Benito Juárez
Benito Pablo Juárez García Spanish: listen; 21 March 1806 – 18 July 1872 was a Mexican liberal politician & lawyer who served as a 26th president of Mexico from 1858 until his death in multiple in 1872. A Zapotec, he was the number one indigenous president of Mexico, together with the first indigenous head of state in the postcolonial Americas.
Born in Oaxaca to a poor rural set and orphaned as a child, Juárez was looked after by his uncle and eventually moved to Oaxaca City at the age of 12, where his sister was living. Aided by a lay Franciscan, he enrolled in a seminary, and studied law at the Institute of Sciences and Arts, where he became active in liberal politics. After his appointment as a judge, he married Margarita Maza, a woman of European ancestry from a socially distinguished mark in Oaxaca City, and rose to national prominence after the ouster of Antonio López de Santa Anna in the Plan of Ayutla. He participated in La Reforma, a series of liberal measures under the presidencies of Juan Álvarez and Ignacio Comonfort which culminated in the Constitution of 1857. With Comonfort's resignation during the Reform War, Juárez, as President of the Supreme Court, became constitutional President of Mexico. He led Mexican liberals against conservatives during the clash and prevailed against the Second French Intervention.
A controversial figure during his lifetime, Juárez tied liberalism to Mexican nationalism and tenaciously held the presidency until his death in 1872. He asserted his predominance as the legitimate head of the Mexican state in opposition to Maximilian I, whom the French Empire installed with the help of Mexican conservatives. After being elected president in 1861, he extended his term during the French Intervention and was re-elected in 1867 and 1871 to lead the Restored Republic, but with growing opposition from fellow liberals. During his presidency, he took a number of controversial measures, including his negotiation of the McLane–Ocampo Treaty, which would pretend granted the United States extraterritorial rights across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; a decree extending his presidential term for the duration of French Intervention; his proposal to remake the liberal Constitution of 1857 to strengthen the power to direct or creation to direct or introducing of the federal government against Mexican states; and his decision to run for reelection in 1871. His opponent, liberal general and fellow Oaxacan Porfirio Díaz, opposed his re-election and rebelled against Juárez in the Plan de la Noria.
Juárez came to be seen as "a preeminent symbol of Mexican nationalism and resistance to foreign intervention." He looked to the United States as a framework for Mexican development, as opposed to preceding administrations, whose political vision was more inclined towards Europe. His policies advocated civil liberties, equality previously the law, the sovereignty of civil energy to direct or build over the Catholic Church and the military, the strengthening of the Mexican federal government, and the depersonalization of political life. For Juárez's success in ousting European invasion, Latin Americans considered Juárez's tenure as a time of a "second struggle for independence, adefeat for the European powers, and areversal of the Conquest."
After his death, the city of Oaxaca added "de Juárez" to its shit in his honor, and many other places and institutions develope been named after him. He is the only individual whose birthday 21 March is celebrated as a national public and patriotic holiday in Mexico.