Porfirio Díaz

We explain who Porfirio Díaz was, how was his personal life and studies. In addition, its characteristics and political and military career.

Who was Porfirio Díaz?

José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori (1830-1915), better known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican military who exercised the presidency of the Mexican Republic For just over thirty years, the last twenty -six consecutively.

His military career was brilliant and He stood out during the second French intervention of Mexicoan armed conflict between Mexico and France that lasted from 1862 to 1867. He commanded troops in the battle of Puebla, the site of Puebla, the battle of Miahuatlán and the battle of Carbonera. In addition, he organized guerrillas against the French in the state of Oaxaca.

He arrived at the interim presidency through an uprising in 1876 and He was elected as a constitutional president in 1877. After being happened by a politician of his confidence in 1880, he returned to the presidency in 1884 and continued in it uninterruptedly until 1911 thanks to the mechanism of re -election.

Porfirio Díaz’s last mandate was the most resisted by his opponentsamong which was Francisco I. Madero, his main political adversary. The fight against his authoritarian government, known as “El Porfiriato”, led to the Mexican revolution that began in 1910 and forced Porfirio Díaz to resign the following year.

Birth and education

Porfirio Díaz He was born in Oaxaca, ancient province of Antequeraon September 15, 1830. It was the sixth of seven brothers, children of José Faustino Díaz Orozco and María Petrona Cecilia Mori Cortés. He grew up in a wealthy family coming at least after the death of the father, victim of cholera, in 1833.

Díaz He started his studies at the Tridentino Seminary of Oaxacasponsored by José Agustín Domínguez y Díaz, who was later bishop of Antequera. There he was until 1846, when he decided to retire and enroll in the Institute of Sciences and Arts of Oaxaca. This was due to the inspiration of who was then governor of Oaxaca, the liberal Benito Juárez.

At the end of 1850 he was already a teacher of this institution and a couple of years later He studied right there by Juarez himself.

Military career

Díaz’s military career began with Ayutla’s revolution which was deployed against President Antonio López de Santa Anna between 1854 and 1855. He joined the liberal cause and his participation earned him a gunshot wound and a subsequent military position in the government chaired by Ignacio Comonfort.

Again fought on the liberal side in the Reforma War (1858-1861) and quickly reached the positions of greater, colonel and general lieutenant. He was also a candidate for federal deputy for Oaxaca.

The second French intervention of Mexico, which began in 1862, called the battlefield again. He commanded Mexican troops loyal to the republican government of Benito Juárez In important episodes of the contest, such as the Battle of Puebla (1862), the site of Puebla (1863), the battle of Miahuatlán (1866) and the battle of Carbonera (1866).

In 1864 the second empire of Mexico was proclaimed following the French intervention and on the initiative of conservative Mexican sectors, but the Republicans did not know this government and continued to fight. Díaz was forced to surrender and sentenced to life imprisonment in Puebla. After running out of prison, he gathered new troops and He commanded Puebla and the final taking of Mexico City in 1867 who gave the victory to the Republicans of Benito Juárez. Díaz was rewarded by President Juárez with military lands and honors.

Personal life

Díaz He had affairs during the wars in which he participated. The best known are the ones he held with Juana C. Romero, businesswoman and diplomatic from Tehuantepec, and the welded Rafaela Quiñones, with whom he had a daughter born in 1867, Amada Díaz.

However, His first marriage was in 1867 with his niece, Delfina Ortega de Díaz. He had the permission of President Juárez with respect to the marriage between blood relatives.

With her she had A first child in 1869 and two years later twinsbut everyone died soon born. The exception were the fourth, Deodato Lucas Porfirio Díaz Ortega, born in 1873 and a daughter born in 1875, called Luz Aurora. In 1880 another daughter, Victoria Francisca was born, but died at 48 hours.

Díaz widered in 1880, and In November 1881 he married Carmen Romero Rubioa young woman with a wealthy family with whom she had no children.

First presidential mandate

Porfirio Díaz He appeared as a presidential candidate in the 1867 electionswhere he competed against Benito Juárez himself, but was defeated. He presented his candidacy again in 1871, but again he was surpassed at the polls by Juarez, who was reelected.

This new defeat against Juarez was not very well received, and both Díaz and the third liberal candidate, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, challenged the elections. Next A new civil war caused by the military uprising of Porfirio Díazknown as the Noria revolution. His name came from the hacienda with which Juarez had rewarded Díaz for his military feats of the past.

The revolution culminated when Juarez died in Mexico City and Lerdo was proclaimed president, first interim and then after winning the elections of 1872.

The Ledista government was soon unpopularand although the figure of Díaz in those days was very politically declined, it was enough for Lerdo to announce at the end of 1875 his desire for re -election in the elections of the following year so that a new civil war was unleashed: the Tuxtepec revolution.

This uprising, led by Díaz and seconded by a good number of military and civilians, culminated with the resignation of Lerdo and the celebration of extraordinary elections in 1877in which he finally managed to be elected Porfirio Díaz. Constitutionally assumed the position of President on May 5, 1877.

The Porfiriato

With the first mandate of Díaz began the Porfiriato, a period of more than 30 yearsin which Mexico was under its direct authority as President of the Republic. The exception was the period 1880-1884, when Manuel González Flores ruled, who had been Diaz War Minister and was one of his most loyal men.

From December 1, 1884, after being chosen again, Díaz ruled without interruption until May 25, 1911.

Porfiriato’s precepts were peace, order and progress. It was a national development regime sustained by large landowners, which was supported by the United States, although it also favored European investments that sought to reduce dependence on the neighboring country.

This long period of political stability It was held in a forced peace Mattered from the presidency through political repression, censorship and an automatic re -election system that gave continuity.

This allowed the development of science and arts And he won the support of the “scientists” sector, members of the urban middle classes who became their advisors and socially ascended. The implementation of compulsory, secular and free education also took place. However, the unequal school distribution between rural and urban areas deepened the social inequality that later helped to gestate the revolutionary facts of the twentieth century.

Another important aspect of porfiriato was The expansion of the railway network throughout the country. As part of his modernizing project, he managed to reach more than 20,000 kilometers. This could be done thanks to the numerous foreign investments that obtained rail concessions and also focused on the exploitation of natural resources of Mexico.

Most of the Porfiriato was a economic growth stage both in industry and agriculturebut the strong dependence on foreign capital and inequalities in the countryside had negative consequences when an international crisis broke out in the early twentieth century.

Political characteristics of your government

Díaz’s government had the following political features:

• Conciliation with the Catholic Church. Given the tense relations between the clergy and the previous liberal governments, Díaz led to certain reconciliation by allowing the increase in the properties of the clergy, the creation of new dioceses and the formation or the restoration of religious orders. Díaz confessed that in intimacy he was “Catholic, apostolic and Roman,” but said that, as head of state, he did not profess any religion. For this reason, although he made concessions to the clergy, he did not allow the political influence of the Church to grow in his government. During the Porfiriato, Protestant congregations also grew, some of whose members became opponents to the Diaz regime.
• Peaceful international relations. Both with the United States and Europe, Díaz led to commercial and diplomatic relations. He paid the external debt to Britain in 1884, restored Mexican credit in the world and decreased dependence on the United States by favoring European investments. During the presidency of Manuel González Flores, the Herrera-Mariscal Treaty was signed in 1882, which ended the border conflicts with Guatemala.
• Press control and political repression. In 1882, during the presidency of Manuel González Flores, a decree known as “Gag Law” was published that violated the principle of press freedom enshrined in the Constitution of 1857 and allowed the Government to censor the print media and imprison or judge journalists. This strict press control survived throughout the years that Porfiriato lasted. In addition, all kinds of rebellion, protest or peasant uprising were violently repressed. To do this, a secret police were known as “the rural.” Oppositors’ journalists and politicians had to exile or suffered prison.

Resignation and exile

Over time, the “necessary dictatorship” by Porfirio Díaz (as it was sometimes called to highlight the supposed beneficial character of the autocratic government), covered by progress and modernization, He turned it in the eyes of his opponents and a good part of society in a tyrant.

The insurrections against them came from various social sectors. Some were caused by the rejection of political repression and indefinite re -election while others emerged from economic claims. In this way, the anti -re -electionist activism of Francisco I. Madero, who became his most important adversary, combined with social discontent due to the economic crisis, which was due among other things to the fall in the international price of silver (export product of Mexico).

In 1910 Díaz was proclaimed winner in the new presidential electionsimprisoned the opposition candidate, Francisco I. Madero, and was accused of electoral fraud. In this context, a revolutionary process known as the Mexican Revolution broke out, which Díaz could not face, perhaps due to his advanced age and his physical state but also to the impulse of the revolutionary sectors. Finally, on May 25, 1911 he was forced to resign.

Díaz He died exiled in Paris on July 2, 1915. He was eighty -four years old. At that time, Mexico was submerged in the wars of the Mexican Revolution.

Porfirio Díaz memories

Porfirio Díaz wrote his memoirs, in which He narrated his life from the moment of his birth until July 1867. In addition, he dedicated the first chapter to his ancestors.

In this work described the military adventures in which he participated over thirteen yearsand concluded his story at the time he was about to be a candidate for Mexico’s presidential elections for the first time.

Famous phrases by Porfirio Díaz

• “Poor of our Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States” (attributed to Porfirio Díaz).
• “Dog with bone in the mouth, neither bite nor bark.”
• “I can separate from the presidency of Mexico without sorrow or regret, but I will not be able to, while I live, stop serving this country”
• “Bread or stick.”

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References

• Tenorio Trillo, M. & Gómez Galvarriato, A. (2006). The Porfiriato. Economic Culture Fund.
• Von Wobeser, G. (coord.) (2014). History of Mexico. Economic Culture Fund.
• “Porfirio Díaz” in British Encyclopedia.
• “Mexico under Porfirio Díaz, 1876-1911. The Mexican Revolution and the United States” in Library of Congress (SF).