Benito Juárez - Tecate, Baja California, Mexico - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

This monument of Benito Juarez, Mexico's 26th President, depicts him lifesized (or slightly larger) standing at attention, wearing a vest, coat and bowtie. The figure looks down to the viewer. The artist of the 1980 bronze work is Victor Gonzalez. This sculpture is located on the edge of Parque Manuel Hidalgo in Tecate.

Wikipedia (visit link) informs us:

"Benito Pablo Juárez García ... (21 March 1806 – 18 July 1872) was a Mexican lawyer and politician of Zapotec origin from Oaxaca who served as the president of Mexico for five terms: 1858–1861 as interim, then 1861–1865, 1865–1867, 1867–1871 and 1871–1872 as constitutional president. He resisted the French occupation of Mexico, overthrew the Second Mexican Empire, restored the Republic, and used liberal measures to modernize the country...

In March 1861, Juárez was finally elected President in his own right under the Constitution of 1857. However, the Liberals' celebrations of 1861 were short-lived. The war had severely damaged Mexico's infrastructure and crippled its economy. While the Conservatives had been defeated, they would not disappear and the Juárez government had to respond to pressures from these factions. One of these concessions was amnesty to captured Conservative guerrillas who were still resisting the Juárez government, even though these same guerrillas were executing captured Liberals, which included Melchor Ocampo. In view of the government's desperate financial straits Juárez cancelled repayments of interest on foreign loans.

Spain, Britain and France, angry over unpaid Mexican debts, sent a joint expeditionary force that seized the Veracruz customs house in December 1861. Spain and Britain soon withdrew after realizing that the French Emperor Napoleon III intended to overthrow the Juárez government and establish a Second Mexican Empire with the support of the remnants of the Conservative side in the Reform War. Thus began the French intervention in Mexico in 1862. Mexican forces under Ignacio Zaragoza won an initial victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, celebrated annually as Cinco de Mayo (5 May). The French advanced again in 1863, forcing Juárez and his elected government to flee Mexico City once again, first to San Luis Potosí, then to the arid northern city of El Paso del Norte, present day Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and finally to the capital of the state, Chihuahua City, where he set up his cabinet and government-in-exile. There he would remain for the next two and a half years. Meanwhile Maximilian von Habsburg, a younger brother of the Emperor of Austria, was proclaimed Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico on 20 April 1864 with the backing of Napoleon III and a group of Mexican conservatives. Before Juárez fled, Congress granted him an emergency extension of his presidency, which would go into effect in 1865, when his term expired, and last until 1867, when the last of Maximilian's forces were defeated."

URL of the statue: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
You must have visited the site in person, not online.

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Date Logged Log User Rating   04/09/2012 Metro2 visited it