Remembering the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico Andy Stiny - TheCalifornian.com
go to original March 21, 2012

Benito Juárez on the Mexican twenty peso bill.

He came from abject poverty, an orphan who did not even speak Spanish until he was a teenager.

But on March 20th in 1806, a Zapotec native was born in a village in the Mexican state of Oaxaca who would help shape the course of Mexican history.

Benito Juarez, the only full-blooded native to become president of Mexico, is revered as one who guided the country through turbulent times and served as president five times.

The third Monday in March is a national holiday in Mexico to honor the man credited with championing justice, native rights and constitutional reforms and who is often referred to as the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico.

While some people interviewed this week had never heard of Juarez, others said he is well-known and respected.

"He (Juarez) is so different because he tried to do things to make Mexico better, not like now, where each president wants money for his pocket," said Josafath Pardo, also originally a native of Oaxaca and now a Salinas resident. "He tried to do better things for each person."

Mexico is dotted with streets and monuments bearing the Juarez name. Hollywood did its take on Juarez in the 1939 biopic of the same name with Paul Muni as Benito Juarez.

Jose Gomez of Seaside is also a Oaxacan native. For him, the first day of spring on Tuesday brings thoughts of Juarez and the small, mountainous villages where they both grew up.

"He (Juarez) was born when springtime starts," Gomez said. Today in Mexico, "kids don't go to school and the flag is raised all the way up to the top."

The sheepherder who would be president has inspired his countrymen. "He is a role model," Gomez said. "He had nothing back in the day in Mexico - what he did was awesome."

Monterey resident Jose Guerrero, originally from Guadalajara, agrees. "He was a really poor kid and he made his way all the way up to president. He did a lot of things to help the poor people," Guerrero said.

"He always gives respect to each person. If you respect what other people have, you live in peace with them," said Pardo in characterizing the ethos historically attributed to Juarez.

Before graduating from law school in 1834, Juarez had already entered politics as a city councilman for the city of Oaxaca, the capitol of the state of the same name. He became a judge in 1841 "and became known as a fiercely anti-clerical liberal," said the About.com website in an article on Latin American history.

By 1847, he was elected governor of Oaxaca as the U.S.-Mexican War (1846-48) was under way. As governor, Juarez passed laws confiscating properties of the Roman Catholic Church, which infuriated conservatives.

He opposed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the U.S.-Mexican War, and had to flee from his enemies to New Orleans after his government folded.

Juarez was one of several liberal ministers in an administration in the 1850s that introduced laws that profoundly rocked Mexican institutions and tried to redistribute large land holdings, according to the Historical Text Archive website.

Juarez is credited with fighting conservative opponents in the War of the Reform and French intervention under Maximillian I, which resulted in Mexico defeating France in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862 (Cinco de Mayo).

Juarez's pulling-himself-up-by-his-bootstraps persona strikes a chord with many Mexicans even today. "He is important for Mexico because he is the first guy to come from this little, little town where he grew up and he had nothing," Pardo said.

Juarez died on July 18, 1872, in Mexico City.

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