This review discusses the life of Porfirio Diaz with the benefits and consequences of his rule for more than 30 years in Mexico.
Palabras clave: Porfirio Díaz.
This review talks about the life of Porfirio Díaz with the benefits and consequences of his government during more than 30 years in Mexico.
Keywords: Porfirio Díaz.
General Porfirio Diaz Mori was born in the City of Oaxaca on September 15, 1830.
When he was sixteen years old and heard from his teacher that they should serve the country, he and his companions wrote a letter to the governor to offer their services as an offering to the country; it was accepted.
The woman he loved most was named Juana Catarina Romero. According to a legend, Don Porfirio Diaz managed in those years, that the company of the Railroad, that worked in that zone, deviated the route of the track until making it pass two meters from the French style chalet that he built for Juana Catarina. It is said that he gave her the whole process as a gift.
On December 22, 1859, the President of the Republic (Miguel Miramón) specially recommended to the Governor of Oaxaca, to give the immediate promotion to Lieutenant Colonel Porfirio Díaz, for his brilliant behavior in the attack of Tehuantepec, on November 25 of the same year.
On July 14, 1861, he was awarded an honorable mention for his courage in the Jala tlaco journey and for which he was given the rank of Brigadier General.
In 1867 he had married Delfina Ortega Díaz, his carnal niece, the daughter of his sister Manuela, in that marriage he procreated his children Porfirio and Luz.
On May 21, 1911 he resigned and on May 26 he left for Veracruz to embark to Havana and later to Europe. On July 2, 1915 at the age of 84 General Diaz died in Paris. His remains rest in the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.
The Porfiriato had two stages:
The first one goes from the arrival to power of Díaz in 1877 until 1896.
During this first and second stage, there was a four-year period, during which the government of Manuel González was in charge.
The second stage corresponds to the period from 1896 to 1910, from the time Díaz returned to power until his exile.
Faced with the reelection of Benito Juarez in 1871, General Diaz announced the Plan de la Noria (Oaxaca), on October 1, 1871. In it he stated that Juarez should retire from power and that it was necessary to modify the 1857 constitution so that there would be no reelection. The rebellion was stopped by General Sostenes Rocha, Juarez's main military chief.
After Juarez's death, Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada occupied the presidency and Diaz had no choice but to retire, once again, to private life. In 1876, when Lerdo tried to reelect himself, Diaz took up arms against him through the Tuxtepec Revolution, proclaiming the Plan of Tuxtepec (in Oaxaca, on January 10, 1876). By means of this plan, Diaz was declared chief of the restoring army. This plan, like that of La Noria, declared again the non-reelection and asked Lerdo to leave the presidency.
Diaz triumphs in the battle of Tecoac, Tlaxcala after 6 hours of combat against Lerdo's superior forces. Diaz was almost defeated, but was saved by the arrival of his compadre, General Manuel Gonzalez, with 4,000 horsemen.
Lerdo, defeated, left for New York, Díaz then occupied the executive power provisionally on November 28, 1876, entrusted it interim to General Juan N. Méndez and directed the last military actions against his enemies. After a brief interim of José María Cosme, elections were called, which under military control limited the attendance to the polls only to citizens in favor of the Díaz Plan. Thus, Porfirio Díaz took office on May 5, 1877.
The following year, on May 5, 1878, he reformed the Constitution to demonstrate his anti- reelectionist vocation: "The president may not be reelected for the immediate period, nor occupy the presidency..., until four years after having ceased to exercise his functions".
He concluded his term on November 30, 1880. Manuel González assumed the presidency on December 1, 1880 and Díaz was first Secretary of Development and then Provisional Governor of Oaxaca.
During the Porfiriato, Diaz exercised great control over politics and the executive branch dominated the legislative and judicial branches, as the president chose all important officials.
In spite of the country's terrible economic situation, and knowing that this was the most important thing for him, Diaz managed to get people to believe in him, although this situation was seen as one of the main obstacles to progress.
The government saw foreign investment as the only way to get the country out of the economic crisis in which it found itself.
Despite a favorable response from other countries, the Mexican economy was at serious risk of facing an economic crisis. In order to trade abroad, it was necessary for the country to have trains to transport raw materials and manufactured products.
The foreign powers saw in the construction of the trains a double business: on the one hand, they benefited from building and managing them and, on the other hand, they could transport their products at very low prices.
During the Porfiriato, there was an important change in the distribution of the population because many people from the countryside migrated to the cities in search of factory work. Some cities grew a lot, as their population more than doubled. The most important cities of this period were Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey and Torreón.
A small incident with Guatemala, which claimed the territory of Chiapas and Soconusco, was resolved peacefully and Mexico entered into communication with the world thanks to the laying of the submarine cable.
The President of the Supreme Court of Justice no longer had the power to substitute the President of the Republic; now, if necessary, the President of the Senate or the President of the Permanent Commission would do so.
Manuel González, when he was promoted to the Presidency by his compadre and friend, General Díaz, promised to leave power to him at the end of his term. Gonzalez was a loyal and sincere man, and he also understood at the end of his four-year term, which was not a very happy one, that no friend of his could confront General Diaz, nor could he think as some suggested of reelection.
When elections were held in 1884 to elect the President, the country was not moved, it was fed up with the Gonzalez regime and Diaz appeared as the reconstructor, the savior from bankruptcy and disrepute.
When the primary elections were held in June and the secondary elections in July, the results indicated that Diaz had obtained 15,776 votes against 289 votes cast in favor of other candidates.
When Díaz took office, Manuel González was appointed governor of the state of Guanajuato, a position he held until his death in 1893, in Chapingo.
The economy in crisis, the indigenous rebellions and repression caused great general discontent when Gonzalez left power in 1884. Diaz was reelected and from 1884, supported by the military force he used "to pacify the country" turned the Republic into a dictatorship.
October 21, 1887: "The President may be reelected for the immediate constitutional period and not for the following one, unless four years have elapsed since he ceased to be the head of the Executive".
On November 20, 1890, article 78 of the Constitution was returned to its original form. Therefore, he could be reelected indefinitely...
Porfirio Díaz thought that Mexico could not be prosperous if Mexicans were disunited, and considered it important for them to know the history of the country. During the Porfiriato, many archaeological excavations were carried out. The pre-Hispanic indigenous civilizations were put in a very high light. Many books were published about our history.
During the Porfiriato, as hard as it may seem to believe, some of the most important artists of our country developed.
European society powerfully influenced the architecture, fashion and language of the aristocratic classes. Customs were copied from elegant France; in those times, Paris was the city of progress, fashion, "premieres", scandal and culture. The women of the Porfirian society tried to spread the dignity and refined attitude of Parisian women.
Roads, bridges, buildings and schools multiplied. Theaters presented European companies and actors, and soon the cinematograph was known throughout the country. The mail and telegraphs were extended throughout much of the national territory.
Great efforts were made to extend public education, which allowed more children to be educated; more and more people were able to pursue higher education and thus a middle class of professionals and public employees began to form throughout the country. Cultural life was enriched with new newspapers, magazines and books written and printed in Mexico.
The Porfirian peace was beneficial for culture. Advances were made in the sciences, arts and technology. Academies, theaters, museums and artistic and scientific associations were founded. As in Europe and the rest of America, there was a profound influence of French culture that can be seen in most of the buildings and monuments of the time.
The first telephone line that existed in the Mexican Republic was the one between Chapultepec Castle and the National Palace on February 16, 1878.
The railroad was an emblem of progress. In 1881, Mexico had only 600 km of track and, in 1910, it had 2000 km. The main railroads connected the Pacific coast with the Gulf, and the capital with the most important cities, such as Veracruz, Cuidad Juárez and San Luis Potosí. Railroad lines were laid to the most important ports and to the border with the United States of America to facilitate commercial exchange.
Railroads also served to facilitate the movement of products between different regions of Mexico, and as a means of political and military control.
Agriculture progressed spectacularly in Yucatán, in Morelos and La Laguna, henequen, sugar cane and cotton were grown.
THE LATIFUNDISMO
A latifundio was an extensive piece of land owned by a single person, called a landowner, on which hundreds of laborers were exploited. In 1883, the law of lands and alienation of baldíos was enacted, which granted the right to acquire baldíos lands with no limit of surface. With this law, landowners made great fortunes, as the smallest haciendas reached ten thousand hectares and the largest, up to one hundred thousand.
In a country of ten million people, there were only 830 large landowners. The indigenous people lost a lot of land, and most of the rural inhabitants had to work as laborers on the haciendas. There was work there, but they were poorly paid, had little freedom and were forced to spend the little money they earned in the tiendas de raya, which belonged to the bosses themselves and sold everything more expensively.
By going into debt in these stores, the peons had to continue working for the same employer, even if he treated them badly. In some regions, such as the Yucatán peninsula and Valle Nacional, Oaxaca, the peons were practically slaves because of the way they were treated.
Some banks were founded. Government finances were organized. Tax collection was regularized. Little by little, debts were paid. Mexico experienced an economic growth never seen before. But since few people had money to invest or could borrow it, the development favored a few Mexicans and foreigners.
With this, the inequality between the very rich, who were very few, and the very poor, who were very many, became deeper and deeper, Díaz managed to maintain order through the use of public force, police and soldiers chased bandits as well as any attempt of opposition.
With order, work increased and economic development became possible, since the country had resources and businessmen could obtain good profits. However, as time went by, discontent grew due to the misery in which most of the people lived and because Díaz had been in power for too long.
During the Porfiriato, the prosperity of some industries was achieved, but the cost paid was too high, since our economy was totally dependent on foreigners. A very big problem was that Porfirio Díaz was already old and kept reelecting himself.
When Diaz was already 78 years old, he gave an interview to a U.S. newspaper, where he acknowledged that he had ruled as a dictator, and said, (among many other things) that there would finally be real elections in the country in the next election period. From the moment this interview was published, the interest in the presidency was on the rise.
Many clubs received copies of the newspaper, which caused the idea of fighting against reelection to spread. In 1906 two very big strikes broke out: the Cananea and Rio Blanco strikes. These events were a clear symptom that things were very bad in the Porfiriato.
Inequality and injustice became more and more accentuated and the government did nothing, believing that it was not its responsibility. The president promised clean elections, but failed to deliver, and the discontent led to the outbreak of the revolution.
Finally, in May 1911, Diaz left the country on a ship named Pirringa for France, where he died in 1915.
With this review we realize what was the reality of the president who lasted 33 years in the presidential chair.
Historia I,
Autores: Gloria M. Delgado, José L. Gómez, María González, Ramón López.
UAEH,
Editorial Pearson.
[a]Teacher Escuela Preparatoria No. 3