed the discrepancy between the decrepit housing in which he lived and the luxurious stables maintained
for his master's horses. Wearing a sombrero, his face adorned by a drooping black mustache, Zapata rallied the
peasants and emerged as a charismatic revolutionary hero.
Zapata was born on August 8, 1879 in Anenecuilco, Mexico to poor parents of Spanish and indigenous
Indian blood. In his youth, he worked as a tenant farmer on a sugar plantation and witnessed the injustice of
wealthy landowners—those who had large estates, or haciendas—continuously expanding their holdings by
confiscating peasant land. Zapata refused to stand for this and organized the peasants in his village to protest,
which resulted in his arrest. After his imprisonment, Zapata served briefly in the army and then trained horses
for a wealthy landowner. In 1909, he led a group of peasants in another protest; they forcibly occupied land
recently claimed by an owner of a hacienda.
By this time, Mexico had reached a crisis. Since the late colonial period, with the revolutionary uprising
led by José María Morelos, and continuing through the independence years of Augustín de Iturbide and Benito
Juárez, the nation had been in almost constant turmoil. In particular, the economic gulf between a wealthy few
and the impoverished masses produced great tension. This situation resulted in the Mexican Revolution of 1910,
characterized by disjointed rebellions that shook the countryside. That year, one of the rebels, Francisco
Madero, overthrew the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. In the fight between Madero and Díaz, Zapata raised an
army to support Madero, a moderate democratic reformer.
Madero soon disappointed Zapata, however. When the mustachioed rebel demanded that Madero arrange for
land to be returned to the peasants, the incoming president refused and insisted that Zapata and his followers lay
down their arms. Zapata considered doing this but decided against it after Madero's army attacked his men.
Thus, Zapata continued fighting—attacking haciendas and government officials and building a larger
following among the peasants. In 1911, he issued the Plan of Ayala that called for Madero's overthrow and
promised democracy and a redistribution of land. Two years later, Madero's regime collapsed, partly because of
the disorder promoted by Zapata and other rebel leaders, including Pancho Villa and Victoriano Huerta, who
were each fighting their own battles.
In February 1913, Huerta captured the presidency and established a dictatorship. A conservative, he had
no desire to redistribute land or establish democracy, and the United States intervened by supporting his
overthrow. Zapata now fought Huerta and gained control of the area south of Mexico City. In the territory he
ruled, he confiscated the haciendas, redistributed land to the poor, and established an organization to provide the
farmers with credit; observers who traveled through the area noted that the peasants worshipped Zapata and that
27

order prevailed. Zapata's military tactics confounded his opponents. He used guerrilla warfare, and oftentimes
the peaceful-looking peasant farmers became, at an instant's notice, rifle-wielding fighters.
In July 1914, Huerta's government fell, and Venustiano Carranza became Mexico's ruler. He refused to
adopt Zapata's agrarian reform and found himself battling both Zapata in the south and Villa in the north. In
November, representatives of Carranza, Villa, and Zapata met in Aguascalientes, trying but failing to reach an
agreement. Carranza soon fled Mexico City for Veracruz, and Villa and Zapata alternately occupied the capital.
While turmoil prevailed, Zapata's peasant followers did not loot the city but instead solicited food.
As Villa gained the advantage in the fighting, Zapata agreed late in 1914 to cooperate with him.
Carranza's generals developed superb battlefield tactics, however, and the dictator developed reform programs
that appealed to the disadvantaged, issuing decrees that gave them unused lands owned by the national
government and that protected industrial workers. By the spring of 1915, Carranza had put both Villa and
Zapata on the defensive.
In late 1916, Carranza oversaw a constitutional convention—closed to Villa and Zapata. The
Constitution of 1917 was a radical document that gave the government the right to restrict private property in
order to more equitably distribute the nation's wealth; it also outlawed child labor and stipulated the eight-hour
work day. Although Carranza did not personally care about these provisions other than as a means to
consolidate his power, the 1917 constitution appealed to many reformers and deflated Zapata's revolutionary
movement.
On April 10, 1919, Mexican colonel Jesús Guajardo arranged a meeting with Zapata and then ambushed
and killed him. Thus ended Zapata's revolutionary campaign, one that raised social issues to prominent heights
and pressured Carranza into radical reforms that reshaped Mexico and would continue under Lázaro Cárdenas.
Mexicans remember Zapata as a revolutionary hero—his influence is so great that in 1994, more than 70 years
after his death, a sizable revolutionary movement in Chiapas State called itself the Zapatista National Liberation
Army.
Further reading:
Brunk, Samuel, Emiliano Zapata: Revolution and Betrayal in Mexico, 1995; Parkinson, Roger, Zapata, 1975;
Womack, John, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution, 1969.
Source:
"Emiliano Zapata." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
.
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29

Che Guevara
First serving alongside Fidel Castro as one of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara became
the most recognizable face of guerrilla warfare and revolution of the 20th century, his death promoting him to
mythical status among students and radical youth worldwide.
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born on May 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina, the first of Ernesto
Guevara Lynch and Celia Guevara de la Serna's five children. (Che is a nickname commonly used in Argentina
to address friends; the Cuban exiles he met later in Central America thus referred to him always as "Che.") In
May 1930, after swimming with his mother in a river north of the city, Guevara developed a cough that would
turn into asthmatic bronchitis. His asthma would affect him for the rest of his life. The family moved to Alta
Gracia, in the province of Córdoba, realizing that only a dry climate would help his development. The family
struggled as a result of fluctuating incomes, yet they could not move for fear that their son's health might
worsen. Despite his ill health, Guevara was outgoing, rebellious, and accomplished on the sports field, even if
his grades did not reflect his intelligent mind.
Guevara's first political lessons probably came during the mid- to late 1930s when the family took in
relatives escaping the Spanish Civil War. Guevara's father headed the local aid committee for the Spanish
Republic and befriended the republican refugees who came to Alta Gracia. In early 1943, the family moved to
the city of Córdoba, where Guevara was already attending the Colegio Nacional Deán Funes. When he
graduated in 1946, the same year that Juan Perón assumed the presidency of Argentina, Guevara took a job with
the National Department of Roads in Córdoba while the family moved back to Buenos Aires.
Following the death of his grandmother, Guevara also moved to Buenos Aires and began studying
medicine. At the allergy clinic of Dr. Pisani, he moved quickly from patient to unpaid research assistant when
the renowned doctor recognized his potential. During his vacations, Guevara traveled extensively throughout
Argentina, first hitchhiking and then by motorized bicycle. In January 1952, he set off on a motorcycle with a
childhood friend, intent on journeying northward as far as the United States. They scrounged for food and
passed themselves off as leprologists in order to gain renown. On his return to Buenos Aires and medical
school, Guevara wrote that, "Vagabonding through our 'America' has changed me more than I thought." He
continued working in Pisani's clinic and studying for the 14 exams he had left to finish medical school.
Rather than settle down as a doctor, however, Guevara set off on another journey north. In Ecuador, he
joined with travelers en route to Guatemala to witness the attempts of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán to challenge the
might of the United States and the United Fruit Company by instituting land reform. Before he visited
Guatemala, Guevara showed no more than a superficial interest in political events either in Argentina or in
Latin America as a whole. His eight months in Guatemala occasioned an ideological formation that extended
beyond simple anti-imperialism. He seemed to enjoy the threat of confrontation, which may explain much of
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Guevara's revolutionary spirit. He wrote home that the events of the coup gave him a "magical sense of
invulnerability."
Guevara also met his first wife in Central America, Hilda Gadea, an exiled Peruvian activist. They were
married on August 18, 1955 in Mexico. The collapse of the Guatemalan regime during the U.S.-influenced
invasion from Honduras convinced Guevara of the need for armed struggle to accompany any radical reform. In
Mexico, Guevara returned to medical research, and in the hospital in which he worked, he met a Cuban exile,
Ñico López, whom he had met in Guatemala. Soon he met Raúl Castro Ruz and, in the summer of 1955, Raúl's
brother Fidel.
Fidel Castro was in exile in Mexico but was determined to return to Cuba and triumph over the regime
of dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara wrote that after his experiences in Latin America, and especially in
Guatemala, "It wasn't hard to talk me into joining any revolution against a tyrant, but Fidel impressed me as an
extraordinary man . . . I shared in his optimism." The two men quickly developed a deep respect and fondness
for one another, a bond that strengthened during their detention in a Mexican immigration center after the
militants' plans to invade Cuba were discovered by the authorities. On February 15, 1956, Guevara's daughter,
Hilda Beatriz, was born.
On November 25, Guevara left by boat, the Granma, for Cuba and revolution, his marriage to Hilda
Gadea all but over. The journey took longer than expected, and government forces were awaiting the group. A
small cadre, including Guevara and both Castros, survived the attack and made its way to the Sierra Maestra
mountain range in eastern Cuba. The group survived through 1957, Guevara continually battling his asthma,
and in 1958, began guerrilla attacks on Batista's troops. Batista's repressive measures against suspected
supporters of Castro only intensified opposition to the regime and won support for the guerrillas. Guevara
gained a reputation as an efficient and egalitarian leader and one of the most ideologically radical members of
the movement. During the guerrilla phase of the revolution, Guevara would also meet his second wife, Aleida
March, a militant who would become his constant companion and collaborator. They married on June 2, 1959
and eventually had four children together.
On January 1, 1959, the revolutionaries marched into Havana in victory. Soon after the triumph,
however, Guevara's asthma returned, and he was confined to bed. He stayed at the seaside, in Tarará, where he
continued to work. There, he took decisions on agrarian reform, consolidated his alliance with the communist
Popular Socialist Party, formulated plans for the new armed forces, and drafted his most famous book, Guerrilla
Warfare. Guevara believed that land reform was crucial in order to destroy the political power of the oligarchy,
reorient the economy away from its dependence on sugar, and allow peasants to produce staple foods.
Diversification and industrialization became the catch phrases.
Guevara soon assumed the role of minister of industry within the National Institute of Agrarian Reform.
Perhaps due to political differences, Castro sent Guevara on a trip to Africa and Asia three days later. He
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eturned in September to take charge of the National Bank and to oversee the expropriation of Cuba's sugar
mills, the island's most important industry. In protest, U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower suspended sugar
purchases from Cuba. Guevara turned to the Soviet Union, and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev promised to
buy the U.S. quota. The Soviet Union also provided the oil that Cuba was no longer able to obtain from the U.S.
Time magazine referred to Guevara as the brain of the revolution, Fidel as its heart, and Raúl as its fist.
Guevara loved his life in Cuba but had never lost his desire to fight for socialism abroad or to export the
revolution to other Latin American countries. He talked of going to Vietnam and did spend time in the Congo
during 1965, but his main focus was Latin America. He had dispatched a reconnaissance party to Argentina in
1963, and in 1966, he went to Bolivia. It was not the same country he had visited in 1953. Land reform had
quieted the peasant sector and political reform gave participation to labor unions, leaving the left divided and
weak. The Bolivian Communist Party was allied to the Soviet Union, which was opposed to Cuba spreading
revolution and expected that Guevara would only be passing through Bolivia to Argentina. Betrayed by political
opponents, deserters, and poor planning and communications, Guevara's forces were unable to gain support
from the local population and fell prey to the Bolivian military and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. In
October 1967, the guerrillas were captured.
On October 9, 1967, Guevara was shot by his captors in a schoolhouse in Vallegrande, Bolivia. In order
to prove to the world that he was dead, his executioners took pictures of his corpse and severed his hands for
identification purposes. They did not kill the legend that resurfaced within a year, however, as images of
Guevara occupied posters and T-shirts around the world.
Further reading:
Anderson, Jon Lee, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, 1997; Castañeda, Jorge G., Compañero: The Life and
Death of Che Guevara, 1997; Ebon, Martin, Che Guevara. The Making of a Legend, 1969.
Source:
"Che Guevara." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
.
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