Margarita Ortega

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: