Mexican revolutionary, and short-lived
president of the new
republic in the
aftermath of its 1910
political revolution.
Madero lived from 1873 to 1913, and spent the last two years of his life in office as
president of a newly
socialist Mexico. In spite of lofty beginnings as the son of one of
Mexico’s few
wealthy landowners, he became a staunch if moderate
democrat and was working as a
journalist at the time of the revolution. After
then-president / dictator
Porfirio Diaz reneged on his promise to step down as leader of
Mexico in 1910, Madero was arrested for speaking out against Diaz. Madero was
released on bond and escaped to
Texas where he declared himself the rightful president
of Mexico. He was overwhelmingly
elected to this position in 1911 after the revolution
had swept out Diaz and begun making steps toward the establishment of a
democratic
state.
Madero’s
term in office was more or less a complete
disaster, however, as Madero’s
ideal of a moderate
democracy stopped far short of the place where his more
radical
compatriots had planned on carrying the revolution.
Infighting, political
inexperience, and a lack of support from outside forces (the US) led to a variety of
armed rebellions that eventually ended in a betrayal at the hands of his top generals,
and finally his arrest and
assassination.
Where he was ineffective as a leader in life, however, Madero’s death mutated him into a
martyr in the eyes of
history, and it was his spirit which went on to lead the country to
its eventual
unification under a (relatively) stable democracy that overthrew military
despotism.