... the Indians and weakened the role of the military was met with approval by cientificos who saw them as obstacles to progress. That it would, half a century later, be the catalyst that would mobilise millions of Mexicans to more than a decade of violent struggle could not have been foreseen. One not insignificant faction in this mobilisation were the Morelenses who, inspired by Pablo Torres Burgos' eloquence at the meetings in his Villa de Ayala home, began to embrace revolutionary ideas. However, Burgos was a pen-pusher and thinker and, though he was popular, he wasn't really a machete-wielding land-worker's idea of the man at the vanguard of a battle-charge. Emiliano Zapata, on the other hand, was. Charismatic and personable, known for his amorous exploits and expert horsemanship and belonging to an indígena family recognised for their courage in past wars, he assumed, in true Latin American, anti-state style, the ...

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