Reflecting on Porfirio Díaz

Thursday is the 100th anniversary of the death of President Porfirio Díaz, who ruled Mexico for thirty years between 1876 and 1911. With only one exception, he was re-elected every four years during that time. However, he is not a president you see honored by many statues or street names.

For most of the 20th century Díaz was called a dictator or tyrant. He has been described as heavy-handed, iron-fisted or sometimes both. His long rule is the reason for Mexico’s fierce constitutional ban on re-election to public office. For this Díaz did get streets named for him. Nearly every town in Mexico has a street named “No Reelección.”

Faced with the armed insurgency of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Díaz presented his resignation to the Chamber of Deputies on May 25, 1911. In a four-paragraph, single-page typed letter, he even used the word “revolution” as the reason for his resignation.

Though there is little public adulation of Díaz, there is recognition of him in strange places.

General Porfirio Díaz is one of the officers listed as being taken prisoner by the French on an oval-shaped monument in Puebla’s Zócalo. The monument honors the “exemplary surrender of the Army of the East under the command of General Jesús Ortega,” to French General Élie Frédéric Forey on May 17, 1863. Díaz somehow escaped from the French army and continued fighting against the French Intervention under President Benito Juárez.

Though the Mexicans did not defeat the French, Díaz emerged a military war hero. He remained loyal to President Juárez through Maximilian’s reign but had developed presidential ambitions of his own.

In an 1876 coup, soon after death of Juárez, Díaz assumed the presidency and was president for 30 of the next 34 years the period known as the Porfiriato.

Despite having made his military fame fighting the French during Maximilian’s short-lived Mexican Empire, Díaz was a great admirer of everything French. Think Porfiriato when you see the French- style buildings in downtown Mexico City. 

Their steep metal roofing was a 19th century European design to assure snow would slide off easily — hardly necessary in tropical Mexico.

In fact, the most spectacular and beautiful buildings in Mexico City’s Centro Histórico were either built or started during the Porfiriato. The domed Monument to the Revolution was really meant to be the dome over the center of the legislative palace the opus magnus Díaz was constructing.

Porfirio Díaz is one of the most easily recognizable figures in Mexico’s 20th-century murals. I have no doubt Díaz would have been delighted with his portraits as immortalized by Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Both were members of the post-revolutionary mural art movement. They intentionally ridiculed Díaz’ vanity; the satire would have been lost on him.

Rivera portrayed Díaz prominently in the murals in the National Palace’s central staircase his chest covered with medals and wearing a white-plumed hat just as Díaz portrayed himself in his official presidential portrait.

Siqueiros’ mural in Chapultepec Castle would certainly have filled President Díaz with pride sitting in the presidential chair seemingly oblivious to the swooning crowd of top-hatted members of high society pressing in around him while swirling women dance in front of him.

The railroads became the signature trademark of the Porfiriato. Twenty thousand kilometers of track were laid during his tenure. Telegraph lines, paralleling the tracks, served as the long arm of the Díaz administration’s control over the rest of the country.

Reliable, scheduled long-distance transportation became the norm during the Porfiriato. The president himself traveled the length of the country in the presidential railroad coach. He personally inaugurated public works projects of French design, many of them railroad related. Any city on a railroad line has buildings dating back to the Porfiriato ― if only the train station.

Though there was very good material progress during his tenure, pressure built up in society. Díaz’s long term in office meant little turnover at all levels of government and left little opportunity for young lawyers to advance in government positions. A closed dictatorial system left middle-class professionals and business owners increasingly marginalized and in search of alternative forms of government.

Rapid capitalist transformation of the rural countryside meant increasing the size of the haciendas and mass dispossession of land, water and traditional rights of Mexico’s rural villages.

The ensuing Revolution was one of the first wars in which trains served as troop transports. In fact

a steam locomotive and a coal car are an outdoor display at the Museum of the Revolution.

And, it was aboard a train that Díaz would set off on his exile to Paris. Díaz rode the train from Mexico City to Veracruz where, after having coffee at one of my favorite restaurants, La Parroquia, he departed aboard the Ypiranga into exile to France. He died at 85 years of age on July 2, 1915, and is buried in Paris’ elegant Mountparnasse. General Gustave León Niox, who Díaz had fought against in Mexico, walked in Díaz’s funeral procession.

Ducks are back in Borda Gardens

The weather we’ve been having is fit for ducks. And I’m glad to be able to tell you that the ducks are back and thriving in the rowing lake in Cuernavaca’s Borda Gardens. Six years ago they were banished by the director of Morelos’ Culture Institute because she said “the ducks and the fish get things dirty.” The current administration has welcomed them back. Private citizens are supplying the ducks.

This is wonderful news because it just wasn’t the same without the ducks. The Borda Gardens is one of Cuernavaca’s hidden gems — it’s right across the street from the Cathedral. I consider it a sanctuary in the center of busy downtown. No one pesters you inside the gardens. A small admission fee keeps the vendors out. You can sit on the grass, a bench, or at a garden table and read a book. You can even have a picnic on a boat in the rowing lake.


It’s the ongoing legacy of an immigrant to Mexico, José de la Borda (1699-1778) and his son Manuel. José was born in France to a Spanish mother and French father and was baptized as Joseph de La Borde. When he was 16 his mother did to him what many Spanish mothers still do to their teenage boys — she sent him to America “to become a man.” At that time Spanish mothers purchased passage for their sons on a ship from Cádiz to Veracruz. Today they buy their sons a one-way ticket on a flight from Madrid to Mexico City. They arrive on this side of the ocean with a little bit of money and a long list of relatives who have already made the trip. Many of them have done very well. Borda was one of them.

Upon arrival in this Spanish viceroyalty Joseph hispanicized his name and signed in at Veracruz as José de la Borda. From there he went directly to Taxco where he caught up with his brother Francisco. Both brothers had a knack for finding silver. They did so well that they married two daughters of the mayor of Taxco. The Verdugo sisters became Mrs. Borda and Mrs. Borda.

It was after Francisco’s death that José discovered Taxco’s richest vein of silver. He had mule trains carry the silver from Taxco to the mint in Mexico City. Cuernavaca was a good resting point. The cargo would be unloaded at Borda’s Cuernavaca estate to give the overseers, guards, muleteers, and the mules themselves a couple of days rest before continuing to Mexico City.

In appreciation for the tremendous wealth the silver bestowed on him, José de la Borda built the Santa Prisca church facing Taxco’s zocalo. It’s the only church of its size built in the 18th century Mexico for which there was enough money to finish when construction began.

It was José’s son Manuel who transformed the mule train depot in Cuernavaca into a botanical garden. He had a landscape architect lay it out with a French design of crisscrossing walkways with fountains where they intersected. He extended Cuernavaca’s aqueduct to end in the rowing lake which doubled as a water tank at the highest part of the property. Water flowed by force of gravity through the planter beds. I imagine the lake was filled with ducks then too.

In the 1860s the Borda family felt it appropriate, perhaps taking into account their French ancestry, to make the property available to French-imposed Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlotta. Maximilian made plans to use the Borda home and gardens as his summer palace but his empire didn’t last long enough to do that more than once.

In the 1970s, while restoration work to the Borda Gardens was underway, I read a newspaper article about an Austrian woman who traveled to Mexico on a diplomatic passport.

When she returned to Austria a short while later she was decorated by the Austrian government for returning a collection of Emperor Maximilian’s jewelry and medals. If the story is true, the Austrian government had known the location of the stash for more than a hundred years but had not had access to the gardens without risk of being caught.

Last weekend as I thought of those ducks in the rowing lake as the only ones enjoying the endless rain I decided to see if I could confirm my recollection of that story. I went to see long-time Borda Garden employee Heberto González who has authored a book about the gardens. I remembered him and he remembered me as a frequent visitor with students in tow and always with food for the ducks.

You see the ducks learned to recognize me and would gather around whenever I stood on the edge of the rowing lake. He’d heard the story about the Austrian woman too but couldn’t confirm its accuracy.

That’s okay. The story adds to the charm of this wonderful spot in the heart of Cuernavaca. And I’m happy because the ducks are back.

Mexico's Third Constitution

Last weekend we enjoyed another long puente commemorating February 5th -- the anniversary of the signing of both the 1857 and 1917 Constitutions. I carry a copy of the Mexican Constitution with me in my car. It's a small book with almost illegibly tiny print but it’s a reminder of the promise the 1917 document brought to Mexico. The 1917 Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, as it is properly called, is Mexico’s third Constitution, after those of 1824 and 1857. The 1824 Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States was implemented after the overthrow of Emperor Augustín de Iturbide in 1823.

Yes, the first government after independence was yet another empire! The 1824 Constitution replaced a centrist government overseeing loosely defined provinces with a federal government of nineteen free and independent states. After it was implemented, dissent and constant conflict ensued among Federalists, Centrists, and a small but powerful minority seeking return to an empire. States surrounding Mexico City were federalist but the federal government had decreasing support farther from the capital. At the outer regions there was merely a loose confederacy.

In 1835 Centrists returned to power. Voiding the Constitution of 1824, they proclaimed seven constitutional laws and divided Mexico into departments with Mexico City as the administrative head of the nation. Political instability and open conflict between the former states and the central government ensued. There were armed rebellions, even secessions.

During that time the 1846-48 North American Invasion -- known in the U.S. as the Mexican-American War – led to the loss of 55% of Mexico’s territory to its northern neighbor. The 1857 Constitution, ratified by a Constituent Congress on Feb. 5, 1857, was shaped by the liberal, secular thinking of respected lawyer, judge, and legal scholar, Benito Juarez. An amazingly avantgarde document, it established freedoms of speech, conscience, press, and assembly. It guaranteed education free of religion and abolished slavery, debtor’s prisons, the death penalty, and cruel and unusual punishment. Juarez, a full-blooded Zapotec, had been instrumental in drafting and securing passage of the Ley Juárez (Juárez’s Law) of 1855, declaring all citizens equal before the law and severely restricting the privileges of the Catholic Church. Juarez was the first President under the 1857 Constitution.

Not surprisingly, the new government was in immediate direct conflict with the church and conservatives, culminating in the Reform War and the brief restoration of empire as Emperor Maximilian was brought from Europe to rule Mexico from 1864 until his overthrow in 1867. Benito Juarez claimed to be president during Maximilian’s tenure, though he did so from northern Mexico.

For the three-year period, Maximilian, with the support of the French army, controlled Mexico City and much of the national territory. Juarez did not recognize him as Emperor and referred to him as an invader and impostor, only addressing him with his European title of “Archduke”. For Maximilian the Constitution of 1857 was void. For Juarez it remained the law. The last half of the 1800’s was tumultuous for the federal government.

It suffered onslaughts not only from the church and royalists but, essentially, continued sedition from Santa Anna who immersed himself in conspiracies to overthrow whoever was in power. By the end of the century, the ground was ripe for the 30-year dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz and the decade-long Revolution that followed in the early 1900’s. Mexico lost one million of its citizens in that conflict.

As the Revolution wound down under President Carranza, a Constitutional Congress was convened -- spawned by the fervent hope that just law might immunize the nation from further violence. The resulting Constitution of 1917 is recognized as the first in the world to set out specific social rights, along with general concepts of liberty and limited government and the same basic rights of the 1857 Constitution. Like the U.S. Constitution, Mexico’s 1917 Constitution was written to provide a specific guide for responsibility of government. But unlike the U.S. Constitution, the 1917 Constitution is long and detailed in its description of the rights of the Mexican people to freedom from political and religious repression, foreign intervention and economic hardship. It provides for land redistribution, the nation’s ownership of all natural resources, free and obligatory education, strict separation of church and state, even labor reform and housing rights. It is highly regarded by the citizens of Mexico who are often otherwise quite jaded by politics.

There is debate going in the Senate over an amendment which would modify the way the Constitution relates to that issue that has been present throughout Mexico’s life as an independent nation -- the rights of churches. It will be interesting to follow. 

Flowers scare the devil away

Yellow pericón flowers start blooming in mid-September in the fields around Cuernavaca.  Like clockwork, regardless of what the weather has been, they are always in bloom by September 28th.  You can go out on the highway and cut them yourself, or you can buy them on street corners or in the market.  They'll be sold everywhere in the state of Morelos today and tomorrow, but nowhere on Thursday.  The custom in Morelos, and bordering communities, is to make crosses out of pericón stalks and flowers.  On the night of the 28th, yellow crosses are placed over front doors of homes and businesses, and on automobiles, trucks, and busses. Upon putting up the new cross, the previous one, now a year old, and looking like straw, is taken down and burned or buried.  

They are called Saint Michael's crosses; Saint Michael comes down on the eve of his feast day (September 29) and blesses his crosses and the places where they are hung.  Urban lore is that the devil is loose on the 28th and St. Michael can protect the places where his crosses hang by using the cross as his make-shift sword to keep the devil at bay.  

Pericón, known as yautli in Nahuatl, and linked in people's minds to St. Michael's Day, is of the same genus -- tagetes -- as the cempoalxochitl (also zempasúchitl), or marigold, so characteristic of Days of the Dead.

St. Michael is one of two patron saints of Cuernavaca's Colonia Acapantzingo.  Its 16th century church -- right across the street from Emperor Maximilian's estate known as the Ex-casa de Maximiliano -- hosts an annual grand feria to mark the occasion.  Acapantzingo's other patron is Saint Isidore the Farmer, whose feast day is May 15.  San Isidro Labrador and San Miguel Arcángel bracket the Mesoamerican growing season.  The rainy season begins in late May and is about over by now in late September.   May 15 was when the farming implements and animals that pull the plows were blessed; September 29th is the beginning of the harvest season.  

Rural lore determines the formation of the pericón crosses to be in the shape of a Greek cross with all arms of equal length.  In addition to putting them over the doors to their homes, campesinos also place them at the four corners of their milpa.  Very probably the idea is of prehispanic origin with the cross being an emblem of the four cardinal directions.   Yet another aspect of syncretism is St. Michael took on Tlaloc's role as patron of rain.  September 29 became one of the important dates in the farming and ritual cycle associated with agricultural production and fertility -- especially rain and Mesoamerica's staple food, corn -- all under the cover of important Christian holy days.  

Although February 2nd, Dia de la Candelaria -- Candlemass Day -- was an important day in 16th century Spain, it took on much more importance in Mexico where campesinos not only take their images of the Baby Jesus to their churches to be blessed, but also know it is the day to bless the seeds they'll plant in May.  

May 3rd, Day of the Holy Cross, is set in the hottest, driest part of the year.  During the nine days before and after that important holiday crosses, which have been on top of hills, are brought down to the village churches to be repaired, painted, blessed and returned to their proper places on the hilltops.  Those are the days on which to pray for rain. Mesoamerican thought maintains that it is inside hills and mountains that water is stored.  From them come the clouds that deliver rain that nurtures corn.  June 24, St. John the Baptist's Day, is an appropriate day to offer thankful prayer for rainfall within the growing season. 

According to Johanna Broda, who has written extensively on Mesoamerican rituals and the overlapping of symbolism after the conquest, "the dead make their appearance during St. Michael's fiesta, and share, with their family members, their happiness over the first corn cobs.  In this way the dead show their intimate link with the agricultural cycle, and the welfare of the living."  

Broda, maintains that the agricultural cycle ends with the Day of the Dead, November 2nd, and points out that the profuse agricultural symbolism which permeates that festival is usually overlooked. 

I was especially pleased to be introduced to that idea by Broda since it was very late on a 28th of September that my wife's aunt Estrella Garro died.  The florist shops were closed.  It may have been very appropriate that we decorated her simple pinewood casket with bunches of pericón flowers -- the only flower available.   

If you're in or near Cuernavaca tomorrow evening, Acapantzingo will be a fun place to be.  Wherever you are in Central Mexico, be on the lookout Thursday morning to notice the yellow crosses all around you.

Cruising the Castle's interior

Last Tuesday was the anniversary of the heroic defense of Chapultepec Castle by the Niños Heroes on September 13, 1847.  Though an important event which has shaped Mexico's thought, there are many more reasons to visit that historic place.  

The hill on which the Castle is built was known as Grasshopper Hill, sacred to the Aztecs, a favorite retreat of their emperors; its spring a source of water for Tenochtitlan, later to be Mexico City. Mexicans use the Nahuatl derived word for grasshoppers -- chapulin; hence Chapultepec -- rather than the Spanish saltamontes -- hill jumper.  

In 1785 Viceroy Bernardo de Galvez built what was to be the first component of a sprawling Castle that has grown as it has gone through different uses.  During two extended periods it housed the Military Academy; for more than 50 years the Presidential residence, and since 1944 the National History Museum.  

Despite the Castle’s extensive history, it has become identified with French imposed Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlotta even though Maximilian did not build the Castle and only lived there a brief two years. Chapultepec is the only Royal Castle in North America used to actually house sovereigns.

In keeping with Mexico's museumography the displays are excellent and follow a theme.  Once inside the building you'll choose a route to follow.   One area contains National History exhibits.  As to be expected there are swords and military uniforms, but exhibits of historical periods also go into surprising depth. Murals by O’Gorman, Orozco, and Siquieros are history lessons in themselves.  Another route takes you through the living quarters portion of the Castle looking northeast along Paseo de la Reforma.  As palatial as any European castle, and kept in excellent condition, the rooms are decorated as they were by different occupants.  Some are as Maximilian and Carlotta may have used them, others furnished as they were when Porfirio Diaz lived in them; the last room is furnished as it was under President Lazaro Cardenas.  Cardenas felt it inappropriate for a revolutionary president to be living in such opulence and moved the official residence to Los Pinos, also located in Chapultepec Park.   

Over the years The Castle has gained prestige as a setting for dialog.  Is the open feeling of the glass enclosed space with the buffering effect of the forest and the secure feeling at the top of the promontory conducive to understanding?  The 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accord put an end to the civil war in El Salvador.  This year meetings have been hosted in the Castle for dialog between the movement headed by Javier Sicilia and the highest ranking members of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. 

Most visitors walk a wide path that spirals around the hill and soon has them above tree level looking out over Chapultepec forest, the largest urban park in Latin America.   A few visitors with special needs or VIP status are allowed to ride the elevator from the base of the hill and step out inside the Castle at the top. 

I rode that elevator once -- in the company of a U.S. high-school student with extensive knowledge of the 1846-47 war and a desire to see the parapet where Juan Escutia jumped to his death.  Remembering my previous visit on a windy day, when the French doors in the residential palace area were banging between the walls and the ends of chains attached to their doorknobs, we took forty rubber doorstoppers purchased from a street vendor on Tacuba street.  Once inside the building I asked to see the director of the museum.  "Not available," we were told, "perhaps later."  Upon finishing our visit I asked again and got the same reply.  I told the security guard I'd try another day, and that the reason for my query was to make a gift to the museum. 

Benjamin Weems, his aunt and I proceeded to walk down the long exit path.  Just as we reached the bottom a guard came running down the walkway calling after us.  In the absence of the Director, the Administrator would see us!  We were hustled, like dignitaries, through a tunnel, to the elevator, escorted by two guards to the Administrative Offices.  Perhaps they thought I had a valuable artifact to contribute.  I suddenly was struck by the possibility the administrator might think my doorstops irreverent or worse, irrelevant and a waste of his time.   With some trepidation we were ushered into the presence of the Administrator where I had to finally open my bag and present my matching rubber doorstops.  I was afraid that what had seemed like such a wonderful idea would appear to be mere silliness.  

The Administrator betrayed neither amusement nor annoyance.  He expressed appreciation and charmingly explained that rubber doorstops, made in China, would not be in keeping with 19^th century doors; he agreed that something along their lines was necessary and graciously accepted our gift. 

Benjamin maintained perfect decorum until we were once again descending the walkway and were out of earshot of the guards.  The three of us broke into relieved and sustained laughter.  Since then we have referred to this visit as the Doorstop Caper.

I highly recommend a visit to this enchanting Castle.  If you go, please let me know if rubber doorstoppers are in place, or even better a 19^th century rendition.