Carranza, Venustiano

Carranza, Venustiano (1859-1920), Mexican statesman, and president of Mexico (1914-1920), who represented the conservative faction in the decade of revolutionary politics that engulfed Mexico from 1910 to 1920. He was born in Cuatro Ciénagas, Coahuila, and educated in Mexico City. A supporter of Francisco Indalecio Madero, whom he joined in 1911, he was named governor of his home state later that year, and after Madero's murder in 1913, he led the Constitutionalist forces that in 1914 overthrew General Victoriano Huerta, Madero's assassin. He was then installed as provisional head of the new government. Two contenders for the presidency, Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Villa, mounted a mass movement against Carranza, driving him out of Mexico City. In 1915, however, he won popular support by promising far-reaching programmes of social and agrarian reform. Two years later he was elected president of Mexico, following the adoption of a new leftist constitution that legalized the projected reforms.

Carranza's regime was marked by a series of conflicts with foreign investors over its attempts to restrict foreign ownership of agricultural and other property and to establish national ownership of oil and mineral deposits. Carranza, however, did not fulfil his promises for reform, and General Álvaro Obregón, a former ally, led a popular revolt against him. Carranza was forced to flee, but was captured and assassinated in the village of Tlaxcalantongo, in the state of Puebla, on his way into exile.