The day Emiliano Zapata paid a thousand pesos for a photo shoot

Perhaps when talking about the Mexican Revolution, Emiliano Zapata and Francisco “Pancho” Villa, two of the most loved and hated warlords of the country's most significant armed conflict, come to mind when talking about the Mexican Revolution.

Zapata is one of the most representative characters of the contest, not only because he is considered by many to be a kind of “white knight” of the Revolution, unlike Pancho Villa, who was even hated by the post-revolutionary governments.

On the other hand, Zapata was taken as one of the fundamental figures by the social and agrarian movement that he carried as a banner with the Ayala Plan, despite the fact that he was betrayed and killed during the government of Venustiano Carranza.

And he was not only recognized for his skill in the mount, which led him to work on the estate of Porfirio Díaz's son-in-law, for his bravery, his gallantry and his ferocity on the battlefield, but also for its features photos.

The Caudillo del Sur, unlike his northern counterpart, Pancho Villa, was very grim, serious in images, because he was actually known for being affable.

With a look that brushed between coldness, tranquility and melancholy, the Surian rarely smiled in the photos in which he appeared. This did not prevent, however, the leader from paying a large sum for one of them, in which he was always characterized by wearing an impeccable charro outfit, with his wide-brimmed hat, his weapons and his scarf around his neck.

After their triumphant entry with Pancho Villa into Mexico City in December 1914, the city was filled with armed peasants and indigenous people who terrorized the middle-class capitalists, who saw revolutionaries as savages.

This didn't stop them, of course. They headed with their large army towards the National Palace where Eulalio Gutiérrez, interim president of the Aguascalientes Convention, was located, the alliance between the armies of the two warlords.

There they visited different rooms of the presidential site where they took the mythical photo in which Pancho Villa sat in the presidential chair very smiling and Zapata next to him with his unflappable seriousness. Then they ate a banquet and there were more photos.

And although in a previous conversation with Villa in Xochimilco, Zapata stated that he did not like the city, he did not prevent the Morelio from going to the studio of photographer Aurelio Escobar who was in Mexico City to take several portraits.

According to the photographer's testimony in the book Curiosities and Anecdotes of the History of Mexico, the leader of the South entered the house “very well dressed, wearing a beautiful charro suit, beige suede jacket, and on his back an eagle embroidered in gold. Black trousers with shiny silver buttons, a wide hat.”

Later, for the services rendered, the revolutionary paid with a thousand silver pesos. The revolutionary never failed to show his severity on his face, perhaps accentuated by his abundant moustache.

The leader would then leave the city to go to Puebla and fight a battle in the state. Now the problem was no longer Victoriano Huerta's government: they were the same revolutionaries Venustiano Carranza and Álvaro Obregón.

In the same way, the alliance with Villa would not last long and everyone would take their own path.

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