Soldaderas
Soldaderas, often called Adelitas, were women in the military who participated in the conflict of the Mexican Revolution, ranging from commanding officers to combatants to camp followers.
"[3] Since revolutionary armies did not have formal ranks, some women officers were called generala or coronela, even though they commanded relatively few men.
[5][6] In area of Morelos where Emiliano Zapata led revolutionary campesinos, the forces were primarily defensive and based in peasant villages, less like the organized armies of the movement of Northern Mexico than seasonal guerrilla warfare.
"[5] The term soldadera is derived from the Spanish word soldada, which denotes a payment made to the person who provided for a soldier's well-being.
[9] Soldaderas came from various social backgrounds, with those "to emerge from obscurity belonged to the middle class and played a prominent role in the political movement that led to the revolution.
When Pancho Villa banned soldaderas from his elite corps of Dorados within his División del Norte, the incidence of rape increased.
[10] In Southern Mexico, the Zapatista army, for the decade of revolutionary struggle, the combatants were usually based in their home villages and largely operated locally, so that camp followers were not necessary.
Sourcing food in the agriculturally rich region of Morelos did not necessitate camp followers, since villages would help out and feed the troops.
The Constitutionalist Army divisions now utilized trains rather than cavalry to move men and war materiel, including their horses, as well as soldaderas.
In the region where Villa's División del Norte operated, the railway network was more dense, allowing for greater numbers of women to be part of the enterprise.
[17] In the region where Constitutionalist general Álvaro Obregón operated in Sonora, the network was less dense, there was more use of just cavalry, and fewer women and children.
[19] For Villa biographer Friedrich Katz, "In moral terms, this execution marked a decisive decline of Villismo and contributed to its popular support in Chihuahua.
Another form of forcefully making women join the revolution was by a woman’s husband, with his wanting his wife to take care of him while he was at war.
[31] Especially once the kidnappings began to be more frequent, women who had initially stayed home decided to join the male family members that were fighting.
These women would have had husbands, brothers or sons killed by the Federal Army and so with less to live for they would join the fight for the Revolution.
One of the reasons for the Revolution was to have some sort of land reform in Mexico, and since lower-class people’s lives depended on farming, it made sense to join the side they did.
If the army was in an area close enough to a hospital, then the women would also be responsible to get the soldiers that were badly wounded there, pulling them along in ox-carts.
María Arias Bernal defended it against all odds, and was given public recognition for her bravery by Constitutionalist Army General Álvaro Obregón.
Some women became combatants by first joining the army passing as male, speaking in deep voices, wearing men’s clothing,[36] and wrapping their breasts tightly to hide them.
Following the military phase of the Revolution, Robles supported revolutionary general Álvaro Obregón, president of Mexico 1920–1924, as well as during the 1924 rebellion of Adolfo de la Huerta.
It was a richly picturesque sight, but the complete silence, the stoic yet anxious faces of the women was depressing, as it gave the impression that all were going to a tremendous funeral, or their doom.
"[43] Leftist journalist John Reed, a Harvard graduate, is the most well-known foreign observer reporting on soldaderas.
His reports from his four months with Pancho Villa's army in 1913 during the struggle against Huerta were published as individual newspaper articles and then collected as Insurgent Mexico in 1914.
In one report, he recorded the reaction of one Villa's soldier to the kidnapping of his soldadera wife by Pascual Orozco's colorados.
He devotes a chapter in Insurgent Mexico to a woman he calls "Elizabetta," whose man was killed and a captain of Villa's forces had claimed her as his.
Reed says that the soldier "found her wandering aimlessly in the hacienda [after a battle], apparently out of her mind; and that, needing a woman, he had ordered her to follow him, which she did, unquestioningly, after the custom of her sex and country.
She is shown holding a .30–30 carbine while seated on a low fence dressed in a skirt and blouse, with crossed bandoliers and two cartridge belts around her waist.
[47] However, José Guadalupe Posada made a lithograph from the photo and published it as the cover for corridos about the revolution, titling the image "La Maderista.
If you google "La Adelita Del Rio Texas" you will find that there is a grave in the San Felipe Cemetery with a headstone placed by the Mexican Consulate.
A believable soldadera and a female soldier were portrayed by Jenny Gago as the good-natured prostitute La Garduna in Old Gringo (1989) and Marie Gomez as the tough and passionate Lieut.
