Álvaro Obregón

Álvaro Obregón Salido (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈalβaɾo oβɾeˈɣon]; 19 February 1880 – 17 July 1928) was a Mexican general, inventor and politician who served as the 46th President of Mexico from 1920 to 1924. Obregón was re-elected to the presidency in 1928 but was assassinated before he could take office.

Born in Navojoa, Sonora, Obregón joined the Revolution after the February 1913 coup d'état that brought General Victoriano Huerta to the presidency. Obregón supported Sonora's decision to follow Governor Venustiano Carranza as leader of the northern revolutionary coalition, the Constitutionalist Army, against the Huerta regime. Obregón quickly became the Constitutionalist Army's most prominent general, along with Pancho Villa. Carranza appointed Obregón commander of the revolutionary forces in northwestern Mexico. The Constitutionalists defeated Huerta in July 1914, and the Federal Army dissolved in August. In 1915, the revolution entered a new phase of civil war between the Conventionists led by Emiliano Zapata and Villa versus Obregón and Carranza. Obregón was made leader of the Constitutionalist army and defeated Villa, but lost his right arm. In 1917, the Constitution of Mexico went into effect and the Conventionists forces were quickly getting defeated by Obregón and the Constitutionalist Army. Carranza stepped down from the presidency and designated Ignacio Bonillas to succeed him. Obregón and other Sonoran generals Plutarco Elías Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta ousted Bonillas and Carranza under the Plan of Agua Prieta. Obregón was elected to the presidency in 1920 with overwhelming popular support.

Obregón's presidency saw educational reform, the flourishing of Mexican muralism, moderate land reform, and labor laws sponsored by the increasingly powerful Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers. In August 1923, he signed the Bucareli Treaty that clarified the rights of the Mexican government and U.S. oil interests and brought U.S. diplomatic recognition to his government. In 1923–24, Obregón's finance minister, Adolfo de la Huerta, launched a rebellion when Obregón designated Plutarco Elías Calles as his successor. De la Huerta garnered support by many revolutionaries who were opposed to Obregón's apparent emulation of Porfirio Díaz's example. Obregón returned to the battlefield and defeated the rebellion. In his victory, he was aided by the United States with arms and planes that bombed de la Huerta's supporters.

In 1924, Obregón's fellow Northern revolutionary general and hand-picked successor, Plutarco Elías Calles, was elected president. Although Obregón ostensibly retired to Sonora, he remained influential under Calles. Calles pushed through constitutional reform to again make re-election possible, but not continuously. Obregón won the 1928 election. Before beginning his second term however, he was assassinated by José de León Toral during the Cristero War. Obregón's political legacy is that of pragmatic centrism, allying with various factions of the revolution to accomplish his goals. According to historian Linda B. Hall, "Álvaro Obregón stood out as the organizer, the peacemaker, the unifier." His assassination precipitated a political crisis in the country, ultimately leading to Calles founding the National Revolutionary Party, later renamed the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which would dominate Mexican politics throughout the 20th century.

Obregón was born in Siquisiva, Municipality of Navojoa, Sonora, the eighteenth child of Francisco Obregón and Cenobia Salido. Francisco Obregón had once owned a substantial estate, but his business partner supported Emperor Maximilian during the French intervention in Mexico (1862–1867), and the family's estate was confiscated by the Liberal government in 1867. Francisco Obregón died in 1880, the year of Álvaro Obregón's birth. The boy was raised in very straitened circumstances by his mother and his older sisters Cenobia, María, and Rosa. His mother's family was locally prominent, owning haciendas and some held government positions during the Porfirio Díaz regime. Obregón benefited from his relationship with his more distinguished kin, though as an orphan, he was very much the poor relation. He had ambition to make his way in the world. One of his cousin's on his mother's side, Benjamin G. Hill became an important ally in the Mexican Revolution.

Obregón's home state of Sonora was an isolated area with a border with the United States and there was frequent interchange with the U.S. and U.S. investment in Sonora. Sonora's distance from the capital and lack of a direct railway line to the capital affected its late nineteenth-century development and its role in the Mexican Revolution. Sonora had direct railway connections to the U.S. and its economy was more closely tied to the U.S. than central Mexico, exporting cattle hides and most especially garbanzos to the U.S. Obregón's family circumstances and the economic situation of the state made his entry into garbanzo farming a way to make a good living as a young man.

During his childhood, Obregón worked on the family farm and became acquainted with the indigenous Mayo people who also worked there and learned the language. His bilingualism served him well in his later military and political career, drawing both Mayos and Yaqui into his orbit. He attended a school run by his brother José in Huatabampo and received an elementary level formal education. However, his mind was "active, inventive, and above all, practical." He spent his adolescence working a variety of jobs, before finding permanent employment in 1898 as a lathe operator at the sugar mill owned by his maternal uncles in Navolato, Sinaloa. Obregón's experience as a skilled worker shaped his attitude toward the rights of labor, and "gave him the sense of what a powerful political tool the workers' sense of rage could be."

In 1903, he married Refugio Urrea and in 1904, he left the sugar mill to sell shoes door-to-door, and then to become a tenant farmer. By 1906, he was in a position to buy his own small farm with a loan from his mother's family, where he grew garbanzos. The next year was tragic for Obregón as his wife and two of his children died, leaving him a widower with two small children, who were henceforth raised by his three older sisters. In 1909, Obregón invented a garbanzo harvester and soon founded a company to manufacture these harvesters, complete with a modern assembly line. He successfully marketed these harvesters to garbanzo farmers throughout the Mayo Valley. Since garbanzos were an export crop, he lobbied for the extension of the railway line, to get his crop to market more efficiently. He also lobbied for irrigation works, to increase his farm's output. Obregón entered politics in 1911 with his election as municipal president of the town of Huatabampo.