|
After Benito Juárez's death in 1872, liberal General Porfirio Díaz attempted to gain the presidency, but failed as Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada succeeded Juárez. As liberal allies Juárez and Díaz had opposed the French Intervention. Porfirio Díaz was one of the military heroes of the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862 Cinco de Mayo, which briefly impeded the French invasion of Mexico. Following the ouster of the French in 1867, Juárez who had been president in exile but supported and recognized as the legitimate political leader of Mexico, returned to exercise power. Díaz tried to unseat him, but failed. When Juárez died in office, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada succeeded him, but when he ran for the presidency, Díaz ousted him, coming to power as president in 1876 and ruled until May 1911[4] when Francisco I. Madero succeeded him, taking office in November.[5] Díaz's regime is remembered for the advances he brought in industry and modernization, at the expense of human rights and liberal reforms. Díaz's rule from 1876 to 1911 has become known as the era of the Porfiriato. Díaz had a strict "No Re-election" policy whereby presidents could not serve consecutive terms in office.[citation needed] He followed this rule when he stepped down (1880) after his first term and was succeeded by Manuel González Flores.[citation needed] González was controlled by Díaz and was commonly known as Díaz's puppet.[citation needed] The new president's period in office was marred by political corruption and official incompetence.[citation needed] When Díaz ran in the next election (1884), he was a welcome replacement. In future elections Díaz put aside his "No Re-election" slogan and ran for president in exercises that were widely seen as fraudulent. Díaz was an early liberal, but changed his views after Juárez took office. He became the dictator against whom he had warned the people. Through an armed police force directly under control of the president, the Rurales—a paramilitary force that kept order in the countryside—and gangs of thugs, Díaz frightened people into voting for him. When bullying citizens into voting for him failed, he simply rigged the votes in his favor.[6] He justified his stay in office by claiming that Mexico was not yet ready to govern itself;[citation needed] only he knew what was best for his country and he enforced his belief with a strong hand. "Order and Progress" were the watchwords of his rule.[citation needed] Leaders of the 1910 revolt pose for a photo after the First Battle of Juárez. Present are José María Pino Suárez, Venustiano Carranza, Francisco I. Madero (and his father), Pascual Orozco, Pancho Villa, Gustavo Madero, Raul Madero, Abraham González, and Giuseppe Garibaldi Jr. Díaz's presidency was characterized by promotion of industry and development of infrastructure by opening the country to foreign investment. The pacification of the country was the order that would reassure foreign entrepreneurs that their investments were safe. The modernization and progress in cities came at the expense of the rising working class and the peasantry. Farmers and peasants both complained of oppression and exploitation. The economy took a great leap during the Porfiriato, as he encouraged the construction of factories, roads, dams, industries and better farms. This resulted in the rise of an urban proletariat and the influx of foreign capital (principally from the United States and Great Britain). Part of his success in maintaining power came from mitigating U.S. influence through European investments—primarily from Great Britain and Imperial Germany. Progress came at a price, however, as basic rights such as freedom of the press were suspended under the Porfiriato.[7] The growing influence of the U.S. was a constant concern for Díaz.[citation needed] Wealth, political power and access to education were concentrated among a handful of elite land holding families, overwhelmingly of European descent, known as hacendados, who controlled vast swaths of the country by virtue of their huge estates (one family, the Terrazas, had one estate in Sonora alone that comprised more than a million acres). Most people in Mexico were landless, laboring on the vast estates or in the mines for little more than slave wages. Foreign companies, mostly from the United Kingdom, France and the U.S., also exercised influence in Mexico. "Manifestación antireeleccionista" by José Guadalupe Posada Díaz changed land reform efforts that were begun under previous leaders. His new "reforms" virtually undid all the work by leaders such as Juárez. No peasant or farmer could claim the land he occupied without formal legal title. Helpless and angry small farmers and landless peasants saw no hope for themselves and their families under a Díaz regime, and came to the conclusion that a change of leadership would be the only route that offered any hope for themselves and their country. Such famous figures in Mexican history as Francisco I. Madero, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata would launch a rebellion against Díaz, all of which eventually coalesced into what became known as the Mexican Revolution. More than 95% of Mexico's land was owned by less than 5% of the population. This vastly unequal distribution of land—and, therefore, wealth—had plagued Mexico for many years, to the anger and dismay of the working classes. Workers on the vast "haciendas" were often treated like slaves, being beaten for the slightest infraction—real or imagined—and murders of workers by their "masters" were common. Another way to ensure that farmers and workers were kept under the thumb of the wealthy classes was to make sure that any debt incurred was passed down from generation to generation, thereby ensuring that it would never be paid off and the farmers would be kept in perpetual debt bondage. Most historians mark the end of the Porfiriato in 1911 as the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. In a 1908 interview with U.S. journalist James Creelman, Díaz stated that Mexico was ready for democracy and elections and that he would step down to allow other candidates to compete for the presidency.[8][9][10] Growing "old and careless", Díaz figured he would retire to Europe and allow a younger man to take over his presidency. Because of the turmoil this caused, Díaz decided to run again in 1910 for the last time, with an eye toward arranging a succession in the middle of his term. In 1909, Díaz and Taft planned a summit in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, an historic first meeting between a U.S. president and a Mexican president and also the first time an American president would cross the border into Mexico.[11] Diaz requested the meeting to show U.S. support for his planned eighth run as president, and Taft agreed to support Diaz in order to protect the several billion dollars of American capital then invested in Mexico.[12] At the meeting, Diaz explained, "Since I am responsible for bringing several billion dollars in foreign investments into my country, I think I should continue in my position until a competent successor is found."[13] Both sides agreed that the disputed Chamizal strip connecting El Paso to Ciudad Juárez would be considered neutral territory with no flags present during the summit, but the meeting focused attention on this territory and resulted in assassination threats and other serious security concerns.[14] The Texas Rangers, 4,000 U.S. and Mexican troops, U.S. Secret Service agents, FBI agents and U.S. marshals were all called in to provide security.[15] An additional 250 private security detail led by Frederick Russell Burnham, the celebrated scout, were hired by John Hays Hammond, a close friend of Taft from Yale and a former candidate for U.S. Vice-President in 1908 who, along with his business partner Burnham, held considerable mining interests in Mexico.[16][17][18] On October 16, the day of the summit, Burnham and Private C.R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route.[19] Burnham and Moore captured and disarmed the assassin within only a few feet of Díaz and Taft.[20] Madero ran against Díaz in 1910. Díaz thought he could control this election as he had the previous seven.[21] Although similar overall to Díaz in his ideology,[citation needed] Madero hoped for other elites to rule alongside the president. Díaz did not approve of Madero and had him jailed on election day in 1910. Díaz was announced the winner of the election by a "landslide", providing the initial impetus for the outbreak of the Revolution. When it became obvious that the election was fixed, Madero supporter Toribio Ortega took up arms with a group of followers at Cuchillo Parado, Chihuahua on November 10, 1910. The Mexican Revolution (Spanish: Revolución mexicana) or Mexican Civil War (Spanish: Guerra civil mexicana) was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz, and lasted for the better part of a decade until around 1920.[1] Over time the revolution changed from a revolt against the established order to a multi-sided civil war with frequently shifting power struggles. This armed conflict is often categorized as the most important sociopolitical event in Mexico and one of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century,[2] which saw important experimentation and reformation in social organization.[3] After prolonged struggles, its representatives produced the Mexican Constitution of 1917 during Venustiano Carranza's term.[1] The revolution is generally considered to have lasted until 1920, although the country continued to have sporadic, but comparatively minor, outbreaks of warfare well into the 1920s. The Cristero War of 1926 to 1929 was the most significant relapse into bloodshed. The revolution led to the creation of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario ("National Revolutionary Party") in 1929; it was renamed the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party) (PRI) in 1946. Under a variety of leaders, the PRI monopolized power until the general election of 2000. |
About us|Jobs|Help|Disclaimer|Advertising services|Contact us|Sign in|Website map|Search|
GMT+8, 2015-9-11 20:47 , Processed in 0.182574 second(s), 16 queries .
