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| name=Porfirio Díaz Mori | image name=Porfirio diaz002.jpg | date1= 29 November 1876 to 30 November 1880 (first term) | date2= 1 December 1884 to 1910 (second term) | date3= 1910 to 25 May 1911 (third term) | preceded= Sebastián Lerdo De Tejada ( 1876 ), Manuel González ( 1884 ) | succeeded= Manuel González ( 1880 ), Francisco León De La Barra interim ( 1911 ) | date of birth= 15 September 1830 | place of birth= Oaxaca , Oaxaca | date of death= 2 July 1915 | place of death= Paris , France | profession=army officer and politician | wife=Delfina Ortega & Carmelita Romero Rubio | party=Liberal }} José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915 ) was President Of Mexico , considered a Dictator , who ruled Mexico from 1876 until 1911 (with the exception of a single four-year period). Early years Porfirio Díaz was born in 1830 in the city of Oaxaca, Oaxaca . He was a Mestizo , of Mixtec Native American and Spanish ancestry. His father, José de la Cruz Díaz, died when he was 3 years old. His mother, Patrona Mori de Díaz, was an innkeeper until that business failed. She sent young Porfirio to the ''Seminario Pontifical'' in 1843, but he was not cut out for the priesthood. He joined the local militia in 1846, dreaming of defending the country from a threatened United States invasion. Tutored by Benito Juarez , he studied law and passed the legal exams in 1853. Díaz soon became a prominent local activist in the liberal opposition to the conservative Santa Anna dictatorship. Following Juarez's rise to the presidency, Mexico was occupied by France , which attempted to establish the Second Mexican Empire . Díaz became something of a hero due to his participation in the war against the French, where he won several important victories. He led the cavalry in the celebrated Battle Of Puebla of 1862 , and remained popular well after the defeat of the French and the death of Juarez in 1872 . Rise to power In 1876 he overthrew the government of President Sebastián Lerdo De Tejada . Initially, he was something of a Radical , in his early career he had been the one of the leaders of the "Liberales Rojos" faction. He advanced a platform of reform (first Plan de la Noria and later Plan de Tuxtepec), using the slogan "No Re-election" (for the President). After appointing himself President on November 29 , 1876 , he served one term and then dutifully stepped down in favor of Manuel González , one of his underlings. The four-year period that followed was marked by corruption and official incompetence, so that when Díaz stepped up in the next election he was a welcome replacement, and there was no remembrance of his "No Re-election" slogan. During this period the Mexican underground Political newspapers spread the new ironic slogan for the Porfirian times, based on the slogan "Sufragio Efectivo, No Reelección" (Effective votes, no re-election) and changed it to "Sufragio Efectivo No, Reelección" (Effective votes no, Re-election). In any case Díaz had the constitution amended, first to allow two terms in office, and then to remove all restrictions on re-elections. He maintained power through manipulation of votes, but also through simple violence and assassination of his opponents, which consequently were small in number. He was a cunning politician and knew very well how to manipulate people to his advantage. A phrase used to describe the order of his rule was "Pan, o palo" ("Bread, or the stick"), meaning that one could either accept what was willing to be given, or face harsh consequences. {Link without Title} In 1899 he faced some small opposition from Bernardo Reyes , an official in his government, who decided to run for president after Díaz gave an interview in which he said he would allow the next election to be freely contested. In the end the attempt failed and Díaz forced Reyes into exile. Economic development, human exploitation Díaz embarked on a program of modernization, attempting to bring Mexico up to the level of a modern state. His principal advisers were of a type called '' Científico s'', akin to modern economists, because they espoused a program of "scientific" modernization. These included the building of railroad and telegraph lines across the country, including the first Mexican railway between Veracruz and Mexico City . Under his rule the amount of track in Mexico increased tenfold; many of these rails remain in operation today without remodelling. He introduced the idea of steam machines and technological appliances in industry and invited and welcomed foreign investment in Mexico. He also encouraged the construction of factories in Mexico City . This resulted in the rise of an urban Proletariat and the influx of foreign capital (principally from the United States). The growing influence of U.S. businessmen, already a sore point in a Mexico that had lost much land to the United States, was a constant problem for Díaz. His modernization program was also at odds with the owners of the large plantations ''( Hacienda s)'' that had spread across much of Mexico. These rich plantation owners wanted to maintain their existing feudal system ( Peonage ), and were reluctant to transform into the capitalist economy Díaz was pushing towards because it meant competing in a global market and contending with the monetary influence of businessmen from the United States. Though he wished to modernize the country, Díaz by no means opposed the existence of the ''haciendas'', and in fact supported them strongly throughout his rule. He appointed sympathetic governors and allowed the plantation owners to proceed with a slow campaign of encroachment onto collectively-owned village land, and enforced such theft through his well-equipped rural police ('' Rurales ''). Collapse of the regime In a 1908 interview with the U.S. journalist James Creelman , Díaz stated that ''Mexico was ready for democracy and elections and that he would step down and allow other candidates to compete for the presidency''. Francisco I. Madero answered the call for candidates. Although Madero was very similar to Díaz in his ideology, he hoped for other elites in Mexico to rule alongside the President, unlike Díaz. Díaz, however, did not approve of Madero and had him jailed on election day in 1910, provoking the Mexican Revolution . Quotations
== References= = Garner's revisionist biography is the current standard in the field.
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