Benito Júarez, a Zapotec Indian, emerges from the War of the Reform as the champion of the victorious liberals. One of Júarez’s first acts as president is to suspend payment on all of Mexico’s debts to foreign governments. In an operation spearheaded by France’s Napoleon III, France, Great Britain and Spain intervene to protect their investments in Mexico, occupying Veracruz. The British and Spanish soon withdraw, but Napoleon III sends his troops to occupy Mexico City, forcing Júarez and his government to flee in June 1863. Napoleon III installs Maximilian, archduke of Austria, on the throne of a Mexican Empire.
Under pressure from the United States, which has continued to recognize Júarez as the legitimate leader of Mexico, France withdraws its troops from Mexico. After Mexican troops under General Porfirio Díaz occupy Mexico City, Maximilian is forced to surrender and is executed after a court-martial. Reinstated as president, Júarez immediately causes controversy by proposing further changes to the constitution that would strengthen executive power. In the 1871 elections, he narrowly wins reelection over a slate of candidates including Porfirio Díaz, who leads an unsuccessful revolt in protest. Júarez dies of a heart attack in 1872.
After another revolt–this time successful–against Júarez’s successor Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, Porfirio Díaz takes control of Mexico. Except for one four-year stretch from 1880 to 1884, Díaz will rule essentially as a dictator until 1911. During this period, Mexico undergoes tremendous commercial and economic development, based largely on Díaz’s encouragement of foreign investment in the country. By 1910, most of the largest businesses in Mexico are owned by foreign nationals, mostly American or British. The modernizing reforms made by the Díaz government turn Mexico City into a bustling metropolis, but they largely benefit the country’s upper classes, not its poor majority. The fundamental inequality of Mexico’s political and economic system breeds growing discontent, which will lead to revolution.
Francisco Madero, a landowning lawyer and a member of Mexico’s liberal, educated class, unsuccessfully opposes Díaz in the year’s presidential elections. He also publishes a book calling for free and democratic elections and an end to the Díaz regime. Although fully 90 percent of the Mexican population at the time is illiterate, Madero’s message spreads throughout the country, sparking increasing calls for change, and Madero himself becomes the acknowledged leader of a popular revolution.
November 20, 1910
The Mexican Revolution begins when Madero issues the Plan of San Luis Potosí, promising democracy, federalism, agrarian reform and worker’s rights and declaring war on the Díaz regime. By 1911, Díaz is forced to step aside and Madero is elected president, but conflict and violence continue for the better part of the next decade. Popular leaders like Emiliano Zapata in southern Mexico and Pancho Villa in the north emerge as the champions of the peasant and working class, refusing to submit to presidential authority.
In the wake of a series of bloody riots in the streets of Mexico City in February 1913, Madero is overthrown by a coup led by his own military chief, General Victoriano Huerta. Huerta declares himself dictator and has Madero murdered, but opposition from the supporters of Villa, Zapata and the former Díaz ally (but political moderate) Venustiano Carranza drive Huerta to resign by 1914. Carranza takes power, and Zapata and Villa continue waging war against him. Various invasions by the United States–nervous about their unruly neighbor–further complicates matters, as Carranza struggles to hold power. Government forces led by General Álvaro Obregón finally defeat Villa’s northern guerrilla forces, leaving the rebel leader wounded but alive.
Mexico remains neutral throughout World War I, despite efforts by Germany to enlist the country as an ally. Despite the warring factions in Mexico, Carranza is able to oversee the creation of a new liberal Mexican constitution in 1917. In his efforts to maintain power, however, Carranza grows increasingly reactionary, ordering the ambush and murder of Zapata in 1919. Some of Zapata’s followers refuse to believe their hero is dead, and his legend lives on to inspire many generations of social reformers. The following year, Obregón is overthrown and killed by a group of his more radical generals. They are led by Obregón, who is elected president and faces the task of reforming Mexico after ten years of devastating revolution. By this time, nearly 900,000 Mexicans have emigrated to the United States since 1910, both to escape the violence and to find greater opportunities for work.
After three years, the U.S. recognizes the Obregón government, only after the Mexican leader promises not to seize the holdings of American oil companies in Mexico. In domestic affairs, Obregón puts into place a serious of agrarian reforms, and gave official sanction to organizations of peasants and laborers. He also institutes a sweeping educational reform led by Jose Vasconcelos, enabling the Mexican cultural revolution that begins during this period–including astonishing work by such artists as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, the photographer Tina Modotti, the composer Carlos Chávez and the writers Martín Luis Guzmán and Juan Rulfo–to extend from the richest to the poorest segments of the population. After stepping down in 1924 to make way for another former general, Plutarco Calles, Obregón is reelected in 1928, but is killed this same year by a religious fanatic.