Carranza, Venustiano


Carranza, Venustiano

(vāno͞ostyä`nō kärän`sä), 1859–1920, Mexican political leader. While senator from Coahuila, he joined (1910) Francisco I. MaderoMadero, Francisco Indalecio
, 1873–1913, Mexican statesman and president (1911–13). A champion of democracy and social reform, he established various humanitarian institutions for the peons on his family's vast estates in Coahuila.
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 in the revolution against Porfirio Díaz. When President Madero was overthrown (1913) by Victoriano HuertaHuerta, Victoriano
, 1854–1916, Mexican general and president (1913–14). He served under Porfirio Díaz. After the revolution of Francisco I. Madero (1911) he aided the new president, who, reluctantly, made him (1912) commander of the federal forces.
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, Carranza promptly took the field against Huerta. Fighting in the north, he was joined by other insurgents, notably Álvaro ObregónObregón, Álvaro
, 1880–1928, Mexican general and president (1920–24). A planter in Sonora, he supported Francisco I. Madero in the revolution against Porfirio Díaz.
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 and Francisco VillaVilla, Francisco
, c.1877–1923, Mexican revolutionary, nicknamed Pancho Villa.
His real name was Doroteo Arango.

When Villa came of age, he declared his freedom from the peonage of his parents and became notorious as a bandit in Chihuahua and Durango.
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; Emiliano ZapataZapata, Emiliano
, c.1879–1919, Mexican revolutionary, b. Morelos. Zapata was of almost pure native descent. A tenant farmer, he occupied a social position between the peon and the ranchero, but he was a born leader who felt keenly the injustices suffered by his people.
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 led a peon uprising in the south. Huerta was finally forced to resign and Carranza assumed (Aug., 1914) the executive powers. Villa and Zapata refused to recognize Carranza's authority, however, and plunged the country into another civil war. Carranza, aided by Obregón, emerged supreme by Aug., 1915, although Zapata and Villa continued their rebellions in the south and north. Carranza was pressed by Obregón to accept the Constitution of 1917, which contained potentially radical reform measures that Carranza opposed and subsequently failed to enforce. In 1920, Carranza attempted to prevent Obregón from succeeding him as president, and Obregón revolted. Carranza fled Mexico City, and was ambushed and murdered by a local chieftain in Tlaxcalantongo.

Carranza, Venustiano

 

Born Dec. 29, 1859, in Cuatro Ciénegas; died May 21, 1920, in the state of Puebla. Statesman and military and political figure of Mexico.

Carranza was an important landowner. During the MexicanRevolution of 1910–17, he was one of the leaders of the nationalbourgeoisie and the landowners who had become bourgeois intheir outlook. In 1914 he was proclaimed provisional president.Carranza became president in 1917. His government accepted aconstitution (which is still in force) that was bourgeois, demo-cratic, and, to a significant degree, anti-imperialistic. However, Carranza, as a spokesman of the interests of the ruling classes, brutally suppressed the peasant and workers’ movement. He wasoverthrown as a result of a revolt and murdered during his flightfrom the capital.