Margarita Ortega (magonist)

Margarita Ortega Valdés (1871–1913) was a Mexican anarchist revolutionary. Born into a relatively wealthy family, she joined the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM) in order to improve the living conditions of working class people. Together with her daughter, Rosaura Gortari, she participated in the Magonista rebellion of 1911 and the capture of Mexicali from the Porfiriato, running supplies for the Magonista rebels. When the city was taken by the forces of Francisco I. Madero, she was exiled from Mexico to Arizona, where her daughter died. She then returned to Mexico in order to fight against Victoriano Huerta, but was captured, tortured and executed by firing squad.

After her death, Ortega was eulogised by PLM leader Ricardo Flores Magón as an exemplary revolutionary woman, changing the attitudes of the party leadership towards women's participation in the Mexican Revolution.

Biography
Margarita Ortega Valdés was born in Sonora, into a well-off Mestizo family. She reportedly was married three times during her life. With Pascual Gortari, she had two sons: Irineo and Andrés; and one daughter: Rosaura.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM) was the only political party that extended full membership rights to women. This inspired many women to join the party, lead strikes among female textile and cigarette workers, and openly rebel against the Porfiriato. Among these women were Ortega and her daughter Rosaura, who joined the party in 1910; Ortega left her more conservative husband in the process, as he didn't agree with her political ideology. In his dramatisation of the encounter, Ricardo Flores Magón depicts her as saying:

With the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, the PLM initially appealed for women to pressure their husbands to take up arms in the revolution, upholding traditional gender roles that placed women in a subordinated and supportive role to men in armed revolution. But as Ortega believed in gender equality, she broke from the PLM's party line on this matter and decided to take up arms herself. According to a New York Times editorial published in May 1911, women ended up playing "a spectacular part in the revolution".

Ortega and her daughter rose up against the government in Baja California, joining the Magonista rebellion of 1911. On 29 January 1911, Ortega participated in the Magonist capture of Mexicali from the Porfiriato. She and her daughter helped to smuggle supplies into the city from the United States, bringing them weapons, ammunition and dynamite, which they hid in the lining of their clothes. She also helped to nurse the wounded.

After the victory of Francisco I. Madero's constitutionalist forces, the Magonist Rodolfo Gallegos defected to Madero's side and took Mexicali back for the Mexican state. After Ortega was arrested by the Maderists, she reportedly said to the official that arrested her: "[t]hey will take me to Ensenada and shoot me on foot, as a man; but you, traitor, they will shoot you from behind, as a coward.” Instead, Gallegos exiled her and her daughter from Mexico, threatening that they would be killed if they returned. Without food or water, they made their way through the desert towards the Mexico–United States border. They eventually reached Yuma, Arizona, where they were arrested by American border guards, but friends helped them to escape to Phoenix under assumed identities.

The stress of the journey made Rosaura fall gravely ill and die, forcing Ortega to return to Mexico without her. Ortega crossed into Sonora via Sonoyta, where she joined up with the Magonista Natividad Cortés, with whom she attempted to reorganise the revolutionary movement in Northern Sonora. But Gallegos, who had been put in charge of the Sonora border guards, came across the two Magonistas and arrested them; Cortés was shot and Ortega taken back to Baja California. There she fell into the hands of the forces of Victoriano Huerta, who imprisoned her in a dungeon on 20 November 1913.

She was tortured for four days by her captors, forcing her to confess that she was a member of the PLM, although she refused to give up any names of other PLM members. On the night of 24 November 1913, Ortega was executed by firing squad; according to Flores Magón, she died with a smile on her face.

Legacy

Following her death, Ortega received notable praise from Ricardo Flores Magón, who held her up as an exemplary revolutionary woman. Magón "praise[d] her selflessness and her patriotism since she preferred her people instead of a life full of luxury." He found that Ortega had "turn[ed] the notion of women convincing men to pick up the rifle on its head", ultimately deciding to "re-inscribe women as active participants in the Mexican Revolution". Following her example, he began seeking to convince women "not only to encourage the men to fight but also to make the decision of joining the fight themselves". In his eulogy to her, Magón described her as:

In giving this eulogy, Magón's aim was to inspire the reader to take up arms, both through Ortega's bravery as well as her husband's "cowardice". According to Benjamin H. Abbott, Magón's eulogy "suggests a level of fluidity in gender constructions and the acceptability of women adopting traditionally masculine roles as part of the revolutionary project." Abbott himself claimed that Ortega's role as an outstanding combatant in the revolution "represents a decided queering of gender roles."

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1871 births
1913 deaths
20th-century executions by Mexico
Executed anarchists
Executed Mexican women
Magonists
Mexican anarchists
Mexican women activists
People executed by Mexico by firing squad
People from Sonora
People of the Mexican Revolution
Women in war 1900–1945
Women in war in Mexico
Women spies