Francisco Madero is described by all my sources as a spiritualist rather than a revolutionary or a military leader or political theorist or philosopher. He came from a wealthy family. As a boy he was often sick.

He studied in the US, lived in France for a few years, and traveled through Europe. It was there that he adopted the ideas of Spiritualism (with a capital S). Spiritualism was based on communicating with spirits of the dead.

It was big. By 1854 there were more than 3 million Spiritualists worldwide. Madero writes the he didn’t just read Spiritualist books, he devoured them.

He finished business school in Paris and then studied a year in Berkeley, improving his English and learning agriculture. The constant illnesses of his childhood had made him deliberately work on becoming physically strong. He wrote a pamphlet on water rights that Porfirio Diaz praised him for. He did charity work as well, giving out homeopathic…..concoctions as well as money to sick people.

At his hacienda he fed about 60 kids, and he paid his staff well. He married in 1903, and they gave out scholarships and created schools, hospitals, and community kitchens.

He felt his mission as a Spiritualist was to be a medium for the spirits of the dead. Specifically a writing medium. He wanted the spirits to speak through him in his writings. Soon he was claiming that his brother Raul, who had died at age four in a fire, was visiting him daily. Francisco gave up smoking, became a vegetarian, and destroyed his wine cellar. His wrote, by way of Francisco, “You can have the only happiness there is in this world solely through practicing charity in the broadest sense of the word.” He later wrote, “Aspire to do good for your fellow citizens . . . working for a lofty ideal that will raise the moral level of society, that will succeed in liberating it from oppression, slavery, and fanaticism.

As government repression in Mexico increased in the first decade of the 1900s Madero came to believe that “charity in the broadest sense” meant politics. He was now seeing his future a little more clearly.

Revolution begins

In the previous episode, Francisco Madero had called for a revolution. He said it would happen on November 20, 1910. Photo ops on November 20 made it look like spontaneous uprisings were happening all over Mexico, and there were, but they were mostly small, isolated groups. In fact, it began so gradually that by January 1911 the government thought the danger had passed.

The Revolution was on though, especially in Chihuahua, a northern state. The armies of Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa were winning battles against the federal army.

Revolutionary fever slowly spread thanks to a weak federal army and widespread social discontent. Small groups of men on horseback rode into villages and towns. They went to the town square and read aloud Madero’s Plan of San Luis, inviting the men of the town to join them. They took the local government’s cash reserves, guns, and horses. They freed the prisoners. Then they went to the next town and did it again. And again.

The Federal army was weak. It relied on conscription – the draft – and didn’t have a single full battalion or regiment. The leaders didn’t know the terrain. Corruption was everywhere. And they were not prepared to fight small, nimble forces. By the time they arrived at a place that was being attacked, the attackers had already disappeared and were in a different area.

As the months wore on, the army had become concentrated in the areas with the most fighting, which left other places basically free of soldiers. In the states of Nayarit, Colima, and Michoacan, the revolutionaries took over the government without firing a single shot.

By May 1911 there was fighting in 26 states and the Federal District – Mexico City.

Earlier, in March, Madero attacked Casas Grandes wi