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Benito Pablo Juárez García () (March 21, 1806 – July 18, 1872) was a Zapotec Amerindian who served two terms (1861–1863 and 1867–1872) as President of Mexico. For his resistance to the French occupation and his efforts to modernize the country, Juárez is often regarded as Mexico's greatest and most beloved leader. He is the only full-blooded Native American to serve as President of Mexico.
Political career Juárez became a lawyer in 1834 and a judge in 1842. He was governor of the state of Oaxaca from 1847 to 1853, at which time he went into exile because of his objections to the corrupt military dictatorship of Antonio López de Santa Anna. He spent his exile in New Orleans, Louisiana, working in a cigar factory. In 1854 he helped draft the Plan of Ayutla as the basis for a liberal revolution in Mexico. Faced with growing opposition, Santa Anna resigned in 1855 and Juárez returned to Mexico. The liberales (liberals) formed a provisional government under Juan Ruiz de Álvarez, inaugurating the period known as ''La Reforma''. The Reform laws sponsored by the puro (pure) wing of the Liberal Party curtailed the power of the Catholic church and the military, while trying to create a modern civil society and capitalist economy on the North American model. The Ley Juárez (Juarez's Law) of 1855, for example, abolished special clerical and military privileges, and declared all citizens equal before the law. In 1857 the liberals promulgated a new federalist constitution. Juárez became Chief Justice and Vice-President of Mexico, under moderado (moderate) president Ignacio Comonfort. The conservadores (conservatives) led by General Félix Zuloaga, with the backing of the military and the clergy, launched a revolt under the Plan of Tacubaya in December 1857. Juárez was arrested, but escaped to lead the liberal side in the Mexican War of the Reform, first from Querétaro and later from Veracruz. In 1859, Juárez took the radical step of declaring the confiscation of church properties. In spite of the conservatives' initial military advantage, the liberals, drawing on support of regionalist forces, turned the tide in 1860 and recaptured Mexico City in January 1861. Juárez was elected President in March for a four-year term under the Constitution of 1857. Faced with government bankruptcy and a war-ravaged economy, Juárez declared a moratorium on foreign debt payments. Spain, Great Britain, and France reacted with a joint seizure of the Veracruz customs house in December 1861. Spain and Britain soon withdrew, but Emperor Napoleon III used the episode as a pretext to launch the French intervention in Mexico in 1862, with plans to establish a conservative puppet regime. The Mexicans won an initial victory over the French at Puebla in 1862, celebrated annually as Cinco de Mayo (May 5). The French advanced again in 1863, forcing Juárez and his elected government to retreat to the arid northern part of the country. Juárez led the Mexican opposition to the French intervention and the imposition of Maximilian of Habsburg as "Emperor of Mexico" in 1864. Maximilian, who personally harboured liberal and Mexican nationalist sympathies, offered Juárez amnesty, and later the post of prime minister, but Juárez refused to accept either a monarchy or a government imposed by foreigners. With its own civil war over, the United States invoked the Monroe Doctrine to give diplomatic recognition to Juarez' government-in-exile and supply weapons and funding to the Republicanist forces. Faced with this and a growing threat from Prussia, the French troops began pulling out of Mexico in late 1866. Mexican conservatism was a spent force and was less than pleased with the liberal Maximilian. In 1867 the last of the Emperor's forces were defeated and Maximilian was sentenced to death for treason by a military court. Despite international pleas for amnesty, Juárez refused to commute the sentence, and Maximilian was executed by firing squad on June 19, his body was returned to Europe for burial. Juárez was controversially re-elected President in 1867 and 1871, using the office of the presidency to ensure electoral success and suppressing revolts by opponents like Porfirio Díaz. Benito Juárez died of a heart attack in 1872 while working at his desk in the National Palace in Mexico City. He was succeeded by Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, his foreign minister. Legacy Today Benito Juárez is remembered as being a progressive reformer dedicated to democracy, equal rights for the nation's indigenous Indian population, lessening the great power that the Roman Catholic Church then held over Mexican politics, and defense of national sovereignty. The period of his leadership is known in Mexican history as La Reforma (the reform), and constituted a liberal political and social revolution with major institutional consequences: the expropriation of church lands, bringing the army under civilian control, liquidation of peasant communal land holdings, and adoption of a federalist constitution. La Reforma (the reform) led by Juárez represented the triumph of Mexico's liberal, federalist, anti-clerical, and pro-capitalist forces over the conservative, centralist, corporatist, and theocratic elements that sought to reconstitute a locally-run version of the old colonial system. It replaced a semi-feudal social system with a more market-driven one, but following Juárez's death, a heart attack, the lack of adequate democratization and institutional stability soon led to a return to levels of centralized autocracy and economic exploitation under the regime of Porfirio Díaz that surpassed anything from the colonial or conservative eras. The porfiriato (Porfirist era), in turn, collapsed in the Mexican Revolution. Quotations
Miscellaneous The anniversary of Juárez's birth (March 21) is a national holiday in Mexico (See: Fiestas Patrias). Juárez was given the title of "Benemérito de las Américas" ("the meritious one of the Americas") by the government of the Republic of Colombia, on May 1, 1865. The Congress of Colombia proclaimed in such date: " The Congress of Colombia, in the name of the people it represents, and facing the unselfishness and the undeniable perseverance that Señor Benito Juárez, in his role of constitutional President of Mexico, has launched towards the defense of the independence and freedom of his Homeland, proclaims that citizen Juárez has deserved the title of Asset of the Americas, and as a homage to such virtues, and as an example to the Colombian youth, has ruled that the portrait of this eminent statesman will be displayed at the National Library with the following script: Benito Juárez Mexican Citizen The Congress of 1865 dedicates, in the name of the Colombian people, this homage attesting his fortitude in defending the freedom and independence of México." A Colombian citizen, Alejo Morales, supported the proclamation of Juarez in a letter to the Colombian Senate and Representatives, where he describes Juarez as follows: “...…Juárez is the upright statesman that makes a clear contrast with one too many traitors and betrayers; the man of good faith that chooses misery and death to shame, because the word "duty" is more flattering to him than the insigns of Great Marshal; he is the genius that will scare away, no question about it, the horrifying tempest that has blown so recently above the New World; he is, gentlemen, Senators, the one that is being proposed that you honor through a decree. I would not believe there is a single Colombian Senator that would not want to hurry to support, through his vote, the consacration of such an act, than would honor more us than the immortal Juarez" Benito Mussolini was named after Juárez by his Socialist father. The Italian for Benedict would have been Benedetto. Juárez has been represented in motion pictures by Paul Muni (1939), Jason Robards, Sr. (1940), Fausto Tozzi (1965), Helmut Schellhardt (1988), and Luis Valdez (1994) A great number of cities, towns, streets, institutions, etc., are named after Benito Juárez; see Juárez for a partial list. Used as a keyword for the download of illegal software: "Hey, I went on el Bitorrento and downloaded some Juárez." There are prominent monuments to Juárez in most or all American nations in addition to Mexico. A very incomplete list includes such examples as: It has been said that Abraham Lincoln had great sympathy to the Juarista cause. When he could get no support in Congress, he supposedly had the Army "lose" some supplies (including rifles) "near" (across) the border with Mexico. See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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