|
The Porfirian Age – La Era Porfiriata 1876-1910 |
|
Porfirio Díaz was born September 15, 1830 in the city of Oaxaca, the son of Faustino Díaz and Petrona Mori de Díaz. His father died of cholera when he was only two years old, and most of his childhood was spent in working as an apprentice iron worker, shoe maker and carpenter. At age 13, he entered the Semenario Conciliar de Oaxaca. His mother desired that he study for the priesthood. With the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846, young Díaz left his studies and joined a local battalion, organized to protect Oaxaca from the invading Yankees. |
|
He returned to his studies following the Jalisco Revolution of 1852 and studied law. He was called away again from his studies in 1854, by the rebellion of General Juan Álvarez against the government of General Antonio López de Santa Anna. He saw his first combat that year. Having performed with distinction, he was commissioned Captain of the Oaxaca National Guard. In 1855, he began his political career by serving as Jefe Politico (Political Chief) of Ixtlán, Oaxaca. Over the next six years he proved himself both an effective politician and soldier, and in 1861 he was promoted to Brigadier General.
The years of constant warfare had left Mexico destitute, and in July 1861, President Benito Juárez was forced to suspend payment on foreign debt. France, Spain and Great Britain mounted an invasion of Mexico to secure their debt. Without money or an army, President Juárez reluctantly signed the Treaty of Soledad, which committed Mexico to pay its foreign debt. Britain and Spain withdrew their troops, but France had no intention of honoring the treaty and left its army in place. Emperor Napoleon III of France wanted to establish a Mexican Empire under the leadership of Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria, brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Josef. Juárez was powerless to oppose them, but led a lengthy guerrilla war against the French Army in Mexico. Díaz served with distinction at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, a date which is still celebrated today as Cinco de Mayo. At the Battle of Orizaba, in the following month, he received the Medal of Honor for gallantry. In 1863, he was promoted to Division General by President Benito Juárez. As the war against the French ground on, Juárez succeeded in organizing a nation army. In June 1867, Maximilian’s Mexican Empire came to an inglorious end. The French Army was withdrawn, and Maximilian was captured and executed by firing squad.
In 1870, General Díaz was elected to the Congress of the Union. Dissatisfied with the conduct of elections in 1871, he rebelled against the Juárez government, but was defeated and forced into exile. Upon President Juárez’ death in July 1872, Díaz returned to Mexico. He bided his time and in January 1876, he proclaimed the Plan de Tuxtepec and rose against the government of Juárez’ successor, President Lerdo de Tejada. His revolution succeeded, and in November 1876, Díaz assumed the presidential powers.
Mexico was a fiscal disaster. Silver and gold coinage from 1876 until 1880 was miniscule compared to previous output. The major thrust of Díaz’ administration would be to gain fiscal stability and solvency for Mexico. He invited foreign investment and business interests to participate in the modernization of Mexico. Roads were improved, telegraph lines strung, and railroads built throughout the nation. Industrial complexes began to appear — textile mills, sugar mills, smelters and refineries. Flood control and irrigation projects were completed all over the country. With the exception of an occassional Indian uprising, civil insurection, and labor difficulties, Mexico was at peace.
1910 was an auspicious year for Mexico. It was the 100th anniversary of the beginning of her War for Independence from Spain and the eightieth birthday of Presidente General don Porfirio Díaz. In addition, a presidential election was scheduled in June, in which the aging hero of the Battle of Puebla would run for his seventh term.
The hallmark of Don Porfirio’s reign had been peace – the Pax Porfiriana. Mexico had been at peace for more than thirty years – something that had never happened before in her long and turbulent history. The keystone to the Pax Porfiriana was order. The federal army, known as the federales, was a modern army of some 30,000 officers and men, the majority loyal to Díaz. Their mission was to defend the country from outside invasion and to quell major disturbances within. Being a modern army, the federales were tied to the rail system for both transport and supply. Operations in the hinterlands (which constituted much of the country) were difficult to impossible for a modern army. To control the wilder parts of the country, Díaz established the Rural Mounted Corps, known as the rurales. An arm of the federal government, the rurales patrolled and kept the peace in rural Mexico. Although these two institutions provided the president with the force needed to control the country, his most powerful tool was the system of patronage that he had established over the years. By 1910, every federal officer to the lowest level owed his position, directly or indirectly, to don Porfirio. He had also accomplished the same feat on the political side. The governor of each state and president of each municipality served at the pleasure of their patron. To insure that the 300 plus municipalities of Mexico adhered to the programs of President Díaz, each was “blessed” with a Jefe Politico (Political Chief) directly responsible to the president. Porfirio Díaz was the patrón of all Mexico. This system of patronage did as much to insure the peace as did the federales and rurales.
Díaz’ improvements had come at an unacceptable cost to his own people. Economic advantage was vested the Mexican upper class and foreign investors. The Mexican working poor, the campesinos and peones, did not benefit from Díaz’ patronage. Land was taken from them to provide railroad rights-of-way and tillable acreage for the haciendas. Their water rights were overturned to support the growing agricultural business of Mexico. Large corporate interests displaced small ranchers and miners.
The traditional peasant leaders, caciques and caudillos, were the only group that managed to retain power outside of Díaz‘ patronage. The word cacique indicated a political “boss“, while caudillo referred to an armed social/political leader. The importance of these leaders cannot be overstressed. Mexican society was sharply divided by ethnic heritage. Mexicans of pure Spanish descent, the criollos, formed the highest layer on the social scale. Those of mixed heritage, the mestizos, formed sub-layers, the standing of which was largely based on the lightness of their complexion (the lighter, the better). Mexicans of pure Indian descent, the indios, were lowest on the scale, along with foreign persons of color (Negroes and Asians). The lower on the scale one stood, the more one needed the power and influence of a local cacique or caudillo for protection. The Díaz government had reached accommodation with many of the caciques and caudillos, who were thus able to exert some restraining influence on government programs that were detrimental to local interests, and on the enforcement efforts of the rurales. Assisting the peasant leaders in the protection of their people and the enforcement of their decisions were the cabecillas, literally “little heads”. Leaders of small armed (and usually mounted) peasant bands under the direction of the local leader, they enforced the will of the cacique or caudillo in their area of influence.
The Republic of Mexico existed primarily in its capital, Mexico City. Outside of the city, Mexico was an aggregation of patrias chicas, literally “little fatherlands”. The Mexican peasant was vitally interested in his patria chica, but had only a passing interest in what the federal government was doing. His primary loyalty was to his family, to his patria chica and to his local leader.
Although the economy of Mexico seemed stable in 1910, its monetary system was not. Decreasing silver prices over the previous thirty years had forced a series of monetary revisions. The Coinage Reform Act of 1905 had placed the country on the gold standard and given the sole responsibility for the nation’s coinage to the ancient Casa de Moneda, the mint at Mexico City. Gold coinage had been tied to silver at a ratio of 16 to 1 (16 ounces of silver was equal in value to 1 ounce of gold). The long slide in silver prices, from the 1870’s to the 1900’s, had pushed the ratio to more than 20 to 1. As a result, gold coins had disappeared from circulation as fast as they were produced. Gold coinage was suspended in 1910. The circulating coinage was sufficient for the regular conduct of business and from 1910 through 1912, the Casa de Moneda produced silver coinage in denominations of 10, 20, and 50 centavos, and 1 peso, and base metal coins in denominations of 1 and 5 centavos. |
|
Standard Obverse |
|
Base metal issues (1, 5, and 5 centavos) |
|
Silver issues (10, 20, and 50 centavos; 1 peso) |
|
Mexico had no national paper money. At the turn of the Twentieth Century, twenty-four federally chartered banks throughout the country were authorized to provide circulating paper. Their charters required that they hold metallic assets equal to at least 50 percent of the face value of the notes that they issued. Two large banks in Mexico City had special provisions in their charters that allowed their paper to serve as a sort of “national” paper money. With branch banks in a number of states, the paper of the Banco de Londres y México (Bank of London and Mexico), and the Banco Nacional de México (National Bank of Mexico), provided this circulating medium. |
|
COINAGE |
|
PAPER MONEY |
|
Even with the paper of the Banco de Londres y México and Banco Nacional de México, the states depended largely on private federally chartered state banks to fulfill the need for paper money. Many of these institutions were quite small and some either declined to issue notes or issued them in small numbers in accordance with the requirements of their charter. Their notes circulated only within the state of issue and immediately adjacent areas. A few of the state banks were quite large and made extensive issues. The Banco Minero (Miner’s Bank) of Ciudad Chihuahua was one such. |
|
The Banco Oriental de México (Eastern Bank of Mexico) at Ciudad Puebla was another. |
|
In spite of Mexico’s long period of peace, and prosperity for her upper classes, the poor of Mexico were growing ever more weary of Díaz’ leadership. The real earning power of the average campesino had decreased to almost half of what it had been immediately following the War for Independence which ended in 1820. Don Porfirio’s liberal use of the rurales and the jefes politicos, both of which were rightfully hated by the poor, made it virtually impossible for them to rise in income or status. During the presidential campaign of 1910, the dissatisfaction of the campesinos became apparent. Opposition candidates were making heavy inroads into Díaz’ political base. In May 1910, he arrested and jailed some 60,000 political opponents, including Francisco I. Madero, his most successful adversary. Having pre-arranged the result, Díaz won the presidential election of June 1910 by a landslide. His re-election was met with dismay in the countryside, and with open rebellion in several places. Madero remained in prison, but in October 1910, he made his escape and fled to San Antonio, Texas. There he issued his manifesto for revolution, calling on the Mexican people to take up arms against the dictator on November 20, 1910. |