Oaxaca, Oaxaca
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Benito Juárez
Apuntes Para Mis Hijos
“Notes for My Children” written by Benito Juarez. (ca. 1857)
On March 21, 1806, I was born in the village of San Pablo Guelato, the jurisdiction of Santa Tomás Ixtlan in the state of Oaxaca. My parents, Marcelino Juárez and Brígida García, Indians of the original race of the country, died when I had hardly reached three years of age, leaving [us (my sisters María Josefa and Rosa)] in the care of our paternal grandparents, Pedro Juárez and Justa López, also Indians of the Zapotec nation. My sister María Longinos, a child recently born, for my mother died in giving her birth, remained in the care of my maternal aunt, Cecilia García. Within a few years my grandparents died; my sister María Josefa married Tiburcio López of the village of Santa María Tahuiche; my sister Rosa married José Jimenez of the village of Ixtlan, and I was left under the guardianship of my uncle Bemardino Juárez, because among my other uncles, Bonifacio Juárez had already died, Mariano Juárez lived apart from his family, and Pablo Juárez was still a minor.
...as soon as I could think at all, I dedicated myself, insofar as my young age permitted, to work in the fields. In the few intervals in which we were not working, my uncle taught me to read; he showed me how useful and advantageous it would be for me to know the Spanish language, and since at that time it was extremely difficult for poor people, and especially for Indians, to follow any learned career except the ecclesiastic [holy orders], he revealed that he wanted me to study for ordination. His desire, and the examples that I had before me of fellow countrymen who knew how to read, write, and speak the Spanish language, and of others in the priesthood, awakened in me a vehement desire to learn, with the result that when my uncle called me to give me my lesson, I myself took him the whip, so that he could beat me if I did not know it. However, my uncle's work, and my own, in the fields, frustrated my ambition, and I advanced very little in my lessons. Furthermore, in a village as small as mine, which had hardly twenty families, at a time when hardly anyone was concerned with the education of youth, there was no school; and there one hardly ever heard Spanish, because the parents who could pay for the education of their children sent them to the city of Oaxaca for that purpose, and those for whom there was no possibility of paying for board and tuition sent them to work in private homes, on condition that they would be taught to read and write. This was, in general, the only method of getting an education, not only in my village but also in the whole district of Ixtlan, with the interesting result that at that time most of the servants in the houses of the city were young people, of both sexes, from our district. Thus, from realizing these facts, rather than from any mature reflection, of which I was incapable, I acquired the conviction that I could learn only by going to the city, and to this end I often urged my uncle to take me to the capital, but either because of his affection for me, or from some other motive, he did not do so, but only gave me hopes that some day he would take me there.
Furthermore, I too was hesitant to separate myself from him, to leave the house that had sheltered me in my orphaned childhood, and to abandon my little friends, with whom I had always had the deepest sympathies and from whom any separation always wounded me. The conflict that arose within me, between these feelings and my desire to go to another society, new and unknown to me, where I might acquire an education, was cruel indeed. However, my hunger overcame my emotions, and on December 17, 1818, when I was twelve years old, I fled from my house and walked on foot to the city of Oaxaca, where I arrived on the night of the same day.
I lodged in the house of don Antonio Maza, in which my sister María Josefa was serving as cook. During those first days I worked by taking care of the cochineal [an insect from which a dye is extracted] while I looked for a house in which to work. At that time there lived in the city a pious and very honorable man who worked as a bookbinder. He wore the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis, and although dedicated to devotions and religious practices, was very broadminded and was a friend of the education of youth. The works of Feijoo [Spanish philosopher] and the epistles of St. Paul were his favorite reading. This man, who received me into his house, offering to send me to school, so that I could learn to read and write, was named don Antonio Salanueva. In this way I found myself settled in Oaxaca on January 7, 1819.
In the primary schools at that time, Spanish grammar was not taught. Reading, writing, and learning by rote the catechism of Father Ripaldo was at that time the whole of primary instruction. Inevitably, my education was slow and in every respect imperfect. I spoke Spanish without rules and with all the errors committed by the uneducated. After some time in the fourth class in writing in the school that I attended--as much because of my work as because of the bad method of instruction---I could still hardly write at all.
Anxious to finish my writing lessons quickly, I asked permission to go to another school, believing that thus I could learn more perfectly and rapidly. I presented myself to don José Domingo González, as my new teacher was named, and he promptly asked me in what grade I was writing; I answered him, in the fourth. ''Well, then,'' he said, "write me a page and hand it in to me at the hour when the others hand in theirs." When the usual time arrived, I handed in the page that I had prepared in accordance with the pattern he had given me, but it was not perfect, because I was a student and not a teacher. The teacher was annoyed, and instead of showing me the defects that my page had and showing me how to correct them, he only told me that it would not do, and ordered that I be punished.
This injustice offended me deeply, as did the inequality with which the teaching was done in that school, which was called the Royal School. For while the teacher in a separate department taught with care a certain number of children who were called "decent," the poorer youngsters, such as myself, were relegated to another department, under the direction of another man, called the Assistant, who was as little fit to teach and of as harsh a character as the master.
Since I was dissatisfied with this deplorable method of teaching, and since there was in the city no other school to which I could go, I decided to leave the school for good, and to practice by myself the little that I had learned in order to express myself in writing, however bad in form that writing might be as indeed it is to this day.
Meanwhile, every day, I saw going to and coming from the Seminary College in the city many youths who were studying to embrace careers in the Church, and that reminded me of the advice of my uncle, who wanted me to become a priest. Furthermore, it was at that time the general opinion, not only of the common people, but also of those in the upper classes of society, that the religious, and even those who were only studying to become priests, knew a great deal, and I noticed that they were in fact treated with respect and consideration for the knowledge that was attributed to them. This circumstance, more than the idea of my becoming a clergyman, an idea for which I felt an instinctive repugnance, induced me to ask my godfather--for so I shall call don Antonio Salanueva, because he took me to be confirmed only a few days after receiving me into his house--to allow me to go and study in the seminary, assuring him that I should do all I could to make the fulfillment of my obligations to him, in his service, compatible with my dedication to the studies I wanted to undertake.
Since that good man, as I have already said, was a friend of the education of youth, he not only received this idea gladly, but even urged me to put it into effect, saying that since I had the advantage of knowing Zapotec, my native language, I could be ordained, in accordance with the ecclesiastical laws of America, without having to have the patrimony that others needed to live while obtaining a benefice. With my road smoothed in this manner, I began the study of Latin grammar at the seminary, with the rank of capense, on October 18, 1821--of course without knowing Spanish grammar or any other of the elements of a primary education. Unfortunately I was not alone in this deficiency, which marked the other students generally, because of the backwardness of public education at that time.
Thus I began my studies under the direction of teachers who, all being clerical, gave me a literary education that was strictly ecclesiastical. In August of 1823, I completed my study of Latin grammar, having passed the two required examinations with the grades of excellent. In that year the course in arts did not begin, and I had to wait until the following year to begin the study of philosophy in the work of Father Jacquier; but before that I had to overcome another serious difficulty that presented itself, as follows: as soon as I finished my study of Latin grammar, my godfather showed great eagerness that I should go on to the study of moral theology, so that in the following year I could begin to receive holy orders. This suggestion was very painful to me, both because of my repugnance to a religious career and because of the low reputation of the priests who had only studied Latin grammar or moral theology, and who therefore were ridiculed by being called ''priests of mass and stew," or ''Larragos.'' They were called the first because, on account of their ignorance; they could only say mass to earn a living, and were not permitted to preach or to exercise any other functions requiring instruction and ability; and they were called ''Larragos" because they had studied moral theology only in the works of Father Larraga.
As well as I could, I explained this objection frankly to my godfather, adding that not yet being old enough to be received into the priesthood, I should lose nothing by taking the course in the arts. Luckily, my arguments convinced him, and he allowed me to go my own way.
In the year 1827, I finished the course in arts, having defended in public the two theses that had been assigned to me and having passed two required examinations with the grades of excellent unanimously given, and with other honors given me by my synodical examiners.
In the same year there began the course in theology, and I went on to study that subject as an essential part of the career or profession to which my godfather wished to destine me, and perhaps that was the reason why he had not insisted that I be ordained previously....
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The constitution of 1824 was a compromise between progress and reaction, and far from being the basis of a stable peace and of true liberty for the nation, it was the fertile and enduring seedbed of the incessant convulsions that the Republic has suffered, and that it will still suffer while society does not recover its balance by making effective the equality of rights and duties of all citizens and of all persons who inhabit the national territory, without privileges, without exemptions, without monopolies, and without odious distinctions; or while there remain in force the treaties between Mexico and foreign powers, treaties that will be useless as soon as the supreme law of the Republic is an inviolable and sacred respect for the rights of all men and of all peoples, whoever they may be, provided they respect the rights of Mexico, her authorities, and her laws; or while, finally, there is not in the Republic one single and unique authority, the civil authority as established by the national will, without a religion of the state, and wiping out the military and ecclesiastical powers as political entities that force, ambition, and abuse have opposed to the supreme power of society, usurping its rights and prerogatives, and subjecting it to their caprices.
The republican party adopted the name Yorkist party, and from that time onwards there continued a bloody and unremittingstruggle between the Scotch party, which defended the past with all its abuses, and the Yorkist party, which sought liberty and progress; but unfortunately, the latter almost always fought at a disadvantage because, enlightenment not having become general in those days, its adherents, with a very few and very honorable exceptions, lacked faith in the triumph of the principles they proclaimed, since they ill understood liberty and progress, and they lightly deserted its ranks, going over to the opposing party, which action confused the efforts of their former fellow partisans, defeating them and delaying the triumph of liberty and progress. This was in general the state of the Republic in the year 1827.
At the beginning of 1833, I was elected deputy to the state legislature. Because of the Law of Expulsion of Spaniards passedby the federal congress in 1829, the Bishop of Oaxaca, don Manuel Isidoro Pérez, although exempted from this hardship, refused to remain in his diocese, and departed for Spain. Since there was not now one bishop in the Republic, because the few that there had been had also gone abroad, it was not easy to receive holy orders, and they could only be had by going to Havana or New Orleans; for this purpose it was indispensable to have sufficient resources, which I lacked. For me, this circumstance was highly favorable, because my godfather, recognizing the impossibility of my being ordained, permitted me to continue in my career at the bar. By that time I was supporting myself entirely by my own resources.
In the same year I was named Aide to the Commandant, General don Isidro Reyes, who defended the city against the forces of General Canalizo, who had pronounced for the plan of religion and exemptions put forward by Colonel don Ignacio Escalada in Morelia. From that time, the clerical-military party impudently undertook to maintain their exemptions, their abuses, and all their antisocial pretensions by force of arms and by means of rebellions. What gave this rebellion of the privileged classes a pretext was the first step that the liberal party took at that time on the road of reform: repealing the unjust laws that imposed civil coercion for the collection of monastic votive offerings and the payment of tithes.
In the year 1845, there were held elections of the deputies to the departmental assembly, and I appeared as one of the many candidates who offered themselves to the public. The electors nominated me and I was unanimously elected. Early in 1846, the departmental assembly was dissolved as a result of the military sedition led by General Paredes, who, under orders from the President, don José Joaquin de Herrera to march to the frontier threatened by the American army, pronounced in the hacienda of the Peñasco in the state of San Luis Potosí, and countermarched towards the capital of the Republic, in order to seize the government, which he did, submitting himself completely to the direction of the monarchist-conservative party. The liberal party did not concede defeat. Aided by the Santa Anna party, it worked actively until it succeeded in overturning the reactionary administration of Paredes and in installing General don Mariano Salas provisionally in the Presidency of the Republic.
In Oaxaca, the movement against Paredes was supported by General don Juan Bautista Díaz; there was named a Legislative Committee and an Executive Power of three persons who were named by a Committee of Notables. The election fell on don Luis Fernández del Campo, don José Simeón Arteaga, and myself, and we began at once to fulfill the duties with which we had been honored. Informed of this arrangement, the general government decided to dissolve the Legislative Committee, and to entrust the executive power of the state to don José Simeón Arteaga alone. I had to return to my legal post in the prosecutor's office, but Governor Arteaga dissolved it in order to reorganize it with other personnel, and in consequence he proceeded to its reorganization, naming me President or Regent--as the presiding officer was known at that time--of the Tribunal of Justice of the state.
The general government called on the nation to elect its representatives with full powers to revise the constitution of 1824, and I was one of those named for Oaxaca, and so proceeded to the capital of the Republic, to fulfill my new duties, early in December of the same year of 1846. At this time the Republic was already invaded by forces of the United States of the North; the government lacked funds sufficient to set up a defense, and it was necessary for the Congress to afford the means of acquiring them. The deputy for Oaxaca, don Tiburcio Canas, took the initiative in authorizing the government to mortgage part of the properties administered by the clergy, in order to provide resources for the war. The proposal was admitted and then turned over to a special commission, to which I belonged, with the recommendation that it be given prompt attention. On January 10, 1847, a report was made on this matter, advising the adoption of this method, and it was brought up immediately for discussion. The debate was extremely long and heated, because the moderate party, which had a large majority in the chamber, put up a strong opposition to the project. At two in the morning of the 11th, however, the report was approved in general, but in the discussion of the particulars, the opposition presented a multitude of amendments to each of the articles, with the unpatriotic purpose that even when it was finally approved the act would have so many hobbles that it would not produce the result that the congress proposed. At ten in the morning the discussion came to a close with the passage of the law, but for the reasons stated it did not issue with the desired amplitude . . .
From that moment, the clergy, the moderates, and the conservatives redoubled their efforts to destroy the law and to eject from the Presidency of the Republic don Valentín Gómez Farías, whom they considered the leader of the liberal party. In a few days they succeeded in realizing their desires by inciting to rebellion a part of the city at the moment when our troops were fighting for the nation's independence on the northern frontier and in the city of Veracruz. This mutiny, which was called that of the Polkos, was viewed with indignation by most of the people; and the rebels, thinking that their plan could not succeed by force of their arms, resorted to subversion, and succeeded in winning over General Santa Anna, who commanded the army that had defeated the enemy at La Angostura, and whom the liberal party had just named President of the Republic over the opposition of the moderate and conservative party; but Santa Anna, inconsistent as always, abandoned his men and rushed to Mexico to give the victory to the rebels. These went to the Villa of Guadalupe to receive their protector, with their chests covered with badges of membership in religious orders and relics of saints, as "defenders of religion and the exemptions." Don Valentín Gómez Farías was removed from the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, and the liberal deputies were attacked and denied the reimbursement that the law allowed them for their subsistence in the capital. We deputies from Oaxaca could not receive any help from our state because there the legislature had been destroyed and replaced by those who supported the rebellion of the Polkos; and as a matter of fact the congress was not holding sessions because it lacked a quorum. I decided to go home and dedicate myself to the practice of my profession.
In August of [1847] I arrived in Oaxaca. Although they were persecuted, the liberals were working actively to reestablish the legal order, and in this effort they were authorized by law, for there existed a decree that, on my motion and that of my associates in the deputation from Oaxaca, was passed and sent by the general congress, condemning the mutiny that had occurred in this state and refusing to recognize the authorities established by the rebels; nor did I hesitate to help in any way that I found possible those who worked for the fulfillment of the law, which has always been my sword and my shield . .
On November 23rd, we succeeded very well in a movement against the intruding authorities. The President of the Court of Justice, the attorney don Marcos Pérez, took charge of the government; the legislature met and named me Governor pro tempore of the state.
[Juárez joined the rebellion against Santa Anna in 1855; became Minister of Justice in the victorious government; was named Chief Justice of the Mexican Supreme Court in 1857; and became President of the Republic when Ignacio Comonfort resigned under duress in 1858. Juárez would lead the government to victory during the War of the Reform against the Conservatives and would lead the victorious resistance to the Conservative/French Empire of the 1860s. In 1867, he was once again in control in Mexico City and remained President until his death in 1872.]
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