The Mexican Revolution Part 1

In November of 1876, General Porfirio Díaz seized power in Mexico. For the next 34 years, he dominated politics in that country, and the period of his rule was called the Porfiriato.

In 1876, Mexico was a troubled and divided country. Its economy had been devastated by ten years of civil war and foreign intervention (1857-1867). Banditry was endemic in many areas, and in the various states of the Mexican Republic, restless and ambitious military chiefs were constantly in a state of revolt. Mexican society was characterized by deep social divisions involving race, religion and the ownership of land.

Díaz energetically set out to solve these problems, or at least minimize them so that Mexico's future as a nation could be assured. If divisive social issues persisted, so would the revolts and disorder.

The most serious of the major social divisions was race. In 1876 there were three main racial groups in Mexican society: the creoles (persons of pure or mostly pure European descent), the mestizos (persons of mixed European and Indian blood), and the Indians.

Of the three main racial groups, the creoles were the smallest in number, but the most influential. They controlled much of the wealth of Mexico, and wanted to keep it that way. As a group, they were very class-conscious and generally politically conservative. To conciliate this group, Díaz left their land holdings undisturbed, granted them special concessions to protect and increase their wealth, and gave them positions of honor (but little power) in the government.

In 1876 the mestizos made up about half of the population of Mexico. As a group, they were ambitious, ardently nationalistic, and resentful of their treatment as inferiors by the creole class. To stabilize this group, Díaz co-opted their leadership by carefully choosing and placing mestizos in positions of power and influence. Mestizos held almost all of the important, mid-level, and lower-level military and civil positions in the government during the Porfiriato. Díaz also created a substantial bureaucracy to administer Mexico, and staffed it with reasonably well-paid mestizo leaders. The government also subsidized most of Mexico's newspapers and journalists.

The Indians of Mexico constituted about 35 percent of the population of Mexico in 1876. As a racial group, they were deeply fragmented, and consisted of a large number of tribes which had very little in common. They spoke many different languages, and had different cultural backgrounds. Some were descended from the great civilizations of Mexico and worked the fields, while others were nomadic and comparatively barbarous. Díaz did not attempt to conciliate this group. Attempts at revolt, such as the Mayan Caste War in Yucatán (1857-1900), the Yaqui War (1885-1909) and the War against the Mayos of Sonora, were ruthlessly suppressed. In a number of cases, rebellious Indians were enslaved and transported out of their homelands for a lifetime of forced labor.

Of the divisive cultural tendencies which existed in Mexico in 1876, the two most important were religion and land ownership.

One of the main issues in the Mexican civil war of 1857-1861 (The War of the Reform) and the French Intervention of 1862-1867 was the relationship between church and state. The Constitution of 1857 and the laws of the Reform period attempted to sharply limit the power and influence of the Roman Catholic Church. To neutralize this issue, Díaz left the anti-clerical laws in place, but didn't enforce them.

Land ownership was an extremely divisive issue in Mexican society in 1876, and one which could not be decisively resolved without resort to systematic violence. Mexico was a predominately agricultural country with a growing population, but the most productive agricultural lands were held by a relatively small number of creole families and by the Church.

Before Mexico gained its independence, much of the remaining land was held in community ownership (ejidos) by various Indian tribes. After independence, the creole-dominated government made a concerted effort to break up the ejidos so that the lands could be acquired by privileged members of the creole and mestizo classes.

The leaders of the Reform movement of 1857 had a similar view of ejidos, which they considered a backwards social institution. In 1856 a Reform law prohibited land ownership by civil or religious corporations, and the ejido community land was redistributed to individuals. The result was to accelerate the concentration of land ownership in the hands of a relatively few wealthy families.

Haciendas -- sprawling ranches and farms -- had been a feature of Mexican society since the days of the Conquistadors, but during the Porfiriato the hacienda system took on a new importance as a social institution. The Indians, dispossessed of their lands and livelihoods by the Reform laws, had to work on the haciendas under conditions akin to medieval serfdom or slavery. Since Díaz had made a policy decision to leave the creole proprietors (hacendados) undisturbed in their ownership and administration of these great holdings of land, he made no real effort to curb abusive practices.

Land reform was a very important issue because Mexico had a predominantly rural population, and only a fraction of Mexican citizens owned their own land. Even by 1910, only 1/5 of the population lived in towns and cities with a population of 5,000 or more. As one authority put it, "for every hundred rural workers, there were perhaps a dozen small farmers and a dozen artisans, four factory operatives (at least one a woman), three miners, one ranchero, and a quarter of one percent of a hacendado." (Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution, vol. 1: Porfirians, Liberals and Peasants (1986), p. 79.)

Díaz maintained order in Mexico with a strong hand. When he took power in 1876, many areas of the countryside were overrun with bandits and plagued by seemingly endless military attempts at national and regional coups d'état. Díaz established a mounted rural police force (rurales), many of whom were former bandits recruited by pardons and good pay, to suppress this element of society. This approach proved hugely successful. The rurales hunted down outlaws like wolves. The bandits who didn't surrender to the rurales were killed in gun battles, and many of those who did surrender were killed "while attempting to escape" (ley fuga). As for Mexico's formerly turbulent Army, rebellious military leaders in outlying states were arrested, transported to Mexico City, and imprisoned for lengthy terms.

Having re-established order, Díaz was in a position to stabilize Mexico's economy. His plan was to encourage economic development to assure national prosperity and controlled social progress. With the help of his advisors, Díaz established a sound currency, and solicited foreign investments. In this, Díaz was largely successful. Foreign capital built Mexico's railway system, brought electricity and streetcars to the cities and larger towns, created modern port facilities, and developed mining and agricultural resources.

Díaz ruled Mexico by the principle of self-interest, embodied in the motto “bread or bludgeon” (pan o palo). He made sure that supporters of his regime were rewarded. He had no mercy for bandits, and very little for his political opponents. To insure control, he reserved all important government decisions and most other decisions for himself. He hand-picked the governors of the Mexican states, and carefully watched their activities through a system of political bosses (jefes políticos) whom he also appointed, and who had the power to intervene in matters involving municipal and state government.

The Porfiriato system of administration was very strong, but in the long run its weaknesses proved to be fatal. As he grew older, Díaz became increasingly remote, and took the stability of his system for granted. As a result, he failed to solve the Mexican social problems which he chosen to postpone or ignore. Worse, in the later years of his administration his governmental policies aggravated the more serious of these problems.

The cornerstone of the Díaz system was its ability to reward those who participated or acquiesced in his rule. In 1876, this could be done with regular wages and general economic stability. Certainly, the wages paid to most Mexican workers did not change much during the entire nineteenth century -- wages, for example, were steady at about 25 centavos a day from the early 1800s through 1908. Starting in the early 1890s, prices of food and other essential commodities in Mexico began to increase. Between 1893 and 1906, for example, the price of corn increased by 50 percent. Without a matching increase in wages, the result was a decline in the standard of living for the poor and lower middle classes. Some economists have estimated that a day's work in Mexico would only purchase 1/3 to 1/4 as much in 1908 as it would in 1804.

The rising food prices were related to another very serious issue which Díaz had ignored -- land reform. The policies of the Díaz administration encouraged, rather than inhibited, centralized ownership of the land. As hacendados acquired more and more of the formerly communal ejido property (often by chicanery and fraud), they changed the crops from corn and beans to the more profitable crops of cotton, tobacco, maguey and henequen for export. By 1910, it is estimated that 1 percent of the families in Mexico owned or controlled about 85 percent of the arable land.

Finally, the Díaz administration began to debase the Mexican coinage, which of course cut its purchasing power. In 1870 the Mexican silver dollar was valued at par with the US silver dollar, but during the administration of Manuel González (1880-1884), coins made of nickel were introduced. By 1890 the Mexican dollar had only 87 percent of the silver of its US counterpart, and in 1894 the Mexican dollar had only 51 percent of the silver weight of a United States dollar. This effectively devalued the life savings of the Mexican middle class in proportion.

During this same time period Díaz began to surround himself with creole advisors (the científicos) and their foreign capitalist friends. These developments and the worsening economic situation left many mestizos with the impression that Díaz had turned his back on them, and that Mexico was being sold out to or robbed by foreign interests.

Mestizo intellectuals and journalists were the first to express public discontent with the Porfiriato system. Beginning in about 1900, various radical factions -- socialists, anarchists, and syndicalists -- began publishing newspapers critical of the Díaz regime. Since at that time only about 14 percent of the population of Mexico was literate, these periodicals were influential only among the middle and upper classes.

One of the most influential anti-Díaz groups called itself Regeneration (Regeneración), and had a journal of the same name, published by Ricardo Flores Magón. Camilo Arriaga, an engineer working in San Luis Potosí, organized the Regeneration political party, which was dedicated to restoring the liberal political ideals of Benito Juárez. Following national convention of liberal clubs in 1901 and 1902, the Díaz regime arrested as many of their leaders as could be caught, and suppressed their publication.

Following their release, the radicals emigrated to the United States and Canada, where they continued their political and publishing activities, and in 1905 formed the Mexican Liberal Party. In 1906 these activists produced and published a manifesto (Plan del Partido Liberal) calling for, among other things, guarantees of civil liberties, universal public education, land reform, limitations on the power and influence of the Church, a guaranteed minimum wage, the abolition of child labor, the seizure of illegally acquired wealth, and a one term limit for presidents of Mexico. Many of the reforms proposed by this group were later incorporated into the Mexican Constitution of 1917.

These ideas gained further acceptance because of events. The manifesto was published immediately after the Díaz administration used federal troops to break a strike in the Cananea copper mines of Sonora in June, 1906 and shortly before a strike at Río Blanco in the textile-producing regions of Veracruz in January of 1907. Although no further serious labor troubles occurred during the remainder of the Díaz regime, many thoughtful Mexican were shocked and horrified by the labor violence, and this reaction added to the popular discontent.

The presidential term of the aging Porfirio Díaz was due to expire in 1910. At the beginning of 1908, Díaz gave an interview to an American journalist, James Creelman, in which the Mexican president said, "Regardless of the feelings and opinions of my friends and supporters, I am determined to retire at the end of my present term, and I will not accept re-election. I will then be eighty years old." The interview was published by Pearson's Magazine in the United States on February 17, 1908, and El Imparcial published a translation in Mexico on March 3.

This interview got the Mexican public talking and thinking about a successor to Díaz, although about three months after the interview was published in Mexico, Díaz changed his mind and announced that he would run again in 1910. Because of Díaz's age, the vice-presidential election became a serious issue, since there was a strong possibility that Díaz might die in office. Díaz picked Ramón Corral as his choice, but there was another candidate for the position of vice-president.

This was General Bernardo Reyes, governor of the state of Nuevo Léon. Reyes had initiated a workmen's compensation law in Nuevo Léon, and had opposed the Científico faction supporting Díaz. Although Reyes personally had been a long-time supporter of Díaz, he was generally thought to be progressive.

Reyes was quite popular as a candidate among the anti-Díaz public, but in the middle of the election Reyes announced that he unconditionally supported Ramón Corral, his opponent, for vice-president. He withdrew to his estate in southern Nuevo Léon and did not come out even after a disastrous flood swept the city of Monterrey, the state capitol. Reyes then left Mexico on a diplomatic mission to Europe for Díaz, as a kind of political exile. The general consensus was that Reyes had been intimidated by Díaz, and was through as a political force in Mexico.

During this time Francisco I. Madero of Coahuila, an intellectual from one of the richest families in Mexico, set out to organize an anti-Díaz opposition political party. He was almost unknown to the public, but had many journalists as friends. Until about 1907 Madero was allied with and a financial supporter of the Regeneration movement, but dropped the relationship when he became alarmed at their radicalism.

In 1909 Madero authored a campaign book called "The Presidential Succession in 1910" (La sucesión presidencial en 1910), setting forth his ideas about power and corruption throughout Mexican history, and urging a return to democratic practices. The book was well-received, and Madero's evident sincerity and compassion influenced a large number of intellectuals who opposed the Díaz regime. Madero and his journalist friends then formed the Anti-Reelection Central (Central Antireelecionista de México) in 1909 to carry forth their ideas. Their slogan was "Effective Suffrage and No Re-Election."

After General Reyes' abrupt withdrawal from the vice-presidential race, many of his supporters joined Madero's movement. Shortly thereafter Mexican police raided Madero's newspaper, El Anti-Reeleccionista, and closed it. At that point, the anti-Díaz movement began to disintegrate. Madero doggedly continued his campaign against the Díaz regime, visiting 15 states of Mexico and giving hundreds of speeches. By his efforts, Madero re-established the Anti-Reelection alliance. In April, 1910, the National Anti-Reelection Party (Partido Nacional Antireeleccionista) and the Nationalist Democratic Party (Partido Nacionalista Democrático) held a joint convention in which Madero was nominated to run for president against Díaz. His running mate for vice-president was Dr. Francisco Vázquez Gómez.

During the campaign, the corrupt state governors of the Díaz regime frequently tried to prevent Madero from speaking, and they disrupted anti-Díaz demonstrations and meetings. On June 14, 1910, just before the election, Madero was arrested at San Luis Potosí and charged with inciting a rebellion. The election took place on June 26, 1910, while Madero was still in jail. Observers noted numerous and indisputable instances of fraud at the polls.

The Mexican electoral college declared Díaz and Corral the victors on July 10, and sent the results to the Mexican Congress for certification. The leaders of Madero's National Anti-Reelection Party presented Congress with a petition on September 1 showing multiple examples of vote fraud in 19 states, and asking that the election results be set aside. The Mexican Congress denied the request on September 27, 1910, and declared Díaz and Corral elected. On October 6, 1910 Madero escaped (he had been released on bail July 22) across the border to the United States at Nuevo Laredo, determined to start an armed revolt.

For the rest of October, 1910, Madero worked on a manifesto. It was finally completed in early November, but backdated to October 5 -- the last day Madero was in Mexico -- to avoid international complications. The manifesto declared the Mexican elections of 1910 null and void, and the offices of President and Vice-President of Mexico vacant. Madero proclaimed himself provisional president of the Mexican republic, and called for a general uprising against the Díaz regime. Madero and his followers crossed over the Rio Grande border into Mexico during the night of November 19/20, 1910, and issued the manifesto, called the Plan of San Luis Potosí, on November 20, 1910.

Perhaps the first casualty of Madero's uprising was Aquiles Serdán, the Anti-Reelection leader in Puebla. He had amassed a stockpile of weapons to arm the followers of Madero (Maderistas) before the planned revolt on November 20. The police raided his home on November 18, killing Serdán and most of his family.

The initial events of the uprising were not promising. When Madero crossed the Rio Grande, he expected to find armed supporters to help him. Few supporters showed up, and the arms and ammunition Madero had purchased hadn't arrived yet. Madero was forced to return to the United States. In Mexico, there were some desultory skirmishes, and at first, the uprising appeared to have fizzled.

In the state of Chihuahua, however, Madero supporter Pascual Orozco captured the town of Guerrero by the end of the November. Francisco "Pancho" Villa (Doroteo Arango), also announced his support for Madero and captured the town of San Andrés. In the state of Sonora, José María Maytorena organized a series of small revolutionary bands which soon infested the area. From the southern Mexican state of Morelos, Emiliano Zapata sent a delegate to Madero to discuss cooperation in fighting the Díaz regime.

By January, 1911, Madero's forces menaced Ciudad Juaréz. Federal reinforcements narrowly averted the capture of the city by Maderista insurgents in early February. On March 6, 1911, Maderista troops fought a pitched battle at Casas Grandes and, although they were defeated, the Mexican Army made no attempt to follow up the battle and crush the rebel forces.

Even better for Madero's cause, US President William Howard Taft lost confidence in the ability of the Díaz forces to protect lives and property along the Texas frontier. On March 6, President Taft ordered US Army troops to mass on the border, and at the same time a powerful US Navy force held maneuvers off the Pacific coast of Mexico. This gave many Mexicans the impression that the United States favored Madero and his revolution. Many others saw it as a sign that, at a minimum, the United States believed the Díaz regime was on the verge of collapse.

The reaction of the Díaz administration was two-faced. On March 17, 1911 Díaz suspended constitutional guarantees and established summary proceedings for persons caught interfering with railroads, telegraph facilities, power plants and the property of large ranches and farms (haciendas). The administration also began secret peace negotiations with Madero, which were conducted in New York by José Yves Limantour (Mexican Minister of Finance) on behalf of Díaz, and Dr. Francisco Vázquez Gómez (Madero's vice-presidential running mate in 1910) on behalf of the Anti-Reelection forces.

The spreading insurrection seriously alarmed Díaz's advisors. President Díaz offered major concessions to the Anti-Reelection forces to stay in power, but Madero insisted on his resignation. In late March, 1911, Díaz replaced all of the members of his cabinet, except Limantour and Manuel González Cosió (Minister of War and Marine), with able and honest (though not necessarily liberal) men. In a further effort to defuse the revolutionary movement, Díaz addressed the Mexican Congress on April 1, 1911, proposing a series of reforms, but these steps were seen by the public as signs of weakness.

In the meantime, rebel forces began a military offensive. On March 10 in the state of Morelos, Emiliano Zapata joined the revolution and attracted so many followers that he posed a military threat before the end of the month. In Mexico City, a group of young officers attempted an unsuccessful coup d'état on March 27 (Complot de Tacubaya). Ambrosio and Romulo Figueroa, leading Maderista troops in the state of Guerrero, captured Chilapa on March 25 and took the port of Acapulco on April 15. In late March, Maderista generals Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa moved to cut off the city of Chihuahua, which was saved only by reinforcements taken from the now-weakened federal garrison at Ciudad Juaréz. In March and April, 1911, rebel forces took the initiative in the states of Veracruz, Zacatecas and Sonora, and federal commanders reported that Durango, Jalapa, Tehuacán, Saltillo, Torreón and Culiacán were in danger of falling to the insurgents.

On April 13, rebel forces captured the town of Agua Prieta, just across the border from Douglas, Arizona, but were forced to withdraw because of a lack of ammunition. The Maderista troops turned to the border community of Ciudad Juaréz, and demanded the surrender of that city on April 19. General Juan J. Navarro, the federal garrison commander, refused, and Madero's men put the city under siege. A series of cease fires followed, pending the results of the Díaz-Madero negotiations, but on May 8, the Maderistas assaulted the city, and captured Ciudad Juaréz on May 10, 1911.

New recruits hastened to join Madero's forces, giving him an estimated total of 70,000 men. The insurgents began offensives in the states of Jalisco, Querétaro, Nuevo Léon, Zacatecas, Veracruz, Chiapas and Yucatán. By May 24, the rebels held the cities of Ciudad Juaréz and Casas Grandes (Chihuahua), Torreón and Saltillo (Coahuila), Colima (Colima), Pachuca (Hidalgo), Acapulco, Iguala and Chilpancingo (Guerrero), Tehuacán and San Juan de los Llanos (Puebla), Nogales, Agua Prieta, Hermosillo, Guaymas, Alamos and Naco (Sonora), Tlaxcala (Tlaxcala), Cuautla, Cuernavaca and Jonacatepec (Morelos), and Culiacán (Sinaloa).

The capture of Ciudad Juaréz sealed the fate of the Díaz regime. On May 17 Díaz announced that both he and his vice-president, Ramón Corral, would resign on or before the end of the month, and on May 21, Madero and the representatives of Díaz signed an agreement ending the insurrection. It provided that until elections could be held, Francisco Léon de la Barra, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, would serve as interim president of Mexico. Díaz resigned May 25, 1911 and went into exile.

The first phase of the Mexican Revolution -- the overthrow of Porfirio Díaz -- had ended. The revolution, however, would go on for nine more years.

Porfirio Díaz as a young general, after the victory over the French at Puebla. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

The Rurales, the mounted rural police of Mexico. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

Heraclio Bernal Zazueta, "the Sunbeam of Sinaloa" ["el Rayo de Sinaloa"] (June 28, 1855-January 5, 1888). (Archivo Porfirio Díaz, Universidad Iberoamericana) [click on image to enlarge]. A well-known social bandit or brigand in the Robin Hood tradition, Bernal robbed silver ore shipments, moneylenders, North Americans, mine owners, and those with a reputation for oppression, and was said to give some of his proceeds to the poor. He primarily operated along the mountain roads in the state of Sinaloa. In 1885 he issued the Plan de la Rastra at San Ignacio, calling for the re-establishment of the constitution of 1857, an effective right to vote, municipal independence and other reforms. In 1887 he proclaimed similar principles in the Plan of Conitaca, in which he called for a revolt against the Díaz regime. With a reward of 10,000 pesos offered for his capture or death, Bernal was killed in a battle with federal army troops on January 5, 1888. Shortly after his death, he was the subject of several popular heroic ballads and songs, and a number of motion pictures have been made about his life and career.

A maguey field. (Library of Congress) [click on image to enlarge]. The maguey cactus is used for the production of tequila, mezcal, pulque (cactus beer), and rope. During the Porfiriato, as land ownership became more and more concentrated in the hands of a few hacendado families the acreage was increasingly devoted to agricultural products for export, such as the rope made from maguey fibers, rather than edible foodstuffs. Between 1877 and 1910, the production of basic food products such as corn, beans and chiles remained nearly static, but the population of Mexico was growing at 1.4 percent each year. The result was a rise in food prices for the average Mexican citizen, with no offsetting increase in wages.

Manuel González [Manuel del Refugio González Flores] (1833-1893), loyal friend of Díaz and President of Mexico in 1880-1884. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

Modern factory at Monterrey. (Patrimonio Universitario, UNAM) [click on image to enlarge]. During the Porfiriato, foreign investments in Mexican industry and commerce rose from less than 100 million pesos to 3.4 billion pesos.

The Mexican railway system, built with the money of foreign investors. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge]. By 1910, there were 19,000 kilometers of railway track in Mexico, creating the basis for an enlarged national economy. For hacienda owners, the railroads eliminated their dependence upon local markets and gave them access to Mexico's port cities and foreign markets. During the Porfiriato, Mexican agricultural exports increased by 200 percent.

The Mexican railway system in the time of President Díaz (excluding southern Mexico and Yucatán). [click on image to enlarge].

Ricardo Flores Magón (1871-1922), founder of the Regeneration movement. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

President Díaz in later years. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

Guards at the Cananea copper mines, 1906. (Library of Congress) [click on image to enlarge].

Manuel Diéguez [Manuel Macario Diéguez Lara] (1874-1924, leader of the Cananea strike. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

Francisco I. Madero Jr. [Francisco I. Madero González] (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

Madero's Anti-Reelection booklet, The Presidential Succession in 1910. [click on image to enlarge].

Anti-Reelection meeting, 1910. (Centro de Estudios de Historia de México Condumex) [click on image to enlarge].

Paulino Martínez (?-1914) [shown here facing camera] (Archivo Magaña, Centro de Estudios sobre la Universidad) [click on image to enlarge]. In this photograph the influential journalist chats with villista General Calixto Contreras (second from left) and Manuel Robles at Cuernavaca in November of 1914. Martínez, who had opposed the Díaz regime since 1890 and been imprisoned for his beliefs, edited the weekly newspaper La Voz de Juárez (after 1909, El Chinaco). He was a friend and advisor to Francisco Madero, and served on the executive committee of the Anti-Reelection Center during the presidential campaign of 1910. In 1911 Martínez split with the interim revolutionary government over the issue of land reform. Martínez was the primary author of the Plan of Tacubaya (October 31, 1911), which demanded that the government move immediately to fulfill its promises to redistribute land. In October of 1914 Zapata appointed Martínez president of the commission of the Army of Liberation of the South, to serve as a delegate to the convention at Aguascalientes. A month after this photograph was taken in November, 1914 Martínez was arrested, sentenced to death by a villista court at Mexico City, and executed December 13, 1914.

José Vasconcelos, editor of El Anti-Reeleccionista. [click on image to enlarge].

Dr. Francisco Vázquez Gómez and Francisco Madero at the Anti-Reelection Convention, April 1910. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

Madero campaigning from the back of a railroad car, 1910. (Archivo General de la Nación) [click on image to enlarge].

President Díaz and Vice-President Corral. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

Plan Of San Luis Potosí

Peoples, in their constant efforts for the triumph of the ideal of liberty and justice, are forced, at precise historical moments, to make their greatest sacrifices.

Our beloved country has reached one of those moments. A force of tyranny which we Mexicans were not accustomed to suffer after we won our independence oppresses us in such a manner that it has become intolerable. In exchange for that tyranny we are offered peace, but peace full of shame for the Mexican nation, because its basis is not law, but force; because its object is not the aggrandizement and prosperity of the country, but to enrich a small group who, abusing their influence, have converted the public charges into fountains of exclusively personal benefit, unscrupulously exploiting the manner of lucrative concessions and contracts.

The legislative and judicial powers are completely subordinated to the executive; the division of powers, the sovereignty of the States, the liberty of the common councils, and the rights of the citizens exist only in writing in our great charter; but, as a fact, it may almost be said that martial law constantly exists in Mexico; the administration of justice, instead of imparting protection to the weak, merely serves to legalize the plunderings committed by the strong; the judges instead of being the representatives of justice, are the agents of the executive, whose interests they faithfully serve; the chambers of the union have no other will than that of the dictator; the governors of the States are designated by him and they in their turn designate and impose in like manner the municipal authorities.

From this it results that the whole administrative, judicial, and legislative machinery obeys a single will, the caprice of General Porfirio Diaz, who during his long administration has shown that the principal motive that guides him is to maintain himself in power and at any cost.

For many years profound discontent has been felt throughout the Republic, due to such a system of government, but General Diaz with great cunning and perseverance, has succeeded in annihilating all independent elements, so that it was not possible to organize any sort of movement to take from him the power of which he made such bad use. The evil constantly became worse, and the decided eagerness of General Diaz to impose a successor upon the nations in the person of Mr. Ramon Corral carried that evil to its limit and caused many of us Mexicans, although lacking recognized political standing, since it had been impossible to acquire it during the 36 years of dictatorship, to throw ourselves into the struggle to recover the sovereignty of the people and their rights on purely democratic grounds....

In Mexico, as a democratic Republic, the public power can have no other origin nor other basis than the will of the people, and the latter can not be subordinated to formulas to be executed in a fraudulent manner. . . ,

For this reason the Mexican people have protested against the illegality of the last election and, desiring to use successively all the recourses offered by the laws of the Republic, in due form asked for the nullification of the election by the Chamber of Deputies, notwithstanding they recognized no legal origin in said body and knew beforehand that, as its members were not the representatives of the people, they would carry out the will of General Diaz, to whom exclusively they owe their investiture.

In such a state of affairs the people, who are the only sovereign, also protested energetically against the election in imposing manifestations in different parts of the Republic; and if the latter were not general throughout the national territory, It was due to the terrible pressure exercised by the Government, which always quenches in blood any democratic manifestation, as happened in Puebla, Vera Cruz, Tlaxcala, and in other places.

But this violent and illegal system can no longer subsist.

I have very well realized that if the people have designated me as their candidate. for the Presidency it is not because they have had an opportunity to discover in me the qualities of a statesman or of a ruler, but the virility of the patriot determined to sacrifice himself, if need be, to obtain liberty and to help the people free themselves from the odious tyranny that oppresses them.

From the moment I threw myself into the democratic struggle I very well knew that General Diaz would not bow to the will of the nation, and the noble Mexican people, in following me to the polls, also knew perfectly the outrage that awaited them; but in spite of it, the people gave the cause of liberty a numerous contingent of martyrs when they were necessary and with wonderful stoicism went to the polls and received every sort of molestation.

But such conduct was indispensable to show to the whole world that the Mexican people are fit for democracy, that they are thirsty for liberty, and that their present rulers do not measure up to their aspirations.

Besides, the attitude of the people before and during the election, as well as afterwards, shows clearly that they reject with energy the Government of General Diaz and that, if those electoral rights had been respected, I would have been elected for President of the Republic.

Therefore, and in echo of the national will, I declare the late election illegal and, the Republic being accordingly without rulers, provisionally assume the Presidency of the Republic until the people designate their rulers pursuant to the law. In order to attain this end, it is necessary to eject from power the audacious usurpers whose only title of legality involves a scandalous and immoral fraud.

With all honesty I declare that it would be a weakness on my part and treason to the people, who have placed their confidence in me, not to put myself at the front of my fellow citizens, who anxiously call me from all parts of the country, to compel General Diaz by force of arms, to respect the national will.

[From United States Congress, Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Relations, Revolutions in Mexico, 62nd Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), pp. 730-736]

Pascual Orozco, Francisco Madero, and Abraham González. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

Francisco Madero, wounded in the battle of Casas Grandes, March 6, 1911. (Library of Congress) [click on image to enlarge].

Aftermath of the battle of Agua Prieta, April 13, 1911. [click on image to enlarge].

José Garibaldi. (El Paso Public Library) [click on image to enlarge].

General Juan J. Navarro and staff at Ciudad Juárez. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

José Yves Limantour. (Patrimonio Universitario, UNAM) [click on image to enlarge].

Peace conference at Ciudad Juárez, 1911. From left to right, José María Pino Suárez, Francisco Vázquez Gómez, Francisco Madero Sr., Francisco Carbajal. (Library of Congress) [click on image to enlarge].

Madero at Ciudad Juárez, May 5, 1911. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

President Díaz, May 31, 1911. (Hemeroteca Nacional) [click on image to enlarge].

Francisco Léon de la Barra [Francisco Léon De La Barra y Quijano] (1863-1939), interim President of Mexico in 1911. (Patrimonio Universitario, UNAM) [click on image to enlarge].

Previous Feature: The Story of Cinco de Mayo; Related Features: Photo Gallery: Prominent Personalities of the Mexican Revolution 1910-1930; Internet Resources On The Mexican Revolution 1910-1930

Hispanic Heritage:

The Mexican Revolution 1910-1920

Part 1: The Overthrow Of Díaz

by David Thompson

Plan Of San Luis Potosí