Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

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     LOVE AND RAGE     VOL. 5, NO. 1     MARCH/APRIL 1994

        Electronic Edition * Produced March 10, 1994

          SPECIAL ISSUE ON FEMINISM AND REVOLUTION
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INDIGENOUS MOVMENTS AND MAGONISMO

By Juan Carlos Beas and Manuel Ballesteros


[The article that follows is excerpted from a paper
presented at the seminar "Ricardo Flores Mago'n,"
organized by Casa de Cultura Oaxaquen~a and CIDSTAO
(Centro de Investigaciones y Documentacio'n Sobre
Temas y Asuntos Oaxaquen~os) on June 25-27, 1986.
It was subsequently published in February 1987 by
Ediciones Antorcha as part of its Pamphlet Series.
We have decided to reprint part of this pamphlet
because it tackles a subject rarely addressed: the
relationship between the Mexican anarchist movement
and Indigenous communities. This theme is now very
real and timely, in view of the rebirth of
Zapatismo and the subsequent debate about
revolutionary tactics and strategies.]

The Indigenous nations that have existed in Mexican
territory since ancient times have been direct
actors in the great social convulsions that have
shaken the country.

>From the moment in which the first Iberian
conquistador brought the cross, blood and gunpowder
to these lands, the majority of the Indian people
have fought a necessary, tenacious and violent
resistance whose aim was and is the preservation
and recovery of land, forest, customs and their own
lives.

This struggle has been on-going, and has not only
confronted the Spanish, French and North American
invaders, but also the conservative and liberal
governments of independent Me'xico and the group
that inherited power as a result of the defeat of
the so-called "Mexican Revolution."

Porfirio Di'az [dictator of Me'xico from 1876-
1910], the bloodthirsty Oaxacan "pacifist," like
the serene Santa Ana [dictator from 1824-1855],
handed over our resources and lands to the foreign
invader, and during his rule developed a process of
capitalist modernization based on dispossession and
violence against the already diminished Indigenous
nations.

As a response to these actions the Native people
organized revolts both during the dictatorship of
Porfirio Di'az and during the period of armed
struggle. These revolts were aimed at regaining
their plundered lands and stopping the process of
domination. They fought for their way of life.

Communalism, like Indian customs, puts forward a
concept of social property, directly democratic
forms of representation, and a utilization of labor
and resources where the notion of the commodity is
excluded. In that way, the Indians' way of life
presented an obstacle to the project of a national
state and capitalist modernization, the project
that drove Porfirio Di'az and his successors.

Magonismo, through many of its actions,
proclamations, articles, programs, rebellions and
assemblies, showed itself to be a movement
connected to the Indigenous nations' traditional
resistance struggle.

In a predominantly rural country, like Me'xico was
at the beginning of the 20th century, an important
part of the Magonista's actions were directed at
the Indigenous sector.

So, the connection between Indigenous resistance
and Magonismo is part of a socialist tradition, and
appears to have been determined by the communalism
of the Indian people. Magonismo is fundamentally
supported by three currents: Mexican liberalism,
European anarchism and Indigenous communalism.

Magonismo is an expression of what we call
socialism. It has as its principal demands a call
for re-communalization, restitution of communal
lands to the people and respect for the difference
between the Indian people and an increasingly
mestizo and western society.

In this essay we seek to show the profound
connection that existed between ethnic resistance
and the Magonistas at the beginning of the century.
It is the history of a struggle which has not
ended, as the "vanquished" continue fighting in the
mountains, jungles, highlands and barrios. The
Magonista ideas have not died, but, on the
contrary, have germinated, and are part of the
memory of the living history of a people that
refuse to die, regardless of the wishes and forces
of the technocratic rulers.

Magonismo:
The Radical Current of the Mexican Revolution

Magonismo was a political movement independent of
the state, which took its name from the
revolutionary Oaxacan Flores Mago'n brothers. This
movement arose spontaneously in 1892, and later
closely aligned itself with other revolutionary
movements. This association diluted their
ideological purity, though they left a recognizable
imprint on the other movements.

Many Magonistas died in jail or in violent
confrontations with federal troops, while others
came to govern their states or became deputies;
many others died poor.

The Magonista movement, like other popular
currents, was defeated. Once it took governmental
power, the revolution died. The group that
capitalized on this great social movement saw
itself as obliged to adopt some programmatic axioms
from Magonismo in order to give revolutionary
character to the still-born political Constitution
of 1917. Without a doubt, Magonismo constituted the
principal opposition to Porfirian tyranny, but
ultimately did not succeed in making its more
advanced social project triumphant.

The Constitution Has Died

The grand edifice of fraternity, democracy and
national greatness rises above tyranny's insults,
rises above the clergy's manipulations, rises above
capitalism and militarism

--February, 1907. Liberal Manifesto.

The revolutionaries of the Mexican Liberal Party
recognized that they had been greatly influenced by
the anti-imperialist, anti-clerical and reformist
spirit of the liberals of the Reform. This can best
be seen in their constant criticism of the role
played by the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the
illogical character of the religious discourse.

>From 1892 until 1903, Magonismo openly defended the
implementation of the February 5, 1857
Constitution; the Liberals continually denounced
the systematic violations of the Constitution by
judges, bureaucrats and pen-pushers.

Although the majority of the Liberal clubs only
expressed anti-clerical sentiments, Ricardo Flores
Mago'n, at risk to his life, also denounced
Porfirista tyranny during the First Liberal
Congress. The valiant position of this 26-year-old
Oaxacan left an anti-Porfirista stamp on the
liberal debate.

During their first years, the Liberals spent a lot
of energy publishing newspapers. These papers
played an important role as instruments of
agitation, condemnation and propagation of ideas.
These Liberal papers were the scourge of government
officials, whom they harshly criticized and
satirized. The anti-imperialist tradition that
sprang from the Liberal movement during the period
of the Wars of Intervention fed the imaginations of
the Liberals of the early 1900s. Through various
means, these modern Liberals criticized the links
between the dictator and foreign exploiters.

Anarchy Travels to Me'xico

The ideas regarding social change advocated by
European socialists found fertile ground in Me'xico
during the 1800s and they directly influenced some
of the popular social movements of that time.
European socialism left its egalitarian imprint on
the School of Socialism, in the devastated region
of Chalco, and on the artisans' mutualist unions.

While anarchists and Marxists were fighting for
control of the First International in Europe,
Zalcosta, Santa Fe, Jose' Mari'a Gonza'lez and Juan
de la Mata Rivera were spreading the egalitarian
ideal of European socialism throughout Me'xico by
means of Liberal newspapers, public forums and
traveling throughout the countryside.

Of the different tendencies of European socialist
thought, anarchism exercised the most influence on
the members of the organizing committee of the
Mexican Liberal Party.

Anti-statism, atheism, egalitarianism and a
rejection of the electoral system attracted an
important part of the Mexican Liberal Party.
Repression, persecution, jailing and exile had laid
the groundwork for these ideas; this sector of the
Mexican Liberal Party saw radical revolution as the
only solution to the despotism of the Porfirista
dictatorship. [...]

The organizing committee of the Mexican Liberal
Party, as a whole, didn't take an openly anarchist
stance until after 1906. However, starting in 1904,
the party aided in the creation of armed groups in
more than 12 states of the Mexican Republic.

The dominant anarchist tendency in the organizing
committee was clearly expressed in a letter sent by
Ricardo Flores Mago'n to his brother Enrique and to
Pra'xedis G. Guerrero on July 13, 1908. On the one
hand, the anti-statist tendency was a determining
factor in allying with anarchists from other
countries, and, in particular, with the IWW in the
United States. However, it was also a factor in the
defection of a number of Liberals to the Maderista
camp. [Francisco Indalecio Madero is credited with
leading the overthrow of Di'az; he then became
President, but failed to implement significant
reforms.]

Juan Sarabia, final editor of the 1906 Program of
the Mexican Liberal Party, downplayed the anarchist
and communalist tendencies expressed in the program
and gave the document a reformist tone. However,
that same year, the Mexican Liberal Party made an
open invitation to the people to take up arms
against the dictatorship.

In the Manifestos of 1911, the anarchist core of
the Mexican Liberal Party directed their attacks
against the unholy trinity: capital, authority and
the clergy. They openly advocated the formation of
armed militias.

The last Magonista manifesto was published in
March, 1918. It called for anarchists around the
world to revolt, since the world found itself on
the brink of the abyss as a result of the First
World War. As with many of the writings of the
Mexican Liberal Party, this manifesto ended with
the cry, "Land and Freedom!"--a cry that had first
been raised years before by Pra'dexis G. Guerrero,
who had taken it from the Russian populists. This
manifesto would ultimately result in the jailing
and death of Ricardo Flores Mago'n.

The Communalist Tradition and Magonismo

The centuries-long struggle of the Indigenous
groups in Me'xico, their tenacious resistance and
their communitarian tradition were, without a
doubt, strongly present in the thought and actions
of the Magonistas.

At the beginning of this century, the Indigenous
population was the most exploited sector of Mexican
workers. They were peons on large haciendas and
many of them worked in mines or constructing the
railways.

According to Mago'n, revolution should guarantee
people the right to survive, and he believed that
only a social revolution would be able to give all
people control of the land. He believed that common
good and freedom could only be achieved by
eliminating every kind of master. "The most urgent
social necessity in Me'xico is to give the people
dignity..."

In his 1911 writings, Ricardo pointed out that when
the Indigenous people of Me'xico take control of
the hacienda lands with rifles in hand and work
those lands in common, they create an important
social and economic transformation. In contrast to
the doctrinaire socialists, Ricardo made the point
that the "bandits," who caused so much grief for
the bourgeoisie, didn't necessarily have to have
read Kropotkin or Marx to help bring about social
revolution. In Regeneracio'n, Ricardo wrote: "We
have sent word to our brothers of the various
Indian tribes calling for them to take possession
of the land. Our forces will fully support their
just actions..."

The Mexican people are ripe for communism because
they live it and have lived it; the communalist
tradition, the mechanisms of community
representation, the working of common land and the
fierce tradition of resistance made their mark on
the Magonistas' actions and debates.

The cry of "Land and Freedom!" that shook different
regions of Me'xico scared the caciques, landlords
and political leaders who had, under the protection
of Don Porfirio, fenced-in entire villages, looted
their resources, and fattened their own bank
accounts with the blood, sweat and tears of
Indigenous workers.

The connections between Magonismo and Indigenous
struggles created, in large part, the conditions
necessary for the re-taking of land by Indigenous
peasants through armed conflict.

Magonistas and Indigenous People:
Together in Armed Revolt

The delegates of the organizing committee of the
Mexican Liberal Party traveled throughout the
country making pacts and distributing information.
Meanwhile, a group that remained in the United
States established contact with the Liberals by
mail. These Liberals maintained the spirit of
resistance in many parts of the country. The
organizing committee established strong links with
the Indigenous movements many months before the
uprisings of 1906.

In Anenecuilco, Morelos, a community meeting agreed
that the time had arrived for rebellion, and thus
started the Zapatista movement. The Magonistas, in
solidarity with the struggle, connected themselves
with the Zapatistas, and many Magonistas joined the
southern forces. They fought with the peasants who
came down from the mountains in search of justice.

The Indigenous people of Me'xico contributed
decisively to the radicalization of the revolution.
The Magonistas constantly strengthened their
alliance with the Indigenous movements--movements
that viewed revolt as the only means of defending
their rights. In this way, they prepared the
country to take advantage of the coming storm:
social revolution.

Magonista influence in the Northern Isthmus

In the northeastern portion of the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec lie the cantons of Acayucan,
Minatitla'n and Tuxtlas in the state of Veracruz.
This region had long been inhabited by communities
of the Zoque, Populuca, Nahua and Chontal peoples,
and is characterized by fertile lands and forests
rich in tropical woods. It was here that the
Magonista movement and the traditional Indigenous
struggle mixed and created one of the most radical
and profound anti-Porfirista revolts.

It was Porfirismo that realized the old dream of
linking the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Me'xico
by railway. The railway construction project was
given to the English firm Pearson and Son Ltd.,
with whom Porfirio Di'az had an excellent personal
relationship.

The development of the ports of Salina Cruz and
Me'xico (Coatzacoalcos) as well as the construction
of the railroad in Tehuantepec, violently
aggravated the plundering of the region's land and
woods.

The forest lands next to rivers, roads, and the sea
were stripped of their tropical woods. Within a few
years there was wide-scale hunting in the areas
where they had stripped the caoba and cedro woods.
The forests provided the ties for the railroads.
None of this benefited the original inhabitants of
the region.

In this way the Indigenous people suffered not only
the plundering of their resources, but were forced
into slave labor. They also suffered from the
imposition of repressive, authoritarian measures.
Those who protested were exiled to the jungles of
Quintana Roo near the Valle Nacional, or were
assassinated by the rurales (police force similar
to the Spanish Civil Guard).

When the delegate of the Mexican Liberal Party
arrived in Veracruz in 1904, the Indigenous
communities were undertaking legal action aimed at
recovering land and resources that had been
plundered. The memory of the protest movement at
the beginning of this century is still alive in the
oral tradition of the Zoque-Populuca peoples.

During 1905 and 1906, the Magonistas devoted
themselves to propaganda and making connections
with the Indigenous communities.

Faced with the growing expansion of the properties
of Pearson and the Veracruz Land and Cattle Co.--
which together had taken possession of more than
175,000 hectares of communal land--the Indigenous
people, tired of legal maneuvers, enthusiastically
took up the Liberal cause. On Sept. 28, they
occupied Soteapan, Mecayapan and Pajapan.

Two days later 1,000 Indians entered into violent
combat in Acayucan; they were defeated and
retreated back to the mountains. On Oct. 4 there
was still fighting going on in the vicinity of
Soteapan. There, the federales were defeated,
despite reinforcements from Juchita'n.

Throughout the region there were revolts that
lasted several days before they were put down.

The uprising of September-October 1906 didn't last.
More than 400 insurgents were exiled to San Juan de
Ulu'a and their villages were razed. Other
insurgents went into hiding or were isolated in
small groups. The communities continued their legal
maneuvers, and in Ixhuatla'n the struggle against
the cacique Nicasio L. Rosaldo continued under the
direction of Daniel P. Gavilla.

With the defeat of the revolution came the defeat
of the struggles of the Indigenous people south of
Veracruz. The inhabitants of the area would have to
wait until the '40s and the '50s to retrieve some
of their communal land, and the majority of those
who had participated in the struggles in the South
died poor. Among those was Candido Donato Padua,
one of the founders of the Federacio'n Anarquista
de Me'xico [Mexican Anarchist Federation] in the
'40s, who was still expounding radical struggle
when he died.

Recently, in 1985, 20,000 Nahuas from Pajapan
managed to halt the plundering of their lands by
PEMEX [the state-run oil monopoly in Me'xico]
despite jailings and confrontations.

The Magonista actions haven't been forgotten by the
Indians south of Veracruz; their struggle has not
ended.

Indigenous Oaxaca Rebels

In the State of Oaxaca the impact of modernization
worsened with the construction of the Nacional de
Tehuantepec and Mexicano del Sur railroads.
Numerous Indigenous communities faced dispossession
by foreign surveying companies during the reign of
Porfirio Di'az; at that time, the mines were
regaining economic strength. Oaxaca was in fourth
place in foreign investment nationally.

Starting in 1910, the Indigenous people in various
regions of the state rose up to retake land and
throw out the political bosses. For their part, the
Zapatistas operated at length in Oaxaca, above all
in the Mixtec region; some Magonistas became
followers of Zapata, taking up the cry "Long live
land and liberty!"

The Yaquis Take up the Red Flag

In July, 1901, after the execution of chief
Tetabiate, the Yaquis, caught in a war of
extermination, listened to the word of the
Temastian Tascaichola, and it was his sad and
outraged voice that motivated them to continue
fighting the holy war for the land. It fell to
Opodepe and Sibalaume to lead the Yaquis' guerrilla
struggle. In 1908 the Mexican Liberal Party
delegate in the states of Baja California and
Sonora was the Indian Fernando Palomares, who
created an easy alliance with chief Sibalaume. That
same year the Mexican Liberal Party also made
alliances with the insurgent Tarahumaras led by
Santa Pe'rez.

On August 31, 1911, five hundred Yaquis took the
federal barracks by storm in Pitahaya, Sonora.
Inscribed in the red flag which they planted there
were the two words "Land" and "Liberty."

Ricardo Flores Mago'n reported on the sucessful use
of copies of Regeneracio'n by the Yaquis, who used
them as simple fuses with dynamite or nitroglycerin
at the end. The devastation that they caused among
the federales was grave.

The Yaqui war officially ended in 1929. More than
fifty continuous years of war almost succeeded in
actualizing the Porfirista soldiers' old dream--to
exterminate the "beast."

The Magonistas Terrify the Ruling Class

At the beginning of the 20th century in the North
of Yucata'n, the Henequen people lived under
slavery. In the South of the peninsula the
unsubmissive Maya kept old Xbatab, the heart of the
kingdom of the Speaking Cross, as their capital.

The Liberal groups distributed the 1906 Program in
the north of Yucata'n and prepared themselves for
armed revolt. They did a grand agitation campaign,
which included exploding bombs in Tepich, Acanceh
and other Mayan towns. In 1910 the Valladolid
people rose in arms. This movement was defeated and
dozens of Magonistas were jailed; of these, three
were executed.

For the Party of the Southeast, the primary goal
was the redistribution of communal lands, or
ejidos, to the Indigenous people. The appropriation
of land for Indigenous communities was the
principal contribution of the old Liberals to the
revolution.

The Peasants Say "Enough!" and Show it with Their Deeds

"!Nemi Zapata! !Nemi Zapata! Nian ca namotata;
ayemo miqui. !Nemi Zapata!" (Zapata still lives!
Long live Zapata! Here is your father, he hasn't
died. Long live Zapata!)

As of June, 1910, there were revolutionary
uprisings in a growing movement that, in 1911,
culminated in the fall of Porfirio Di'az.

The state of war that reigned on Mexican land
impeded communication among the Magonistas. Many
stayed isolated and integrated into the peasant
armies.

After taking Guadelupe, Chihuahua, which created
the Libertarian army led by Prisciliano Silva in
1911, the Magonista's main enemy was Maderismo.
This fact deeply divided the Mexican Liberal Party.

The Magonistas suceeded in controlling an extensive
area of Northern Baja California for five months,
and they maintained armed groups in the northern
states for more than two years.

In 1913, the Magonista Antonio de P. Araujo began
negotiations with Zapata, who proposed that
Regeneracio'n be published in Morelos, the
liberated zone. The Magonistas Barrio, Rangel,
Di'az Soto y Gama, among many others, actively
participated in the Zapatista armies, which were
mainly composed of Indigenous Nahuas, Mixtecs,
Amuzgos, Otomi's, etc. The presence of the
Magonistas left its stamp on Zapatismo.

Ricardo Flores Mago'n, through articles published
in Regeneracio'n in 1914 and 1915, defended
Zapatismo, which he saw as the materialization of
the revolutionary ideal, unlike Villismo.

The complications in communication between the
Magonista core that resided in the north and the
revolutionaries in Me'xico were sharpened by the
constant persecution and jailing of many of the
leaders of the movement.

The organizing committee of the Mexican Liberal
Party disseminated condemnations of the Madero,
Huerta and Carranza governments through their
publications. On account of this, these governments
asked the US government to persecute the party.

In the context of the First World War and the
general increase in social change struggles by
peoples throughout the world, the core of the
Mexican Liberal Party in the United States sent out
a call for world revolution and openly expressed
support for the rebels that rose in arms against
their government in Texas, Oklahoma and other
states in the US.

For Ricardo Flores Mago'n, the triumph of the
Mexican revolution was necessarily tied to
worldwide revolt, including North American
revolution. He realized that the big capitalists of
the United States and their army would never permit
their neighbor to the south to consolidate a
revolutionary process.

Ricardo Flores Mago'n was assassinated in a North
American jail. The surviving Magonistas persisted
in their struggle until death, in accordance with
the proclamation of 1914: "Now we must work with
the same spirit as before until death or victory.
Long live land and liberty!"

Some Final Considerations:

History, written by the victors, is presented to us
deformed, so much so that an Indigenous presence
does not exist in historical accounts of this
century.

Since Tlacaelel, we know that the destruction and
manipulation of popular memory is indispensable to
maintaining power. The ruling class utilizes
different means to achieve this objective. The
powerful know well that a people without memory is
weak and manipulable, which is why they have made
Magonismo into street names and pretexts for their
demagogic discourses.

We know well that Magonismo has not died, that
Magonista thought has continued permeating sectors
of the Mexican people in struggle. When the young
gangs from the barrios and the marginalized
neighborhoods of Me'xico City declared "the
government does not want us because we are
Magonistas"; when the drivers of Chiapas and Oaxaca
fought up front against the charro unionism that
tried to get rid of their Flores Mago'n National
Union; when in a city besieged by thousands of
soldiers, above the principal door of the
university read the message: "The tyrants appear
big because we are kneeling; let us rise," when all
this happened, we knew that Magonismo had not died
and will not die, because important sectors of the
Mexican population have decided to continue
fighting. In an unjust Me'xico, where more than a
million deaths served the rise of the so-called
"revolutionary family," and since the seat of
power, in alliance with foreign sectors, gives free
reign to an intense process of capitalist
development that is nothing but the destruction of
the Mexican country, we know that Magonismo will be
present in order to end these crazy times.

                       *
________________________________________________
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Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

*+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+*
     LOVE AND RAGE     VOL. 5, NO. 1     MARCH/APRIL 1994

        Electronic Edition * Produced March 10, 1994

          SPECIAL ISSUE ON FEMINISM AND REVOLUTION
*+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+**+*

MARGARITA ORTEGA:
FIGHTER IN THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION

By Ricardo Flores Mago'n

[Translated from Regeneracio'n, No. 192, June 13,
1914]

It should not be strange... that it took so long to
verify the death of the great anarchist who in life
was known as Margarita Ortega.

This extraordinary woman was a member of the
Partido Liberal Mexicano (Mexican Liberal Party)
whose communist-anarchist ideals were propagated by
means of word and action. In 1911, Margarita was
the knot of the union between the fighting factions
of the Partido Liberal Mexicano in Baja California.
An excellent horsewoman and an expert in the use of
firearms, Margarita crossed enemy lines and carried
weapons, military equipment, dynamite, whatever was
needed to the compan~eras/os in the field of
battle. More than one time her daring and cold
blood saved her from falling into the hands of the
forces of tyranny. Margarita Ortega had a big
heart: on her horse, or from behind a boulder, she
could keep the Government soldiers at bay, and a
little later she could be seen caring for the
wounded, feeding the convalescing or offering words
of comfort to the widows and the orphans. Apostle,
fighter, nurse, this exceptional woman was all of
these at the same time. She couldn't watch
tranquilly as someone suffered in her presence, and
many claimed that she would take a piece of bread
out of her mouth in order to give it to someone who
was hungry.

A woman of exquisite sentiments, she dearly loved
her family; but her family was made up of people
who were not politically conscious, bourgeois and
proletarians aspiring to be bourgeois. These people
could never understand how a woman endowed with
such extraordinary talent, such boundless energy,
and possessing such a substantial fortune, could
work for a common cause with the poor. For this
reason they hated her, they hated her as vulgar
hearts hate noble and pure spirits that make
obstacles to their greedy ambitions.

Margarita had sufficient wealth that she could have
led a life of idle comfort; but she couldn't enjoy
life while she well knew that thousands of human
beings were fighting hard for their very
subsistence. With the energy that can only be found
in the converted, Margarita said to her
unenlightened compan~ero in 1911: "I love you; but
I also love all those who suffer, and for them I
fight and risk my life. I don't want to see more
men and women giving their effort, their health,
their intelligence, their future to make the
bourgeoisie rich. I don't want there to be men who
order around other men any more. I am determined to
continue to fight for the cause of the Partido
Liberal Mexicano, and if you are a man, come with
me to the country; otherwise, you can forget me,
because I am not going to be the compan~era of a
coward." The people who witnessed this scene affirm
that the coward did not wish to go with her. Then,
directing herself to her daughter, she spoke in
these terms: "And you, my daughter, are you
resolved to come with me or to stay with the
family?" To this, the other heroine responded: "Me,
separate myself from you, Mami? That, never! Let us
saddle the horses and throw ourselves into the
struggle for the redemption of the working class!"

Once the Powers That Be learned of these events,
Margarita and Rosaura were expelled from Mexicali
by order of Rodolfo Gallegos. To make matters worse
for the two martyrs, Gallegos ordered that the two
should be marched through the desert, along the
immense dunes, beneath the blazing sun, with no
water, with no food, and on foot. They were given
the warning to never return to the town. Within
days the poor victims of the capitalist system were
strewn out on the sand. Their thirst devoured them;
they fainted from hunger. Not a single traveller
lent them a hand. There was no stream to calm their
thirst. Rosaura was visibly having a worse time
with the situation than Margarita. In the end, in
spite of her enormous energy, Rosaura fainted and
fell to the earth with closed eyes. Margarita
thought that the daughter of her heart had died,
and, crazy with pain, tried to kill herself; but as
she pointed her gun at her head, she realized that
her daughter was looking at her. Full of emotion,
she ran to find water for the patient. Luckily,
this time, she found some.

They came to Yuma, in the United States, and there
Margarita was arrested by the immigration
inspectors. A woman such as Margarita, honor of
humanity, splendid example of the human race, could
not reside in this country of vulgarity and
stupidity. In order to reside in the United States,
one must believe in Authority and Law.

Libertarian Margarita, due to the idiotic laws of
the United States, could not be admitted, and she
had to be deported to Me'xico. Thanks to the
services of excellent comrades, Margarita managed
to escape from the cells of the immigration
inspectors, and, with Rosaura, fled to Phoenix,
Arizona, where she took the name of Mari'a Valdez
in order to avoid capture. Rosaura took the name of
Josefina.

Rosaura remained ill as a result of her suffering
in the desert, and her only desire was to return to
Me'xico, but with arms in hand to die fighting for
Land and Liberty. She did not want to die on her
bed, rather on the battle field, trading life for
life. When the sickness worsened considerably, she
said to Margarita: "Mama': I do not want to die
here; take me to the street where the Mexican
workers meet. I want to die among them, my brothers
and sisters, speaking to them of their rights as
the producers of social wealth." Shortly after
that, the sweet child died, never regretting the
commodities and the bourgeois life that she had
left behind for a life of agitation, full of
dangers, miseries and real revolutionaries.

Margarita was left alone. Her daughter and
compan~era in struggle would no longer share in the
penalties, the bitternesses, the miseries that are
the prize of sincere struggle; but she did not, for
this reason, stop working with the same dedication
as a sower of ideals.

With Natividad Corte's as a compan~ero, she began
the work of organizing the revolutionary movement
in the northern state of Sonora, using as a base of
operations the small town of Sonoyta, in the same
state. This happened in October of last year
[1913]. Both compan~eros worked arduously, making
agreements with other compan~eros working in the
Mexican territory. It was at this time that Rodolfo
Gallegos, now charged with patrolling the border,
happened upon them by chance. Natividad Corte's was
shot and Margarita was taken prisoner to Baja
California, where Gallegos ordered that she be left
out for the gringos to find, leaving to them the
task of killing her.

Margarita was arrested by the gringos on the 20th
of November of last year [1913], near Mexicali, and
she was placed in a cell with a guard to watch her.
The felons who pass as authorities came up with the
ingenious idea of martyring her. She had no fear in
confessing that she was a member of the Partido
Liberal Mexicano, and that, by the same token, she
struggled against the three-headed Hydra of
Authority, Capital, Clergy; but she did not reveal
the name of a single compan~era/o who had agreed
with her to launch the cry of "Land and Liberty"
from the North of the state of Sonora. She was
tortured, just as in the black ages of the
Inquisition. Her cowardly inquisitors wanted her to
reveal the compan~eras/os that had committed to the
rebellion; but all of their efforts were wasted on
this admirable woman. "Cowards!," she shouted,
"Tear my skin to pieces, break my bones, drink all
of my blood, and I will never denounce one of my
friends."

The tyrants ordered her to stand up day and night,
in the middle of the cage, without allowing her to
sit or lean against the wall. Exhausted, sometimes
she wavered, and she had to lean against the guard:
a shove and a kick into the middle of the cage was
the support she got. Other times she fell to the
ground, fainting and worn out by so much suffering:
they beat her until she got back up.

Four days and nights she endured this suffering,
until the authorities in Mexicali took her out of
the cage on Nov. 24 to execute her. The backdrop of
the execution was a desert night, so that no one
might know of the event. Margarita smiled. The
executioners trembled. The stars shone as if they
were forced to descend and crown the head of the
martyr.

A shot left this noble woman without life, free;
her existence and example to remind the
dispossessed to redouble our efforts against
exploitation and tyranny.

[Regeneracio'n was the newspaper of the Partido
Liberal Mexicano. For more information on the
Mexican revolution of 1910, see page 20.]

[Translators' note: we have used the Spanish word
"compan~era/o" rather than translating it, because
it has no real equivalent in English.
"Compan~era/o" refers to companions and comrades,
partners in life and in struggle. It does not have
the communist connotations of "comrade" or of the
euphemistic content of "companion."

                       *
________________________________________________
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