Saturnino Cedillo (29 November 1890 – 11 January 1939) was a Mexican Army general who commanded the Mexican government's forces during the Cristero War and served as Governor of San Luis Potosi from 1927 to 1931.
Biography[]
Saturnino Cedillo was born in Ciudad del Maiz, San Luis Potosi, Mexico in 1890, and, while he was apolitical even after the start of the Mexican Revolution, he joined his brothers in serving under Emiliano Zapata during his revolution against Francisco I. Madero in 1912. They rose up against the usurper Victoriano Huerta before siding with Venustiano Carranza's constitutionalist movement and then Pancho Villa and Zapata's forces when they rose against Carranza in 1914. His brothers were killed in battle in 1915 and 1917, and Cedillo went into hiding until Alvaro Obregon became President. He was promoted to Brigadier-General under Obregon and commanded the Mexican Army against the Cristeros during the Cristero War of the 1920s, and, after crushing the rebels in Jalisco and Guanajuato, he was promoted to serve as Governor of San Luis Potosi from 1927 to 1931. He became the head of a private army of agrarianists, and he supported land reform centered around private ownership, while President Lazaro Cardenas supported nationalization. They fell out in 1938, and his private army was disarmed. However, Cedillo attempted an uprising against Cardenas in 1939, and he was killed during a skirmish with federal forces.