Dolores Jiménez y Muro

Life & Legacy

Dolores Jiménez y Muro (7 June 1848 – 15 October 1925) was a Mexican revolutionary, schoolteacher, poet, and military commander. Born in Aguascalientes, Jiménez and her family moved to San Luis Potosí when she was young. She did not receive a formal education but was privately tutored and became well-known for her civic poetry. After Porfirio Díaz became president of Mexico in 1876, establishing a dictatorial regime, Jiménez grew concerned with the plight of Mexico's poor, becoming a schoolteacher and philanthropist. She also began writing for various political journals. In 1904, she moved to Mexico City, where she joined the liberal Ponciano Arriaga Liberal Club and helped found the trade union federation Mexican Socialism.
During the Mexican Revolution, Jiménez participated in the Plot of Tacubaya, a failed conspiracy to arrest Díaz, writing a plan for the conspirators that called for labor and educational reforms, protections for Indigenous people, and a requirement that foreign companies operating in Mexico employ Mexican workers. Later, she joined the Liberation Army of the South led by Emiliano Zapata, also known as the Zapatistas, helping draft the prologue to the Plan of Ayala, which called for the overthrow of the newly elected president, Francisco I. Madero. She served in various positions in the Zapatista army, including as a military commander. She died in Mexico City.
A political liberal influenced by anarchism and socialism, Jiménez advocated for women's and Indigenous rights. She is considered by researchers to be an important but overlooked figure in the history of the revolution. Her life loosely inspired the novel La maestrita (transl. 'The Little Teacher') by María Luisa Ocampo Heredia, and her name is featured on the walls of the legislative assembly of the San Luis Potosí state congress.