The Logo for Lesson 18 is a "Calavera"

Question SA18-2. Here is the text reference (p. 169/2 to 4):

The spark that set off the Revolution was the 1910 reelection campaign of Porfirio Díaz (for his eighth term). In a 1908 interview with a foreign journalist, the aging Díaz let it be known that he might not choose to run in 1910. This led an intellectual member of an upper-class family by the name of Francisco Madero to announce his candidacy. Running on a campaign of &laqno;effective suffrage and no reelection», Madero was able to gather considerable support among the middle class, and the possibility that he might win stirred hope among the lower classes. Díaz promptly arrested Madero and proceeded to win a rigged election. But he miscalculated the degree of unrest in Mexico and shortly after the election, when his police fired on a demonstration in Mexico City, he went into exile himself. The first stage of the Revolution had ended with the departure of the old dictator.

Madero, returned from exile in Texas, was declared President and took the reins of power. But Madero was essentially a 19th Century liberal, and his program was a &laqno;constitutionalist» one based on clean elections and limits on the reelection of the president. He was well-meaning, but had no real program for the profound social, economic and political changes that Mexicans were clamoring for. He had also made the critical mistake of allowing many of the senior generals of Díaz' old army to remain in place.

When it became clear that Madero's reform program would be a very limited one, unrest and violence broke out in numerous places in Mexico. One of the most significant movements was the cry for land reform led by Emiliano Zapata, whose cry of &laqno;land and liberty» mobilized thousands of followers who began invading the large land holdings (the haciendas) and taking them over. The landowners appealed to their allies among the senior military officers, who under the leadership of the reactionary general Victoriano Huerta moved to put down the revolt, take Madero and his Vice President prisoner, and then execute them &laqno;as they tried to escape».