Blackwell Reference Online

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Francisco José Múgica Velázquez was born in Tingüindín, Michoacán, on September 3, 1884. He was a military leader in the Mexican Revolution on the Constitutional side against Porfirio Díaz and Victoriano Huerta. As a politician, he was oriented to socialism and to the defense of national sovereignty. From 1898 Velázquez lived in Zamora, Michoacán, where he studied medicine and wrote in liberal newspapers in opposition to the Díaz regime. He led the opposition to the reactionary governor of Michoacán, Don Aristeo Mercado, from the newspaper Ideal. In 1910 he traveled to San Antonio, Texas, in the United States to build the military organization of the Juntas Revolucionarias, and in 1911 he fought with Pascual Orozco in Ciudad Juárez. In 1915 he rose to the rank of general in the Constitutional army with Venustiano Carranza. The same year he became chief of military operations and then governor of the southern state of Tabasco. At the end of 1916 he was elected deputy to the federal congress and took part as representative of Michoacán in the Constitutional Convention of 1917. He had a strong influence on the drafting of articles 3, 27, and 123 of the Political Constitution of the United States of México, which ruled on the collective and national property of land and natural resources, the public character of basic education, the right to strike, and the eight-hour workday. ... log in or subscribe to read full text