Porfirio Díaz
To borrow from Charles Dickens: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was a period of peace and progress; it was a period of oppression and misery. It was an era of immense change; it was an era of stubborn retrenchment. He was a man of immense vision; he was a man of even greater denial. He was his nation’s savior; he was its merciless tyrant. He brought the nation into the modern age; he brought it into a catastrophic civil war.
The man was Porfirio Díaz, and the 35 years he ruled Mexico (1876 – 1911) are still known as The Porfiriato.
Díaz initially followed a military career, serving with distinction during the Mexican-American War, The War of Reform, and the French Invasion (general Zaragoza reported he’d been “brave and notable” at the Battle of Puebla, Cinco de Mayo). He became a national hero, with presidential aspirations.
Citing the principle of no-reelection, Díaz mounted a futile revolt against President Juárez, but a successful one against Juárez’ successor. Ironically, and quite hypocritically, he would stage sham “reelections” for himself seven times.
Díaz pursued “order and progress.” Using a strategy of “pan o palo” (bread/rewards or stick/punishment), he eliminated all opposition with a combination of bribery, cooptation, coercion, and, if necessary, assassination. Placing his supporters in governorships, in congress, on the courts and in the press, he consolidated all power in the central government, himself.
Thus, like ancient Rome’s Caesar Augustus, Díaz became dictator while maintaining the semblance of a republic; and he ended Mexico’s perennial civil wars, establishing a long period of “Paz Porfiriana,” three decades of peace.
Such stability enabled Díaz to secure massive foreign investment, and suddenly Mexico exploded with essential infrastructure, such as railroads (15,000 miles of track paralleled with modern telegraph lines) and mines (Mexico became the world’s second largest exporter of copper). Mexico City blossomed with lavish theaters, museums and monuments along lush, grand avenues.
There were strings to such fortunes, of course. The United States contributed the most, $70 billion, but ended up controlling 90% of Mexican mines, railroads, oil production, and even land—and pocketed most of the profit. (“Poor Mexico,” Díaz lamented dryly, “so far from God, and so close to the United States.” It would be three decades before Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas challenged such American economic imperialism.)
Díaz accelerated Juárez’ neoliberal land reform, too, expropriating and selling off most communal/indigenous land, introducing modern agricultural techniques, and making Mexico into a major exporter of sugar cane, cotton, mahogany, and henequen.
In short, under Diáz’ leadership, the Mexican economy skyrocketed; as did, unfortunately, the already outrageous disparity between rich and poor. For the most part, only foreign investors and a small, urban Mexican oligarchy benefited. The majority of Mexicans—rural, uneducated, and now landless (more than 9 million Natives were forced off their communal farms)—had no choice but to become exploited laborers, often under debt-peonage, a form of slavery. (Mysterious author B. Traven documented in excruciating detail the brutality Natives in particular endured under this inhuman system.) Los Rurales, the federal police, ruthlessly suppressed any attempted protest, including labor/union strikes.
Meanwhile, apparently oblivious, Díaz toasted his success in Mexico City. Revolution became inevitable.
And then, he precipitated it. At the age of 80, Díaz promised to finally step aside in 1910 and allow free, democratic elections. But, he reneged, and arrested the only other candidate, Francisco Madero. The horror of the Mexican Revolution ensued.
Díaz soon fled to France and died in exile there. The fact that even now Mexico will not bring his body back for proper burial is testimony to the conflicted, torturous legacy Porfirio Díaz left his country.
This is a selection from Ellison’s recently published book, Mexican Streets: Tales of Tragedy and Triumph.
- Streets of Mexico – December 2024 - November 30, 2024
- Streets of Mexico – November 2024 - October 29, 2024
- Streets of Mexico – October 2024 - September 28, 2024
