304 UNIT 3 MODERN MESOAMERICA
individual switching from one band to another took place. The upper-class mestizos
of Morelos, of course, opposed the Zapatistas from start to finish, even though at
first they tried to reach some kind of an understanding with them. Later on, mem-
bers of the Mestizo elite were forced to abandon Morelos, taking with them as much
wealth as they could. Many of the middle-level mestizos served as intermediaries be-
tween the wealthy elite and the rebellious communities during the military period,
but most of them personally opposed the revolution. The permanent peons on the
plantations were too compromised to turn against their bosses, and for the most part
they did not support the revolutionary cause.
The Zapatistas were not strongly motivated by abstract ideology. The early up-
risings were highly practical affairs, directed against greedy plantation owners and gov-
ernment officials who had made it impossible for the peasants to live off the land or
maintain community autonomy. The initial fighting helped bring down Porfirio Díaz
as well as affecting other far-reaching political developments, but despite important
victories the Zapatistas were generally content to retreat to Morelos and institute the
kind of local land and political reforms for which they had rebelled in the first place.
These actions revealed the peasant base of the movement, and the practical but lim-
ited nature of the Zapatista goals. Later, pro-Díaz and then pro-Carranza constitu-
tionalist armies brutally retaliated against the Zapatistas in Morelos for their rebellious
actions. Men, women, and children were killed by the thousands, and other thousands
were carried off in exile to cities and faraway areas. The Indian communities were ran-
sacked, looted, and burned; cattle were slaughtered, and fields destroyed. The Zap-
atistas were moved to battle again, and once more for explicitly practical reasons: to
defend their very lives and homes in the face of possible extermination at the hands
of the government forces.Figure 8.5 Zapatista revolutionaries fight the federal troops at Milpa Alta, Federal District of
Mexico. From Life and Death in Milpa Alta: A Nahuatl Chronicle of Díaz and Zapata,translated and
edited by Fernando Horcasitas. Copyright © 1972 by the University of Oklahoma Press.