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Title: Plan of Ayala
Author: Emiliano Zapata
Date: November 25, 1911
Language: en
Topics: Zapatistas, Mexican revolution, land struggles
Source: Retrieved on 6th June 2021 from http://users.pop.umn.edu/~rmccaa/la20c/ayala.htm
Notes: From John Womack, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York: Knopf, © 1969), pp. 400–404. Translation by John Womack

Emiliano Zapata

Plan of Ayala

Liberating Plan of the sons of the State of Morelos, affiliated with the

Insurgent Army which defends the fulfillment of the Plan of San Luis,

with the reforms which it has believed proper to add in benefit of the

Mexican Fatherland.

We who undersign, constituted in a revolutionary junta to sustain and

carry out the promises which the revolution of November 20, 1910, just

past, made to the country, declare solemnly before the face of the

civilized world which judges us and before the nation to which we belong

and which we call [sic, love], propositions which we have formulated to

end the tyranny which oppresses us and redeem the fatherland from the

dictatorships which are imposed on us, which [propositions] are

determined in the following plan:

Taking into consideration that the Mexican people led by Don Francisco

I. Madero went to shed their blood to reconquer liberties and recover

their rights which had been trampled on, and for a man to take

possession of power, violating the sacred principles which he took an

oath to defend under the slogan “Effective Suffrage and No Reelection,”

outraging thus the faith, the cause, the justice, and the liberties of

the people: taking into consideration that that man to whom we refer is

Don Francisco I. Madero, the same who initiated the above-cited

revolution, who imposed his will and influence as a governing norm on

the Provisional Government of the ex-President of the Republic Attorney

Francisco L. de Barra [sic], causing with this deed repeated sheddings

of blood and multiplicate misfortunes for the fatherland in a manner

deceitful and ridiculous, having no intentions other than satisfying his

personal ambitions, his boundless instincts as a tyrant, and his

profound disrespect for the fulfillment of the preexisting laws

emanating from the immortal code of ’57 [Constitution of 1857], written

with the revolutionary blood of Ayutla;

Taking into account that the so-called Chief of the Liberating

Revolution of Mexico, Don Francisco I. Madero, through lack of integrity

and the highest weakness, did not carry to a happy end the revolution

which gloriously he initiated with the help of God and the people, since

he left standing most of the governing powers and corrupted elements of

oppression of the dictatorial government of Porfirio Díaz, which are not

nor can in any way be the representation of National Sovereignty, and

which, for being most bitter adversaries of ours and of the principles

which even now we defend, are provoking the discomfort of the country

and opening new wounds in the bosom of the fatherland, to give it its

own blood to drink; taking also into account that the aforementioned Sr.

Francisco I. Madero, present President of the Republic, tries to avoid

the fulfillment of the promises which he made to the Nation in the Plan

of San Luis Potosí, being [sic, restricting] the above-cited promises to

the agreements of Ciudad Juárez, by means of false promises and numerous

intrigues against the Nation nullifying, pursuing, jailing, or killing

revolutionary elements who helped him to occupy the high post of

President of the Republic;

Taking into consideration that the so-often-repeated Francisco I. Madero

has tried with the brute force of bayonets to shut up and to drown in

blood the pueblos who ask, solicit, or demand from him the fulfillment

of the promises of the revolution, calling them bandits and rebels,

condemning them to a war of extermination without conceding or granting

a single one of the guarantees which reason, justice, and the law

prescribe; taking equally into consideration that the President of the

Republic Francisco I. Madero has made of Effective Suffrage a bloody

trick on the people, already against the will of the same people

imposing Attorney José M. Pino Suáez in the Vice-Presidency of the

Republic, or [imposing as] Governors of the States [men] designated by

him, like the so-called General Ambrosio Figueroa, scourge and tyrant of

the people of Morelos, or entering into scandalous cooperation with the

científico party, feudal landlords, and oppressive bosses, enemies of

the revolution proclaimed by him, so as to forge new chains and follow

the pattern of a new dictatorship more shameful and more terrible than

that of Porfirio Díaz, for it has been clear and patent that he has

outraged the sovereignty of the States, trampling on the laws without

any respect for lives or interests, as has happened in the State of

Morelos, and others, leading them to the most horrendous anarchy which

contemporary history registers.

For these considerations we declare the aforementioned Francisco I.

Madero inept at realizing the promises of the revolution of which he was

the author, because he has betrayed the principles with which he tricked

the will of the people and was able to get into power: incapable of

governing, because he has no respect for the law and justice of the

pueblos, and a traitor to the fatherland, because he is humiliating in

blood and fire, Mexicans who want liberties, so as to please the

científicos, landlords, and bosses who enslave us, and from today on we

begin to continue the revolution begun by him, until we achieve the

overthrow of the dictatorial powers which exist.

Recognition is withdrawn from S. Francisco I. Madero as Chief of the

Revolution and as President of the Republic, for the reasons which

before were expressed, it being attempted to overthrow this official.

Recognized as Chief of the Liberating Revolution is the illustrious

General Pascual Orozco, the second of the Leader Don Francisco I.

Madero, and in case he does not accept this delicate post, recognition

as Chief of the Revolution will go to General Don Emiliano Zapata.

The Revolutionary Junta of the State of Morelos manifests to the

Nation under formal oath: that it makes its own the plan of San Luis

Potosí, with the additions which are expressed below in benefit of the

oppressed pueblos, and it will make itself the defender of the

principles it defends until victory or death.

The Revolutionary Junta of the State of Morelos will admit no

transactions or compromises until it achieves the overthrow of the

dictatorial elements of Porfirio Díaz and Francisco I. Madero, for the

nation is tired of false men and traitors who make promises like

liberators and who on arriving in power forget them and constitute

themselves tyrants.

As an additional part of the plan, we invoke, we give notice: that

[regarding] the fields, timber, and water which the landlords,

científicos, or bosses have usurped, the pueblos or citizens who have

the titles corresponding to those properties will immediately enter into

possession of that real estate of which they have been despoiled by the

bad faith of our oppressors, maintain at any cost with arms in hand the

mentioned possession; and the usurpers who consider themselves with a

right to them [those properties] will deduce it before the special

tribunals which will be established on the triumph of the revolution.

In virtue of the fact that the immense majority of Mexican pueblos and

citizens are owners of no more than the land they walk on, suffering the

horrors of poverty without being able to improve their social condition

in any way or to dedicate themselves to Industry or Agriculture, because

lands, timber, and water are monopolized in a few hands, for this cause

there will be expropriated the third part of those monopolies from the

powerful proprietors of them, with prior indemnization, in order that

the pueblos and citizens of Mexico may obtain ejidos, colonies, and

foundations for pueblos, or fields for sowing or laboring, and the

Mexicans’ lack of prosperity and well-being may improve in all and for

all.

[Regarding] The landlords, científicos, or bosses who oppose the

present plan directly or indirectly, their goods will be nationalized

and the two-third parts which [otherwise would] belong to them will go

for indemnizations of war, pensions for widows and orphans of the

victims who succumb in the struggle for the present plan.

In order to execute the procedures regarding the properties

aforementioned, the laws of disamortization and nationalization will be

applied as they fit, for serving us as norm and example can be those

laws put in force by the immortal Juáez on ecclesiastical properties,

which punished the despots and conservatives who in every time have

tried to impose on us the ignominious yoke of oppression and

backwardness.

The insurgent military chiefs of the Republic who rose up with arms in

hand at the voice of Don Francisco I. Madero to defend the plan of San

Luis Potosí, and who oppose with armed force the present plan, will be

judged traitors to the cause which they defended and to the fatherland,

since at present many of them, to humor the tyrants, for a fistful of

coins, or for bribes or connivance, are shedding the blood of their

brothers who claim the fulfillment of the promises which Don Francisco

I. Madero made to the nation.

The expenses of war will be taken in conformity with Article 11 of the

Plan of San Luis Potosí, and all procedures employed in the revolution

we undertake will be in conformity with the same instructions which the

said plan determines.

Once triumphant the revolution which we carry into the path of

reality, a Junta of the principal revolutionary chiefs from the

different States will name or designate an interim President of the

Republic, who will convoke elections for the organization of the federal

powers.

The principal revolutionary chiefs of each State will designate in

Junta the Governor of the State to which they belong, and this appointed

official will convoke elections for the due organization of the public

powers, the object being to avoid compulsory appointments which work the

misfortune of the pueblos, like the so-well-known appointment of

Ambrosio Figueroa in the State of Morelos and others who drive us to the

precipice of bloody conflicts sustained by the caprice of the dictator

Madero and the circle of científicos and landlords who have influenced

him.

If President Madero and other dictatorial elements of the present and

former regime want to avoid the immense misfortunes which afflict the

fatherland, and [if they] possess true sentiments of love for it, let

them make immediate renunciation of the posts they occupy and with that

they will with something staunch the grave wounds which they have opened

in the bosom of the fatherland, since, if they do not do so, on their

heads will fall the blood and the anathema of our brothers.

Mexicans: consider that the cunning and bad faith of one man is

shedding blood in a scandalous manner, because he is incapable of

governing; consider that his system of government is choking the

fatherland and trampling with the brute force of bayonets on our

institutions; and thus, as we raised up our weapons to elevate him to

power, we again raise them up against him for defaulting on his promises

to the Mexican people and for having betrayed the revolution initiated

by him, we are not personalists, we are partisans of principles and not

of men!

Mexican People, support this plan with arms in hand and you will make

the prosperity and well-being of the fatherland.

Ayala, November 25, 1911

Liberty, Justice and Law

Signed, General in Chief Emiliano Zapata; Generals Eufemio Zapata,

Francisco Mendoza, Jesús Morales, Jesús Navarro, Otilio E. Montaño, José

Trinidad Ruiz, Próculo Capistrán; Colonels...; Captains... [This] is a

true copy taken from the original. Camp in the Mountains of Puebla,

December 11, 1911. Signed General in Chief Emiliano Zapata.