Porfirio Díaz Era and Revolution

In 1877, when he assumed the presidency, Díaz invited some of his former enemies to work in his government. In 1880, Díaz completed his first presidential term. Non-reelection had been one of his political flags, and he had to step down as president and obey the law.

Díaz arranged for his ally, Manuel González, to become the president of Mexico. Porfirio Díaz then assumed the governorship of Oaxaca, which he held for two years.

During the years that Díaz governed Oaxaca and when he was president of Mexico, he carried out many projects in the state. The main streets were lit with gas lamps, and the construction of the railroad from Tehuantepec to Salina Cruz began. The telegraph service between the Mixteca and the city of Oaxaca was inaugurated. Worth mentioning is that some of the works carried out then still exist: the creation of the Normal Schools for Teachers of the State, the construction of the central market of the city of Oaxaca, and most importantly, the Puebla-Oaxaca railroad. During the inauguration of the latter in 1892, Porfirio Díaz himself visited Oaxaca.

Porfirio Díaz also made amends with the Mexican bishops throughout the country. In Oaxaca, Bishop Eulogio Gillow played an important role in improving relations between Díaz's government and the Church.

Porfirio Díaz también hizo las paces con los obispos mexicanos en todo el país. En Oaxaca, el obispo Eulogio Gillow fue un personaje importante para mejorar las relaciones entre el gobierno de Díaz y la Iglesia.    

Near Tuxtepec, thousands of workers from all over the country were brought to Valle Nacional. Foreign owners and wealthy Mexicans had all those people, including women, working as slaves. During the Porfiriato, almost one-fifth of the country's land passed into the hands of individuals.

In Oaxaca, in the early years of the Porfiriato, the villages did not lose as much of their communal lands as in other states. However, things changed some years later, and peasants lost many of the best lands in the Isthmus, the Coast, and Tuxtepec. Those lands passed into the hands of wealthy Mexicans from other parts of the country and foreigners.

Oaxaqueño Ricardo Flores Magón and his brothers Jesús and Enrique, students in Mexico City, participated in several demonstrations against President Díaz. Persecuted by Díaz, the Flores Magón brothers, originally from the Teotitlán district, took refuge in the United States, from where they continued organizing their sympathizers. A few years later, they launched a movement to overthrow the government.

In Oaxaca, the first uprising against the Porfirian government took place in Ojitlán, in the Tuxtepec region, on January 21, 1911. Sebastián Ortiz, a rancher and former sympathizer of the Flores Magón, and his followers took the municipal building, arrested the authorities, and took the weapons and ammunition they found. Two months later, the rebellion had grown. Rebel groups from Guerrero and Puebla entered the Costa and Mixteca regions, and there were armed uprisings in Jamiltepec.

By mid-1911, Oaxacan revolutionaries were occupying the main towns along the railway and aimed to take the state capital. In July 1911, there were elections in Oaxaca, and the candidates were Felix Díaz, the dictator's nephew, and Benito Juárez Maza, the son of Benito Juárez, with the latter winning.

Juárez Maza lasted only seven months in office before he died suddenly. In that short time, he worked to improve the state's schools and regulate the working hours of masons and other employees.

The relationship between the chief of the constitutionalist army, Venustiano Carranza, and the Oaxacan government was difficult because in Mexico City, it was believed that the group that controlled the political life of the state was against the Revolution.

In Oaxaca, the new governor, José Inés Dávila, broke off relations with Carranza. In mid-1915, through a decree, Dávila stated that as long as Mexico had no federal government, Oaxaca would not recognize any authority other than its own. To defend this measure, the Oaxacan government, also known as the "sovereign government," had to organize armed forces, issue its own currency and postage stamps, create new districts, but problems grew.

Carranza responded by sending General Jesús Agustín Castro, who was in Chiapas, to militarily occupy the Oaxacan territory. With the positions of governor and military commander, Castro established his headquarters in the port of Salina Cruz. With superior armament and better-prepared forces, the constitutionalists occupied the city of Oaxaca in March 1916.

With the constitutionalists in Oaxaca, the first labor unions were formed. The organization of peasant groups in the Central Valleys was encouraged to request land distribution.

Modern Era

On February 5, 1917, in the city of Querétaro, the new Political Constitution of the United Mexican States was issued. The Oaxacan sovereigntists recognized it three years later, after Dávila and Carranza had passed away.

For the rest of the century, Oaxaca consolidated itself as a free and sovereign state, offering all its visitors a rich history.