\u201cEven though our understanding of the gospel may not be as deep as is our testimony of its truth, if we place our confidence in the Lord, we will be sustained in all of our difficulties, our trials, <\/span>and our afflictions.\u201d<\/span>[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n ~Benjam\u00edn De Hoyos<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is part 14 of a history series in connection with the Mexican Mission Hymns project<\/a>.<\/p>\n Porfirio D\u00edaz\u2019s dictatorship brought peace and progress to Mexico after decades of instability and warfare, but it came with a cost. His interest in benefiting from the economy led to the promotion of foreign interests\u2014particularly those of the United States\u2014often at the expense of Mexicans. The poor and indigenous felt this particularly acutely. Hence, Porfirio\u2019s regime was increasingly unpopular. Further, as he aged, he struggled to find a way to pass on the presidency to a successor of his choice in a peaceful way while dealing with discontent caused by his regime’s oppressive rule. Surprisingly, he agreed to an election in 1910, stating that he would abide by the results. This sparked a series of events that resulted in civil war for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n In the 1910 presidential election, D\u00edaz was challenged by the wealthy northern landowner Francisco Madero. When Madero seemed to be actually succeeding in winning the votes of the people, however, D\u00edaz had Madero arrested. After escaping prison, Madero called for an armed uprising in the document known as El Plan de San Luis<\/em>. Rebellions broke out in Morelos and in northern Mexico that successfully resisted the Federal Army. As a result, D\u00edaz resigned in May 1911 and went into exile. In the place of the Porfirio regime (the Porfiriato), Madero organized an interim government and then was elected in November 1911.<\/p>\n Peace proved fragile as different factions with different goals competed for implementing their agendas. Emiliano Zapata launched an armed rebellion in the central Mexican state of Morelos, backed by peasants who demanded rapid action on agrarian reform to help relieve conditions of poverty. Other rebellions broke out and in February 1913, Victoriano Huerta\u2014one of D\u00edaz\u2019s old allies\u2014staged a counterrevolutionary coup d\u2019\u00e9tat in Mexico City. The coup resulted in Madero\u2019s resignation and assassination. This, however, provoked even stronger reactions from revolutionary forces, leading to the bloodiest phase of the war.<\/p>\n Several factions emerged in the aftermath of Huerta\u2019s ascent to power:<\/p>\n With Huerta\u2019s defeat in 1914, the war entered a new phase, with the various factions turning against each other. The Zapatistas and Villistas loosely allied against Carranza, led a Convention to form a government, and successfully seized the capitol in 1914. However, both Zapata and Villa were not particularly interested in leading the country themselves, leading to a power vacuum in the Conventionalist government. The United States felt that both Zapata\u2019s and Villa\u2019s factions were too radical and anti-United States, so put their support behind Carranza\u2019s faction, recognizing his Constitutionalist government and allowing them to take control of Veracruz (and thus allowing them to receive the arms shipments that they had been holding off).<\/p>\n A crucial battle between Villa\u2019s army and a Constitutionalist army led by General \u00c1lvaro Obreg\u00f3n in April 1915 led to the defeat of the Conventionalist forces. Carranza emerged as the victor, though instability continued in the country, with Villa and Zapata continuing to complicate the situation (including a notable raid into the United States by Villa in 1916-1917 that resulted in an incursion into Mexican territory by the United States Army). A new constitution was put in place in 1917 that guaranteed many of the rights for which the revolutionaries had fought. Emiliano Zapata died in 1919. Venustiano Carranza was forced from office and assassinated in 1920, with Constitutionalist Felipe Adolfo de la Huerta serving as an interim president until \u00c1lvaro Obreg\u00f3n was elected later that year. Negotiations with Villa in 1920 brokered a peace agreement and the official end of the Mexican Revolution.<\/p>\n How did all this affect The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mexico?<\/p>\n First<\/strong>, most people in Mexico had people in their life who were casualties during the war, and the Latter-day Saint converts were no exception. Some Mexican converts who were living in the northern colonies were conscripted in north by Villa, such as Jos\u00e9 Medina Z\u00fa\u00f1iga and Margarito Bautista (who fled the country before they were forced into the fight). Some Latter-day Saints in central and southern Mexico were protected by and fought on the side of Zapata’s army. Others, such as the somewhat famous martyrs Rafael Monroy and Vicente Morales, were sympathetic to Carranza and suffered at the hands of different factions. As one member named Rivera Soriano recalled:<\/p>\n One night the rebels entered our home and store plunder all the merchandize that we had and from that moment on we were pretty sad and in misery. \u2026 Those days were years of hunger and I remember we ate wheat tortillas with quintoniles [a spinach-like plant] that at that time were delicious and a great meal while others did not have even that and they starved to death.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Pretty much everyone in Mexico was affected by the Revolution in one form or another.<\/p>\n Second<\/strong>, there were elements of strong anti-United States sentiments among Mexican revolutionaries that made it unsafe for U.S. nationals to stay in the country. That included many of the colonists in Chihuahua and Sonora and the Euro-American leadership of the Church in Mexico. The beloved mission president Rey Lucero Pratt (a grandson of Parley P. Pratt) effectively ran the Church via letter during an exile abroad as a result. The aftermath of the Revolution continued to make this a problem for leadership and supplies for the Latter-day Saints in Mexico that would contribute to a schism of the Church in the 1930s. As one historian put it:<\/p>\n The Mexican revolution, which started in 1910, once again interrupted the work. President Pratt, his family and missionaries exited the country in 1913, again leaving seeds to wither away or take root by themselves. He selected and to some degree prepared local leaders for the challenge. This unexpected isolation was to last nearly ten years [before the missionaries returned in 1921].[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Third<\/strong>, the Revolution drew attention to Mexico by Church leadership in the United States, and not always in a good way. As explained by Fernando Gomez:<\/p>\n By late 1912, the majority of Anglo Latter-day Saints had little positive to say about Mexicans. Evacuees from the colonies shared tales of depraved Mexicans of all political ilks\u2019 threatening their lives and property. Most of the refugees went first to El Paso, then spread throughout the southwest and Utah, which brought them in contact with the majority of the LDS membership. The stories of hardship thus spread quickly.<\/p>\n This anti-Mexican tone was soon echoed by the Church hierarchy.[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Still, a couple former residents of the country in Church leadership positions worked to counter this attitude. President Anthony Ivins, for example, spoke at the April 1912 general conference, reminding the congregation that social and religious reform generally comes with bloodshed. He said that \u201cthere is a great problem being worked out\u201d in Mexico and that \u201cI do not remember in the history of the world any civil reform that has ever come to it that has not been established by force of arms.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/a> And Rey Pratt published a series of articles in the Improvement Era <\/em>in 1912 and 1913 that offered explanations as to why the Revolution was happening, framing it as a just struggle of a people simply seeking for freedom rather than the standard anti-Mexican rhetoric. He reaffirmed this during the October 1916 General Conference, stating that \u201cthe Mexican people never again will lay down their arms until the people of the country have an opportunity to participate in the ownership of the country. \u2026 They have never had property, and they have never had political liberty, they have never had religious liberty. \u2026 Until the time comes that they get these things, the masses of the people, the thirteen millions of the people, will never lay down their arms.\u201d[6]<\/sup><\/a> These efforts provided a different perspective for Latter-day Saints, even while the Mexican Revolution was still unfolding and ultimately winding down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Footnotes:<\/strong><\/p>\n [1]<\/sup><\/a> Benjam\u00edn De Hoyos, \u201cCalled to Be Saints,\u201d CR April 2011, https:\/\/www.churchofjesuschrist.org\/study\/general-<\/p>\n conference\/2011\/04\/called-to-be-saints.p18?lang=eng<\/p>\n [2]<\/sup><\/a> Rivera Soriano, Blas, Oral history, recorded at Amecameca, Mexico. Museum of Mexican Mormon History, 1999.<\/p>\n [3]<\/sup><\/a> Fernando Gomez, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Lamanite Conventions: From Darkness to Light <\/em>(Mexico, A. C.: El Museo de Historia del Mormonismo en M\u00e9xico, 2004), 11.<\/p>\n [4]<\/sup><\/a> Fernando Gomez, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Lamanite Conventions: From Darkness to Light <\/em>(Mexico, A. C.: El Museo de Historia del Mormonismo en M\u00e9xico, 2004), 42.<\/p>\n [5]<\/sup><\/a> Eighty-second Annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1912), 62, https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/conferencereport1912a\/page\/60\/mode\/1up<\/a>.<\/p>\n [6]<\/sup><\/a> Eighty-seventh Semi-annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1916), 147, https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/conferencereport1916sa\/page\/n145\/mode\/1up<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Mexican Revolution was a decade of terrible destruction that brought a wave of changes to the Church in Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":45349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2934,2913],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-20th-century-history","category-mexico"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Villa-and-Zapata-Colorized-Mexico-Revolution-Latter-day-Saint-Mormons.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45347"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45392,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45347\/revisions\/45392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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