General Herminio Chavarria: The Zapatista Resistance in Santa Maria Aztahuacan

By: Gibran Rivas

From Agrarian Struggle to Daily Asphalt

Many of us who travel or shop daily in the businesses along the main avenue ignore that the name of this road is not a simple ornament on the map of Santa Maria Aztahuacan. It is a direct tribute to a local muleteer who became General Herminio Chavarria to liberate our land.

During the pandemic lockdown, when this blog was just taking its first steps, it was difficult to measure the real impact of the armed struggle in our community. Today, thanks to the rigorous research of Dr. Norma Angélica Castillo Palma (UAM-Iztapalapa specialist) and the oral tradition rescue coordinated by Grupo Cultural Ollin, we can reconstruct with greater precision the years when Aztahuacan took up arms against the hacienda regime. We leave you with the chronicle of a leader whose legacy literally sustains the ground we walk on.

The Hacienda Regime in Iztapalapa: An Unequal Coexistence

Imagine the beginning of the 20th century in the east of the Valley of Mexico: a vast, rich, and beautiful territory, but concentrated in the hands of a few privileged landowners. The haciendas neighboring our neighborhood, such as San Antonio and La Esmeralda, coexisted in a violent and unequal way with the communal lands of the original towns.

The native peasants not only faced harsh working hours and mistreatment; they lived under the constant threat that the haciendas would absorb their plots. This historical injustice is what the official narrative often softens, but which in reality constituted systematic dispossession. The peasant families of Aztahuacan were condemned to two options: serve forever in semi-slavery conditions or rise up to fight. They chose, or rather were pushed, to fight alongside figures like General Herminio Chavarria.

The history of General Herminio Chavarria and the Zapatista resistance in Santa Maria Aztahuacan

It is in this scenario of oppression that our local hero emerges. Before the bandoliers and the rifle, General Herminio Chavarria was a well-known muleteer in town. His trade of transporting and selling tequezquite (the natural saltpeter of our lagoon) led him to travel for months along the roads of Morelos, Guerrero, and Puebla. It was on those trips that he absorbed agrarian ideals firsthand and ended up becoming a key piece of the Liberating Army of the South in the eastern zone of the Valley of Mexico.

When he took up arms, the town did not hesitate to follow him. Among his local troops stood out his own brother, Juan Chavarria (who fought as a Captain), and Don Pedro Cedillo (a Zapatista Colonel and later the manager of the historic San Pedro Washhouses).

The Zapatista resistance in Iztapalapa was written in blood. The troops maintained constant harassment on the San Antonio and La Esmeralda haciendas, culminating in the fierce battles at the foothills of the Cerro de la Estrella and the emblematic capture of the Hacienda de la Purísima. After consolidating the expulsion of the hacienda regime in Santa Maria Aztahuacan, General Herminio Chavarria and his men laid the definitive foundations for the execution of agrarian laws and the subsequent founding of our Ejido.

Unfortunately, like so many other heroes of our homeland, he paid the highest price. After receiving a bullet in combat, he was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. His remains were originally buried near the door of our church, but in 1938, in an act of extreme cruelty, Carrancista forces desecrated his grave and exhumed his body to burn it. They tried to erase him from history, but the memory of Aztahuacan was stronger. We do not remember Carranza as a hero; in fact, the term “Carranzear” was invented to mean stealing, or being a vile thief.

The Legacy of General Herminio Chavarria: The Commercial Heart of the Town

Today, the general’s battles are not only breathed in the archives of the UAM or the INAH; they are walked. Over the decades and the transformation of Aztahuacan—which went from being a wetland town to an area of ejidos, workshops, and warehouses—the avenue honoring General Herminio Chavarria became the most vibrant and dynamic commercial artery in our community.

Where Zapatista riders once marched seeking freedom, today stands the daily economic engine of our town: greengrocers, workshops, family businesses, and services. Traveling this road is not just going shopping; it is honoring a past of resistance that today sustains the effort and livelihood of hundreds of families in Aztahuacan.

If you want to delve deeper into how this revolutionary struggle transformed the geography of our ancient lagoon and the town’s pepper trees, we invite you to read our special chronicle: The Mexican Revolution in Santa Maria Aztahuacan.

📚 Academic Research and Credits

This post was made possible thanks to the specialized research and studies of Dr. Norma Angélica Castillo Palma, a prominent academic from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Unidad Iztapalapa (UAM-I). If you wish to delve deeper into the rescue of the community memory that made it possible to safeguard these stories, we invite you to consult our Profile on the Research of Frida Mejía and the Chronicle of Grupo Cultural Ollin