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Antonio Lopez Santa Anna
was president of Mexico from 1833-1855 after he became popular from his numerous military victories. He was eventually exiled several times after his power increase led to conservatism. -
Benito Juárez
was the leader of reforms in 1855. He fought to reduce the power of the Catholic Church. Benito became the first president of Mexico of Indegious origin, and fought against the French control over Mexico -
Napoleon III
wanted to restore a French empire in the Americas. He overthrew the Mexican government in 1861 by sending french troops to Mexico. -
Austrian Archduke Maximillian
he was put into power by the French after overthrowing Mexico. Mexicans supported this because they believed that Maximillian would restore the power of the church. Instead, he alienated both conservatives and liberals and was later executed after the French withdrew their troops. -
Jose Marti
Jose Marti is a poet and a journalist. He encouraged Cubans to fight for independence by writing to them. When he was in exile, he founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party and returned to join the uprising against the Spanish in Cuba, 1895. -
Emilio Aguinaldo
Emilio Aguinaldo was a rebel leader of the philippines who worked with US forces against the Spanish. He felt betrayed knowing that the US didn’t grant the philippines independence, but rather made them an American colony. -
Teddy Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt wanted to build a canal so he sent warships to support the uprising against Columbia. Once Panama became independent, the panama canal was built in 1904. That same year, Europeans were feeling threatened to use military force, so in order to protect the U.S. and maintain stability, Roosevelt created the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. -
Porfirio Diaz
After coming to power, Diaz maintained law and order in Mexico, imprisoning his opponents and using the army to keep peace at all costs. He helped to modernize Mexico by encouraging foreign investments, however, only a few became wealthy while others remained poor. In 1910, he controlled the election by imprisoning his opponents. -
Francisco Madero
37th president of Mexico. He was a writer and called for the people of Mexico to not re-elect Porfirio Diaz as he saw his excessive terms as undemocratic. He was elected in 1910 -
Emiliano Zapata
Zapata was an American revolutionary who fought for the rights of the rural poor. He helped Madero overthrow Diaz and led a campaign that seized lands and returned it to peasants. He later implemented land reforms after defeating Huerta and occupying Mexico City and Pancho Villa. -
Pancho Villa
He was a Mexican governor of Chihuahua who fought against the forces of Diaz as well as the United States in 1911. He led rebels who supported Fransisco Madero's ideas -
Victoriano Huerta
Huerta was an army chief who seized power from Madero and imprisoned him. Madero’s supporters, Zapata’s peasants, and the United States even opposed Huerta. He struggled to stay in power and eventually resigned and fled to Spain. -
Venustiano Carranza
He became president when Huerta had left, but Zapata and Villa didn’t support him and another civil war broke out. By 1915, Carranaz defeated his rivals. Carranza wrote a new constitution in 1917 once his position as president was secure.