Portal:Mexico/Selected biography
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  Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla Gallaga Mondarte Villaseñor (May 8, 1753 – July 30, 1811), also known as Cura Hidalgo ("Priest Hidalgo"), was a Mexican priest and revolutionary rebel leader. He is regarded as the founder of the Mexican War of Independence movement; who fought for independence against Spain in the early 19th century. The state of Hidalgo in Mexico is named after him.Hidalgo was born to a criollo family (historically, any Mexican of unmixed Spanish ancestry). Growing up in an hacienda, where his father Cristóbal Hidalgo y Costilla was employed as a superintendent, Hidalgo developed an early sympathy for the unskilled Amerindian workers. He was reportedly a keen reader of banned French literature and an avid nonconformist. Though he trained as a priest, he retained an interest in political and social questions, which he carried with him to his first parish in the town of Dolores, now called Dolores Hidalgo, in the modern-day central Mexican state of Guanajuato. He learned several indigenous languages, wrote texts in the Aztec language and organized the local communities in Michoacan.  José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori (15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915) was a Mexican-American War volunteer, French Intervention hero, and President. He ruled Mexico from 1876 to 1880 and from 1884 to 1911.Porfirio Díaz was born in 1830 in the city of Oaxaca, Oaxaca. He was a mestizo, of Creole and Mixtec (a Mesoamerican tribe) ancestry. His father, José Faustino (de la Cruz) Díaz Bohorques was a modest innkeeper and died when Porfirio Díaz was three years old. His mother, Petrona Mori Cortés, later tried to keep the inn going but the business failed. She sent young Porfirio to the Seminario Conciliar in 1843, but he was not cut out for the priesthood. He joined the local militiary in 1846, dreaming of defending his country from a threatening United States invasion. In 1850 Porfirio entered the Instituto de Ciencias y Artes to study law.  Doroteo Arango Arámbula (June 5, 1878 – July 23, 1923), better known as Francisco or "Pancho" Villa, was a Mexican Revolutionary general. As commander of the División del Norte (Division of the North), he was the veritable caudillo of the Northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, which, due to its size, mineral wealth and proximity to the United States, made him a major player in Revolutionary military and politics. His charisma and effectiveness gave him great popularity, particularly in the North, and he was provisional Governor of Chihuahua in 1913 and 1914. While his violence and ambition prevented him from being accepted into the "pantheon" of national heroes until some twenty years after his death, today his memory is honored by many Mexicans. In addition, numerous streets and neighborhoods in Mexico are named in honor of him. In 1916 he raided Columbus, New Mexico. This act provoked the unsuccessful Punitive Expedition commanded by General John J. Pershing, which failed to capture Villa after a year in pursuit.  Benito Juárez García (March 21, 1806 – July 18, 1872) was a Zapotec Amerindian who served five terms (1858–1861), (1861–1865), (1865–1867), (1867–1871), and (1871–1872), as President of Mexico. For resisting the French occupation, overthrowing the Empire, and restoring the Republic, as well as his efforts to modernize the country, Juárez is often regarded as Mexico's greatest and most beloved leader. He was also the first Mexican leader who did not have a military background, and the first full-blooded indigenous national to serve as President of Mexico.Juárez became a lawyer in 1834 and a judge in 1842. He was governor of the state of Oaxaca from 1847 to 1853, at which time he went into exile because of his objections to the corrupt military dictatorship of Antonio López de Santa Anna.Benito Juarez is remembered as being a progressive reformer dedicated to democracy, equal rights for his nation's indigenous peoples, lessening the great power that the Roman Catholic Church then held over Mexican politics, and the defence of national sovereignty.  Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez (September 8, 1768 – March 2, 1829) was a conspirator and supporter of the Mexican War of Independence. She is frequently referred to as La Corregidora.She was born to Juan fagout Ortiz – a captain of Los Morados regiment – and his wife Manuela Girón in Valladolid (today Morelia). Her father was killed in action early in her infancy and her mother died soon after. Maria Sotero Ortiz, Josefa's sister, took care of her upbringing and managed to secure a place for her in the prestigious Colegio de las Vizcaínas in 1789. She married Miguel Domínguez, a frequent visitor of the college, in 1791. In 1802, Miguel Domínguez was appointed by the Viceroy of New Spain to the office of "Corregidor" (a magistrate) in the city of Querétaro. During that period, Ortiz de Domínguez took care of household chores and the education of their 14 children.Eventually, the role of Ortiz de Domínguez and her husband played in the conspiracy was uncovered. They were imprisoned separately. She was sent to the monastery of Santa Clara, in Querétaro, and then to Mexico City to stand trial.  José María Teclo Morelos y Pavón (September 30, 1765, Valladolid, now Morelia, Michoacán – December 22, 1815, San Cristóbal Ecatepec, State of México) was a Mexican priest and revolutionary rebel leader who led the Mexican War of Independence movement, assuming its leadership after the execution of Miguel Hidalgo in 1811. He was later captured by the Spanish colonial authorities and executed for treason in 1815.Morelos was born into a poor family in the city of Valladolid, since renamed "Morelia" in his honor, in a house that is today a museum dedicated to his memory. Morelos was born into a poor family in the city of Valladolid, since renamed "Morelia" in his honor, in a house that is today a museum dedicated to his legacy. He was a zambo / mestizo of mixed Amerindian, African and Spanish ancestry. His father was Manuel Morelos, a carpenter originally from Zindurio, a predominantly indigenous village a few kilometers west of Valladolid. His mother was Juana María Guadalupe Pérez Pavón, originally from San Juan Bautista de Apaseo, also near Valladolid. Valladolid was the seat of a bishop and of the government of the colonial Intendency of Michoacán.  Francisco Ignacio Madero González (October 30, 1873 – February 22, 1913) was a politician, writer and revolutionary who served as President of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. As a respectable upper-class politician he supplied a center around which opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz could coalesce. However, once Díaz was deposed, the Mexican Revolution quickly spun out of Madero's control. He was deposed and executed by the Porfirista military and his aides that he neglected to replace with revolutionary supporters. His assassination was followed by the most violent period of the revolution (1913-1917) until the Constitution of 1917 and revolutionary president Venustiano Carranza achieved some degree of stability.He was born in Parras, Coahuila; the son of Francisco Indalecio Madero Hernández and Mercedes González Treviño. Some people say his middle initial, I, stood for Indalecio but according to his birth certificate it stood for Ignacio.  Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (1474 – May 30, 1548) was an indigenous Mexican who reported an apparition of the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531. He had a significant impact on the spread of the Catholic faith within Mexico. The Roman Catholic Church canonized him in 2002, as its first indigenous American saint.Most of what is known about Juan Diego comes from a mid-17th century literary document called Huei tlamahuiçoltica (also called "Nican Mopohua") written in Classical Nahuatl by a Mexican priest and lawyer Luis Laso de la Vega.  Vicente Ramón Guerrero Saldaña (August 10, 1782 – February 14, 1831) was a Mexican revolutionary leader and president. He was one of the main rebel leaders of the War of Independence who fought against Spain for independence in the early 19th century; and an early President of Mexico. Guerrero was born in the town of Tixtla, some 100 km inland from the port of Acapulco, in the Sierra Madre del Sur. He belonged to a poor rural family of mixed Spanish, Amerindian and African ancestry. He was the grandfather of the Mexican politician and intellectual Vicente Riva Palacio. Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa (b. August 18, 1962) is the President of Mexico. He assumed office on December 1, 2006, and was elected for one six-year term that will end in 2012 without the possibility of re-election. He is affiliated with the National Action Party (PAN), a mostly conservative organization with a tendency toward more liberal economic ideas.Calderón was elected in the contested 2006 presidential elections. The results were controversial and contested by opponent Andrés Manuel López Obrador, validated on September 5, 2006 by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. |
