ABSTRACT
The Valladolid movement was premature and nearly sterile as compared to what reform leaders had hoped for in the way of a popular rebellion. While segments of northern Mexico first began to follow Francisco Madero in revolt, the real rulers of Yucatán were willing to let the rest of the world go by as long as somebody out there continued to purchase henequen. Madero's administration in Mexico City raised the hopes of the popular liberal elements in Merida for a time, as representative government was introduced and as labor experimented with unionization on a somewhat broader scale. But the confusion surrounding Madero's government, and his difficulty in securing sufficient cooperation from the revolutionary factions, provided Yucatecan reactionaries additional time to shore up their anti-revolutionary plans. Carranza's decisive answer to the counterrevolution in the Peninsula was to send to the region a strong Constitutionalist general who believed in the Revolution.
