Oaxaca, Oaxaca
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Porfirio Díaz
Porfirio Díaz Mori
President of Mexico
Term of office: 29 November 1876 to 30 November 1880 (first term)
– 1 December 1884 to 25 May 1911 (second term)
Preceded by: Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada (1876), Manuel González (1884)
Succeeded by: Manuel González (1880), Francisco León de la Barra interim (1911)
Date of birth: 15 September 1830
Place of birth: Oaxaca, Oaxaca
Date of death: 2 July 1915
Place of death: Paris, France
Profession: army officer and politician
First Lady: Delfina Ortega & Carmelita Romero Rubio
Party: Liberal
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori (15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915) was President of Mexico, considered a dictator, who ruled Mexico from 1876 until 1911 (with the exception of one single four-year period).
Early Years
Porfirio Díaz was born in 1830 in the city of Oaxaca, Oaxaca. He was a Mestizo, of Mixtec Indian and Spanish ancestry. His father, José de la Cruz Díaz, died when he was 3 years old. His mother, Patrona Mori de Díaz, was innkeepers until that business failed. She sent young Porfirio to the Seminario Pontifical in 1843, but he was not cut out for the priesthood. He joined the local militia in 1846, dreaming of defending the country from a threatened United States invasion. Tutored by Benito Juarez, he studied law and passed the legal exams in 1853. Díaz soon became a prominent local activist in the liberal opposition to the conservative Santa Ana dictatorship.
Economic Development, Human Exploitation
Díaz embarked on a program of modernisation, attempting to bring Mexico up to the level of a modern state. His principal advisers were of a type called científicos, akin to modern economists, because they espoused a program of "scientific" modernisation. These included the building of railroad and telegraph lines across the country, including the first Mexican railway between Veracruz and Mexico City. Under his rule the amount of track in Mexico increased tenfold; many of these rails remain in operation today without remodelling. He introduced the idea of steam machines and technological appliances in industry and invited and welcomed foreign investment in Mexico. He also encouraged the construction of factories in Mexico City. This resulted in the rise of an urban proletariat and the influx of foreign (principally United States) capital.
The growing influence of U.S. businessmen, already a sore point in a Mexico that had lost much land to the United States, was a constant problem for Díaz. His modernisation program was also at odds with the owners of the large plantations haciendas) that had spread across much of Mexico. These rich plantation owners wanted to maintain their existing feudal system (peonage), and were reluctant to transform into the capitalist economy Díaz was pushing towards because it meant competing in a global market and contending with the monetary influence of businessmen from the United States.
Though he wished to modernise the country, Díaz by no means opposed the existence of the haciendas, and in fact supported them strongly throughout his rule. He appointed sympathetic governors and allowed the plantation owners to proceed with a slow campaign of encroachment onto collectively-owned village land, and enforced such theft through his well-equipped rural police (rurales).
Collapse of the Regime
In a 1908 interview with the U.S. journalist Creelman, Díaz stated that Mexico was ready for democracy and elections and that he would step down and allow other candidates to compete for the presidency. Francisco I. Madero answered the call for candidates. Díaz, however, did not approve of Madero and had him gaoled on election day in 1910.
The election, however, went ahead. Madero had gathered much popular support, but when the official results were announced by the government, Díaz was proclaimed to have been reelected almost unanimously, with Madero gathering only a minuscule number of votes. This undisputable case of massive electoral fraud aroused widespread anger. Madero called for revolt against Díaz, and the Mexican Revolution began. Díaz was forced from office and fled the country for France in 1911.
In 1915, Díaz died in exile in Paris; he is buried there in the Cimetière du Montparnasse.
Quotations
* Díaz is usually credited with the saying, "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!"
* Refering to his policy of coopting political opponents, Díaz reportedly said, "a dog with a bone neither barks nor bites" or "a dog with a bone in its mouth neither steals or kills."
* As he headed for exile in May 1911 following the revolt by Francisco Madero, Díaz reportedly remarked, "Madero has unleashed a tiger; let’s see if he can control him."
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References
Garner's revisionist biography is the current standard in the field.
* Porfirio Diaz, by Paul Garner (2001).
* Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution, by John Mason Hart (1989).
* The Mexican Revolution, by Alan Knight (1986).
* Juárez and Díaz: Machine Politics in Mexico, by Laurens Ballard Perry (1978).
* The Age of Porfirio Diaz: Selected Readings, by Carlos Gil (1977).
* Mexican Revolution: Genesis Under Madero, by Charles C. Cumberland (1974).
* The United States Versus Porfirio Díaz, by Daniel Cosío Villegas, trans. by Nettie Lee Benson (1963).
* Porfirio Diaz, Dictator of Mexico, by Carleton Beals (1932). * Díaz, by David Hanney (1917).
* Porfirio Diaz, president of Mexico, the master builder of a great commonwealth, by Jose Francisco Godoy (1910).
* Life of Porfirio Diaz, by Hubert Howe Bancroft (1885).
Preceded by:
Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada President of Mexico
1876–1880 Succeeded by:
Manuel González
Preceded by:
Manuel González President of Mexico
1884–1911 Succeeded by:
Francisco León de la Barra
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