The Heroes of the Age of Reform
The years following independence were difficult. Between 1822 and 1850, the country endured countless changes in government, many instigated by General Antonio López de Santa Anna, five constitutional conventions, an attempted reconquest by Spain and the loss of much of its northern territory. It was Mexico's good fortune that into this chaos stepped Benito Juarez and Melchor Ocampo. Mexico finally came into its own intellectual inheritance. Liberal ideals were reintroduced and reinvigorated. Inevitably, conflict followed, but when Mexico emerged from this era it had a new constitution that captured much of the spirit of the enlightenment, and it had taken its first meaningful steps toward representative government.
Las Calles Juan Álvarez, B. Juárez, M. Ocampo, Miguel Blanco and I. Zaragoza
The life of Benito Juárez has all the necessary ingredients for a Hollywood movie. He was born in 1806 in the mountains of Oaxaca , a Zapotec Indian. Orphaned as a child, at the age of 12, he walked to the capital city of Oaxaca and apprenticed himself to a bookbinder. He then found his way into the only available local school, which was a Catholic seminary. At the age of 22 he decided to become a lawyer and, once he completed his studies, he rose quickly within the local and state government. At the age of 41 he became governor of the state. A mere 26 years into statehood, the governor of Oaxaca was a full blooded Zapotec Indian.
Melchor Ocampo, who became the philosophical voice of the reform movement, was also an orphan, but there the childhood experiences of the two men diverge widely. Ocampo was a mestizo , of mixed ethnicity, who shortly after his birth was left at the home of a wealthy woman in Michoacán. She raised him as her own son and paid for his studies in Morelia and later in Europe where he became familiar with the teachings of the French Enlightenment. Ocampo returned to Mexico in 1842 and in 1847, an in the same year as Juárez became governor of Oaxaca , he became the governor of his home state Michoacán. Both Ocampo and Juarez were exiled from the country by Santa Anna when he served his last turn in the presidency. Both returned to Mexico when Juan Álvarez became president in 1854.
Juan Álvarez was a true transition figure between the War of Independence and the Age of Reform. A barely literate rancher, he served under the insurgent leader, Vincente Guerrero. Once the war ended, he became one of the most powerful regional caciques. In 1854, disgusted with the rule of Santa Anna, he joined with General Ignacio Comonfort and issued the Plan of Ayutla. This pronuncio demanded the election of a new president and a constitutional convention. The plan drew broad support and a group of liberal politicians convened at Cuernavaca and declared Juan Álvarez president.
Álvarez resigned from the presidency in December 1855 in favor of Ignacio Comonfort. The following year, Comonfort convened a constitutional convention to address the question of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the State. Comonfort wanted to resolve this issue peacefully, but this proved to be impossible. The church was vocally and violently opposed to any change in the status quo, however moderate. The new constitution was promulgated on February 5, 1857, but only in the state of Oaxaca was it accepted by the church. Elsewhere, political conservatives, supported by conservative members of the army, began a strong resistance to the implementation of the new constitution. In the turmoil, the military seized the presidency. Juárez, who was now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and under the constitution the legal successor to Comonfort, was placed under arrest. However, Comonfort freed him as he fled the country.
The struggle between Juárez and the military lasted for two years. At one point, Juárez and his followers held only the Port of Vera Cruz. Undeterred, from Vera Cruz he issued the Laws of Reform, which reflected much of Ocampo's thinking. The laws irrevocably altered the role of the Catholic Church in Mexico. They nationalized church property, called for the closure of convents and monasteries, prohibited civil servants from taking part in religious ceremonies, made the registration of births, marriages and deaths a government responsibility and provided for freedom of religious worship.
Eventually, the forces loyal to Juárez were able to defeat the conservatives at Silao, Guanajuato. In January 1861, Juárez entered Mexico City, assumed the presidency, and began to implement the Laws of the Reform. The church was divested of its property and the communal ejido lands of the indigenous population were also put up for sale. Juarez and his political allies thought that both forms of ownership limited the potential growth of the Mexican economy. Their hope was that the land could be placed in the hands of multiple small farmers. Unfortunately, all of the land was quickly acquired by a few large land owners.
After working together so closely, once Juárez formally resumed the presidency, Ocampo left the government. He retired to his hacienda in Michoacán. Sadly, his fight with the church followed him and a group of conservative guerillas kidnapped him from his home and killed him.
The country, after so much internal disruption, was nearly bankrupt and owed large amounts of money to many of the major European powers. Juárez, seeing no alternative, announced a two year moratorium on the repayment of all foreign debts. Britain, France and Spain responded by sending an expeditionary force to Mexico to enforce their claims. While the goal of the British was repayment, it soon became clear that the French had something else in mind. Napoleon III had long harbored the idea of adding Mexico to the French sphere of influence and he quickly expanded the role of the French forces. Initially, the Mexican army was able to keep them from seizing the capital. In 1862, at the heroic Battle of Puebla, celebrated each year as Cinco de Mayo, Ignacio Zaragoza led a brave defense with a poorly armed force and defeated the highly regarded French troops. Fighting with Zaragoza was Miguel Blanco, a general who had also fought against US troops when they invaded Mexico in 1847.
In 1863, the French sent additional troops under a new commander and in May 1863, they took control of the capital and Juárez was forced to flee. In 1864, Maximillian of Austria was installed as the second Emperor of Mexico. For the next two years Juárez again endured internal exile, moving his government from place to place to avoid capture by the French. Eventually, faced with new threats in Europe and the continual harassment of guerilla forces that his traditionally trained army was not able to defeat, Napoleon withdrew. Maximillian, who had never quite grasped the antipathy of many Mexicans to his presence, staged a last ditch battle at Querétaro. He was defeated and he and his two remaining generals were executed on June 19, 1867.
Juárez was re-elected president in 1867 and remained president until his death, at his desk, in 1872.
Las Calles Donato Guerra and Ramon Corona
Donato Guerra and Ramon Corona had similar careers and similar fates. Both fought in the War of Reform in support of Juarez and both fought against the French when they invaded Mexico. Corona was present at Querétaro when the Emperor Maximillian was defeated. Both were natives of Jalisco and Corona was a local hero, born in Lake Chapala. After the death of Juárez, Guerra supported the Plan of Tuxtepec, put forward by Porfirio Diaz, in opposition to the candidacy of Sebastian Lerdo, who had been named to succeed Juárez. Diaz's effort to overthrow Lerdo was finally successful in November of 1876. Guerra supported that effort, but he was gunned down in Chihuahua in September of 1876. Corona became governor of Jalisco and championed a liberal progressive agenda that included universal public elementary education. His work was cut short by an assassin, who stabbed him on the street outside of the Governor's Palace in Guadalajara in 1889.
