Venustiano Carranza

President of Mexico

29 December 1859 Cuatro Ciénegas, Coahuila, Mexico

21 May 1920(1920-05-21) (60) Tlaxcalantongo, Puebla, Mexico

1 May 1916 – 21 May 1920

19/20th-century Mexican revolutionary and later 44th President (1916-1920) For things named after Carranza, see Venustiano Carranza (disambiguation). José Venustiano Carranza de la Garza (Spanish pronunciation:  ; 29 December 1859 – 21 May 1920) was a wealthy land owner and politician who was Governor of Coahuila when the constitutionally elected president Francisco I. Madero was overthrown in a February 1913 military coup. Known as the Primer Jefe or "First Chief" of the Constitutionalists, Carranza was a shrewd politician rather than a military man. He supported Francisco I. Madero's challenge to the Díaz regime in the 1910 elections, but became a critic of Madero once Díaz was overthrown in May 1911. Madero did appoint him the governor of Coahuila. When Madero was murdered during the February 1913 counter-revolutionary coup, Carranza drew up the Plan of Guadalupe, a purely political plan to oust Huerta. As a sitting governor Carranza held legitimate power and he became the leader of northern coalition opposed to Huerta. The Constitutionalist faction was victorious and Huerta ousted. The various factions of the coalition against Huerta fell apart and a blood civil war of the winners ensured. Carranza was a major figure of the Mexican Revolution. The Constitutionalist Army under General Álvaro Obregón defeated General Pancho Villa in the north, and Emiliano Zapata and the peasant army of Morelos returned to guerrilla warfare. Carranza's position was secure enough politically and militarily to take power in Mexico City, although peasant leader Emiliano Zapata and revolutionary general Pancho Villa remained threats. Carranza consolidated enough power in the capital that he called a constituional convention in 1916 to revise the 1857 liberal constitution. The Constitutionalist faction had fought to defend it and return Mexico to constitutional rule. With the promulgation of a new revolutionary Mexican Constitution of 1917, he was elected president, serving from 1916 to 1920. Although the constitution the revolutionaries drafted and ratified in 1917 now empowered the Mexican state to embark on significant land reform and recognized labor's rights, and curtail the power of the Catholic Church, Carranza did not implement major reforms once he was duly elected. Once firmly in power in Mexico, Carranza sought to eliminate his political rivals, having Zapata assassinated. Carranza won recognition from the United States, but nonetheless took strongly nationalist positions. In the 1920 election, in which he could not succeed himself, Carranza attempted to impose a virtually unknown, civilian politician, Ignacio Bonillas, as president of Mexico. Sonoran revolutionary generals Álvaro Obregón, Plutarco Elías Calles, and Adolfo de la Huerta, who held real power, rose up against Carranza under the Plan of Agua Prieta. Carranza, fled Mexico City, along with thousands of his supporters and with gold of the Mexican treasury, aiming to set up his government in Veracruz. Instead he died in an attack by rebels. Although Carranza played a major role in the Revolution, his contributions were not initially acknowledged in Mexico's historical memory, but as a historical narrative that recognizes the various competing factions as members of the "revolutionary family," Carranza's place in Mexican history has been assured.