Zapata was born in the rural village of Anenecuilco, in an era when peasant communities came under increasing repression from the small-landowning class who monopolized land and water resources for sugarcane production with the support of dictator Porfirio Díaz (President from 1877 to 1880 and 1884 to 1911).

Zapata's forces contributed to the fall of Díaz, defeating the Federal Army in the Battle of Cuautla in May 1911, but when the revolutionary leader Francisco I. Madero became president he disavowed the role of the Zapatistas, denouncing them as mere bandits.

Madero's generals employed a scorched-earth policy, burning villages and forcibly removing their inhabitants, and drafting many men into the Army or sending them to forced-labor camps in southern Mexico.

Dismayed with the alliance with Villa, Zapata focused his energies on rebuilding society in Morelos (which he now controlled), instituting the land reforms of the Plan de Ayala.

As Carranza consolidated his power and defeated Villa in 1915, Zapata initiated guerrilla warfare against the Carrancistas, who in turn invaded Morelos, employing once again scorched-earth tactics to oust the Zapatista rebels.

[6][7] 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.

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.

[10] 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.

Zapata, seeing an opportunity to promote land reform in Mexico,[19] joined with Madero and his Constitutionalists, who included Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa,[20] whom he perceived to be the best chance for genuine change in the country.

The plan declared Madero a traitor, named as head of the revolution Pascual Orozco, the victorious general who captured Ciudad Juárez in 1911 forcing the resignation of Díaz.

All those democratic principles, all those great words that gave such joy to our fathers and grandfathers have lost their magic for the people ... With or without elections, with or without an effective law, with the Porfirian dictatorship or with Madero's democracy with a controlled or free press, its fate remains the same.

If this political location could be overthrown, the army would have enough power to "veto anyone else's control of the state, negotiate for Cuernavaca or attack it directly, and maintain independent access to Mexico City as well as escape routes to the southern hills.

After a period Zapata became the leader of his "strategic zone", which gave him power and control over the actions of many more individual rebel groups and thus greatly increased his margin of success.

The country wishes to destroy feudalism once and for all [while Carranza offers] administrative reform ... complete honesty in the handling of public monies ... freedom of the press for those who cannot read; free elections for those who do not know the candidates; proper legal proceedings for those who have never had anything to do with an attorney.

These experiences led Zapata to grow unsatisfied with the alliance, turning instead his efforts to reorganizing the state of Morelos that had been left in shambles by the onslaught of Huerta and Robles.

[44] Through 1915, Zapata began reshaping Morelos after the Plan de Ayala, redistributing hacienda lands to the peasants, and largely letting village councils run their own local affairs.

[47] Having been put in charge of the efforts to root out Zapatismo in Morelos, Pablo González Garza was humiliated by Zapata's counterattacks and enforced increasingly draconian measures against the locals.

Though his advisers urged him to mount a concerted campaign against the Carrancistas across southern Mexico, again he concentrated entirely on stabilizing Morelos and making life tolerable for the peasants.

A faction within the Zapatista ranks, led by former General Vazquez and Zapata's erstwhile adviser and inspiration Otilio Montaño, moved against the Tlaltizapan headquarters, demanding surrender to the Carrancistas.

In the fall of 1917 a force led by Gonzalez and ex-Zapatista Sidronio Camacho, who had killed Zapata's brother Eufemio, moved into the eastern part of Morelos, taking Cuautla, Zacualpan, and Jonacatepec.

[53] In March, Zapata finally sent an open letter to Carranza, urging him for the good of the fatherland to resign his leadership to Vazquez Gómez, by now the rallying point of the anti-constitutionalist movement.

[54] Having issued this formidable moral challenge to Carranza prior to the upcoming 1920 presidential elections, Zapata was urged by Zapatista generals at Tochimilco, Magaña, and Ayaquica not to take any risks and lie low.

[61][62] Some time after this, as De la Torre y Mier was a politician and businessman, the Mexican Revolution represented a problem for him, this being one of the reasons why he would finance a fight that would try to eradicate the movement.

The latter was based on testimonies told by Manuel "El Ave Negra" Palafox, who was the trusted emissary,[63][64] personal secretary,[65] and one of the closest revolutionaries to Zapata,[63] who additionally was secretly gay.

[66] Zapata was aware of his preferences and had no problems with it, but since he was governed by the principle of executing those who were too "feminine", and Palafox behaved in this way, little by little the rumor about the homosexuality of his revolutionary companion was gaining strength among his troops, and finally in 1918, he found it necessary to remove him from his post as general and main Zapatista emissary.

"[73] In spite of González's attempts to sully the name of Zapata and the Plan de Ayala during his 1920 campaign for the presidency,[74] the people of Morelos continued to support Zapatista generals, providing them with weapons, supplies and protection.

"[75] Zapatistas were given important posts in the interim government of Adolfo de la Huerta and the administration of Álvaro Obregón, following his election to the presidency after the coup.

Zapatistas had almost total control of the state of Morelos, where they carried out a program of agrarian reform and land redistribution based on the provisions of the Plan de Ayala and with the support of the government.

For example, there was the stage musical Zapata (1980), written by Harry Nilsson and Perry Botkin, with a libretto by Allan Katz, which ran for 16 weeks at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut.

[91] A painting called La Revolución depicted Zapata as intentionally effeminate,[92] riding an erect horse, nude except for high heels and a pink hat.