Editing Emiliano Zapata (section)

=== 1879–1909: Early life ===
[[File:Casa natal de Emiliano Zapata 1.JPG|thumb|left|Birthplace of Emiliano Zapata in Anenecuilco, today a house museum]]

Emiliano Zapata was born to Gabriel Zapata and Cleofas Jertrudiz Salazar of [[Anenecuilco]], [[Morelos]], the ninth of ten children.{{efn|Three brothers: Pedro, [[Eufemio Zapata|Eufemio]] and Loreto, and six sisters: Celsa, Ramona, María de Jesús, María de la Luz, Jovita and Matilde.}} Contrary to popular legend, the Zapatas were a well-known local family and reasonably well-off.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/quien-fue-emiliano-zapata-conoce-su-biografia.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731000947/https://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/quien-fue-emiliano-zapata-conoce-su-biografia.html|url-status=dead|title=¿Quién fue Emiliano Zapata? Conoce su biografía|first=Stefany|last=Cisneros|date=9 October 2018|archivedate=31 July 2020|website=México Desconocido}}</ref> Emiliano's maternal grandfather, José Salazar, had served in the army of José María Morelos y Pavón during the siege of Cuautla, while his paternal uncles Cristino and José Zapata fought in the [[Reform War]] and the [[Second French intervention in Mexico|French Intervention]]. Emiliano's godfather was the manager of a large local [[hacienda]] and his godmother was the manager's wife.{{sfn|Knight|1986|p=190}} The Zapata family were descended from the Zapata of Mapaztlán and were likely [[mestizo]]s, Mexicans of both Spanish and [[Nahuas|Nahua]] heritage.<ref>[http://www.historicas.unam.mx/publicaciones/publicadigital/libros/manifiestos_zapata/081a_04_04_ExpedicionManifiestos.pdf ZAPATA ANTE LOS INDIOS: LA EXPEDICIÓN DE LOS MANIFIESTOS EN NÁHUATL] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200129195828/http://www.historicas.unam.mx/publicaciones/publicadigital/libros/manifiestos_zapata/081a_04_04_ExpedicionManifiestos.pdf |date=29 January 2020 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Indian in Latin American History: Resistance, Resilience, and Acculturation |first=John E. |last=Kicza |publisher=Scholarly Resources |page=[https://archive.org/details/indianinlatiname0000unse/page/203 203] |year=1993 |isbn=978-0842024211 |url=https://archive.org/details/indianinlatiname0000unse/page/203 }}</ref> Although it is not known conclusively whether Zapata himself spoke [[Nahuatl]], historian Miguel León-Portilla has cited later Zapatista proclamations and eyewitness accounts to argue that he was fluent in the language.<ref name="Newell">{{cite book |last1=Newell |first1=Peter |title=Zapata of Mexico |date=1979 |publisher=Cienfuegos Press |location=Sanday, Orkney, England |page=176}}</ref><ref name="Portilla">{{cite book |last1=León-Portilla |first1=Miguel |title=Los manifiestos en Náhuatl de Emiliano Zapata |date=1978 |publisher=UNAM |location=Mexico City |page=112}}</ref>

[[File:Euphemio y Emiliano Zapata.jpg|thumb|Undated photo of Emiliano Zapata (right) and his older brother [[Eufemio Zapata|Eufemio]] (left), dressed in the ''[[charro]]'' fashion of the countryside. Some posthumous artistic renderings of Zapata show him dressed as an ordinary peasant]]

Gabriel Zapata was a farmer and horse trainer, and Emiliano's upbringing on the farm gave him an intimate familiarity with the difficulties of the countryside and his village's long struggle to regain the land taken by expanding haciendas.<ref>{{cite book |title=Diccionario Porrúa de Historia, Biografía y Geografía de México |publisher= [[Librería Hermanos Porrúa (Porrúa Brothers Bookstore)|Editorial Porrúa]]}}</ref> He received a limited education from his teacher, Emilio Vara, but it included "the rudiments of bookkeeping".{{sfn|Krauze|1997|p=278}} Gabriel died when Emiliano was about 16 or 17, leaving the latter to care for his family. Emiliano was entrepreneurial and bought a team of mules to haul [[maize]] from farms to town and bricks to the Hacienda of Chinameca; he was also a successful farmer, growing watermelons as a cash crop. He was a skilled horseman and competed in rodeos and races, as well as bullfighting from horseback.{{sfn|Krauze|1997|p=279}} These skills as a horseman brought him work as a horse trainer for Porfirio Díaz's son-in-law, [[Ignacio de la Torre y Mier]] who had a large sugar hacienda nearby. Emiliano had a striking appearance, with a large mustache in which he took pride, and good quality clothing described by his loyal secretary: "General Zapata's dress until his death was a [[Charro outfit|''charro'' outfit]]: tight-fitting black cashmere pants with silver buttons, a broad charro hat, a fine linen shirt or jacket, a scarf around his neck, boots of a single piece, Amozoqueña-style spurs, and a pistol at his belt."{{sfn|Krauze|1997|p=279}} In an undated studio photo, Zapata is dressed in a standard business suit and tie, projecting an image of a man of means.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Anenecuilco was a mixed Spanish-speaking mestizo and indigenous [[Nahuatl]]-speaking town. It had a long history of protesting the local haciendas taking community members' land, and its leaders gathered colonial-era documentation of their land titles to prove their claims.{{sfn|Krauze|1997|pp=275–276}} Some of the colonial documentation was in Nahuatl, with contemporary translations to Spanish for use in legal cases in the Spanish courts.{{sfn|Krauze|1997|p=277}} As referenced above, one eyewitness account by [[Luz Jiménez]] of [[Milpa Alta]] states that Emiliano Zapata spoke Nahuatl fluently when his forces arrived in her community.<ref>{{cite book |last=Miguel Leon-Portilla |first= Earl Shorris |year=2002 |title= In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature, Pre-Columbian to the Present |publisher= W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0393324075 |page= [https://books.google.com/books?id=QF5VgTGrTGEC&pg=PA374 p. 374]}} (Testimony of Doña [[Luz Jiménez]] originally published in Horcasitas, 1968).</ref>

Community members in Anenecuilco, including Zapata, sought redress against land seizures. In 1892, a delegation had an audience with Díaz, who with the intervention of a lawyer, agreed to hear them. Although promising them to deal favorably with their petition, Díaz had them arrested and Zapata was conscripted into the [[Federal Army]].<ref>{{cite book |first=John Mason |last= Hart |year=1987 |title=Revolutionary Mexico |location= Berkeley and Los Angeles|publisher= University of California Press|page= 44|isbn=978-0520059955}}</ref> Under Díaz, conscription into the Federal Army was much feared by ordinary Mexican men and their families. Zapata was one of many rebel leaders who were conscripted at some point.{{sfn|Knight|1986|p=19}}