Benito's Birthday

 Today is a national holiday in Mexico honoring the birthday of President Benito Juárez.

The Juárez Monument in downtown Mexico City at night

Juárez was actually born on March 21st, 1806, but his birthday is commemorated each year on the third Monday of March in order to create a three-day weekend or "puente" (bridge) as it is known in Mexico.

Benito Juárez is the most revered President in Mexico's history.  Throughout the country there are cities, schools and institutions named after him.  There is hardly a Mexican city that does not have a Juárez Avenue.

Juárez was a key figure in the passage of the liberal laws known as La Reforma which eliminated the power and privileges of the Catholic Church.  A civil war between liberals and conservatives ensued in 1858.  Juárez, who was the chief justice of the Supreme Court assumed the Presidency under constitutional rules of succession when the sitting President left the country amidst the conflict.  Although the conservatives took control of Mexico City, and Juárez fled to the port city of Veracruz, the liberals achieved victory by 1860.

Elections were held in 1861, and Juárez won easily.  However, in 1862 he faced another crisis... invasion of the country by the French forces of Napoleon III.  Again, Juárez fled Mexico City and escaped to the northern border.  He established his capital at El Paso del Norte... across the river from El Paso, Texas.  The city is now known as Ciudad Juárez.  The French set up a puppet government headed by the Austrian prince Maximilian von Hapsburg.  Guerilla activity against the invaders plagued the French army, and they were never able to effectively control the entire nation.  When the United States, emerging from its own civil war, pressured Napoleon III, the French forces were withdrawn.  Maximilian's army crumbled without French support.  The Austrian who had ruled as Emperor of Mexico for three short years was captured and executed.

In 1867 Juárez returned triumphally again to Mexico City.  Elections were held later that year, and Juárez was reelected.  In 1871 he won another term, but that election was controversial, and some claimed that it involved fraud.  He died in office the following year at the age of 66.

After his death, Juárez attained cult-like stature as the hero who saved Mexican constitutional democracy from internal and foreign enemies.  However, there are historians who have reassessed the Juárez presidency.  Although he is celebrated for being a full-blooded Zapotec Indian, Juárez rejected his indigenous roots.  He viewed the indigenous people as primitives that needed to be assimilated into society.  His reform laws confiscated the Church´s vast holdings of property.  However, native peasants were better off when they were working on Church land than when that property was bought up by wealthy and avaricious investors.  Even among his liberal colleagues he was accused of abuses, infractions of the Constitution, the excessive use of emergency powers, and relying on local allies to assure the desired results in elections.

Regardless of what the man may have been like in real life, there is no denying that he has assumed a mythic quality similar to Abraham Lincoln in the United States.