Who was Benito Juárez, and what was La Reforma in Mexico?
Benito Juárez and La Reforma
Benito Juárez y las Leyes de Reforma
1855–15 July 1867. Benito Juárez, born in 1806 to Zapotec parents in a village of Oaxaca and orphaned at three, learned Spanish as a boy and became a lawyer, governor and in 1858…
Where: Mexico, Mexico City
What happened
Benito Juárez, born in 1806 to Zapotec parents in a village of Oaxaca and orphaned at three, learned Spanish as a boy and became a lawyer, governor and in 1858 president of Mexico. The Constitution of 1857 and the Reform Laws he issued from Veracruz in July 1859 nationalised Church property, created civil marriage and a civil registry and separated Church and state. The conservatives fought a three-year war and then invited a French army and an Austrian archduke, Maximilian, to rule as emperor. Juárez kept the republic alive from a carriage in the north; when Maximilian was defeated and shot in 1867 he re-entered the capital on 15 July with words every Mexican knows: 'Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace.'
Say it
Benito Juárez, un indígena zapoteco, fue presidente de México.
Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Indigenous man, was president of Mexico.
Why it matters
La Reforma made Mexico a secular state a century before most of the region, and gave the country its most revered president, an Indigenous man who spoke Zapotec before Spanish. His sentence about 'el respeto al derecho ajeno' is written in gold in the Congress.
Read about it
Connected
- Mexico loses half its territory: the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (2 February 1848)
- Mexico loses half its territory: the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (2 February 1848)
- Cinco de Mayo: the Battle of Puebla (5 May 1862)
- Cinco de Mayo: the Battle of Puebla (5 May 1862)
- The Porfiriato: order, progress and inequality (1876–May 1911)
- The Porfiriato: order, progress and inequality (1876–May 1911)
- The Constitution of 1917 and Article 27 (5 February 1917)
- The Constitution of 1917 and Article 27 (5 February 1917)
- Before: Mexico loses half its territory: the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
- After: Cinco de Mayo: the Battle of Puebla
Sources
- Benito Juárez — INEHRM (Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de las Revoluciones de México)
- Letras de Oro: 'Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz' — Cámara de Diputados, Centro de Documentación