La Reforma

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La Reforma (English: The Reform) or the Liberal Reform was initiated in Mexico following the ousting of centralist president Antonio López de Santa Anna by a group of liberals under the 1854 Plan de Ayutla. From the liberals' narrow objective to remove a dictator and take power, they expanded their aims to a comprehensive program to remake Mexico governed by liberal principles as embodied by a series of Reform laws and then the Constitution of 1857. The major goals of this movement were to undermine the power of the Catholic Church in Mexico, separate church and state, reduce the power of the Mexican military, and integrate Mexico's large indigenous population as citizens of Mexico and not a protected class. Liberals envisioned secular education as a means to create a Mexican citizenry. The liberals' strategy was to sharply limit the traditional institutional privileges (fueros) of the Catholic Church and the army. The law prohibiting the ownership of land by corporations targeted the holdings of the Catholic Church and indigenous communities - confiscating Church land. Indigenous community lands were held by the community as a whole, not as individual parcels. Liberals sought to create a class of yeoman farmers that held land individually. No class of individualistic peasants developed with the Liberal program emerged, but many merchants acquired land (and tenant farmers). Many existing landowners expanded their holdings at the expense of peasants, and some upwardly mobile ranch owners, often mestizos, acquired land previously held by communities.^[1] Upon the promulgation of the liberal Constitution of 1857, conservatives refused to swear allegiance to it and, instead, formed a conservative government. The result was a civil war known as the Reform War or Three Years' War, waged between conservatives and liberals for three years, ending with the defeat of the conservatives on the battlefield. Victorious liberal president Benito Juárez could not implement the envisioned reforms due to a new political threat. Conservatives had sought another route to regaining power, resulting in their active collaboration with Napoleon III's plans to turn the Mexican Empire into the main American ally of the French empire. Mexican conservatives offered the crown of Mexico to Hapsburg archduke Maximilian. The French invasion and republican resistance to the French Intervention in Mexico lasted from 1862-67. With the defeat of the conservatives and the execution of Maximilian, Juárez again took up his duties as president. In this period from 1867 to 1876, often called the "Restored Republic" liberals had no credible opposition to their implementation of the laws of the Reform embodied in the 1857 Constitution.

History

Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Indian who became president of Mexico during the Reform.

Alegoría de la Constitución de 1857 shows a dark complected Mexican woman clutching the liberal constitution of 1857. The 1869 painting by Petronilo Monroy was completed after the expulsion of the French in 1867.

The Liberal Reform is usually considered to have begun with the overthrow and exile of President Antonio López de Santa Anna in the Revolution of Ayutla in 1854-55. There is less consensus about the ending point of the Reform. Common dates are 1861, after the liberal victory in the War of the Reform, 1867, after the Republican victory of the French intervention in Mexico and 1876 after the Rebellion of Tuxtepec in which Porfirio Díaz overthrew president Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. Many historians have called the period following the ouster of the French as the "Restored Republic," with Benito Juárez as president, and then, following his death in 1872 of natural causes, his successor, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. Although the Díaz regime was nominally liberal and it looked to the memory of heroes of the Liberal Reform for its legitimacy, the Porfiriato (1876-1911) is generally identified as a separate period of Mexican history.

Notable liberal politicians in the reform period include Benito Juárez, Juan Álvarez, Ignacio Comonfort, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, Melchor Ocampo, José María Iglesias and Santos Degollado.

Reforms

The most noteworthy reforms of the Reforma were:

1. the Ley Lerdo, abolishing clerical and communal properties.
2. the Ley Juárez, abolishing separate military and religious courts
3. the Ley Iglesias, regulating ecclesiastical fees
4. the Mexican Constitution of 1857, guaranteeing many civil and political liberties including freedom of religion
5. the 'Reform Laws' in which the liberal government of Veracruz during the civil war against the conservatives proclaimed complete separation of church and state.

Paseo de la Reforma

Mexico City's main avenue is the Paseo de la Reforma which received its current name after the Reforma. It was originally known as the Paseo de la Emperatriz after Empress Carlota, the consort of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico who created the avenue for her.

Notes

Further reading

See also

• Reform laws
• Liberalism in Mexico
• Constitution of 1857
• War of the Reform (1857–1861)
• French intervention in Mexico (1861–1867)