Francisco I. Madero was born in Parras, Coahuila, on October 30, 1873, into one of the wealthiest families in Mexico’s northern region. He studied in France and in the United States. 

In 1893, he settled in San Pedro de las Colonias, in order to take charge of the family business. As an entrepreneur, Madero always sought for greater social justice. For instance, he paid good salaries to his workers and set up schools of basic education, soup kitchens and a hospital. He also learned and practiced homeopathy to help workers in his hacienda. In 1903, he married Sara Pérez Romero in both a civil and religious ceremony, who, since that moment, became his partner in promoting social and political change. 

In 1904 he moved into journalism and politics. In the local newspaper El Demócrata (“The Democrat”), Madero published articles expressing his views on human rights, suffrage, and freedom. In 1908, he wrote a book “The presidential succession in 1910” (La sucesión presidencial en 1910), in which he fiercely criticized the absolute power and indefinite stay in presidency of Porfirio Díaz, proposed the establishment of a democratic regime, calling for the creation of the National Democratic party that would allow him to participate in the 1910 elections. 

The following year, he set up the Anti-Reelection Center in Mexico and founded the newspaper El Constitucional (“The Constitutional”). In mid-1909, he began a series of tours during which he traveled much of the country. On April 15, 1910, during the “Great Convention of the Anti-reelection Party”, he received the presidential nomination. In the course of his campaign, which was the first modern electoral campaign in the history of Mexico, Madero visited different cities, gathering crowds and becoming a great challenge for the government of Porfirio Díaz, reason why the latter made the decision to detain Francisco, under the argument that he disrupted the order. Madero was arrested in Monterrey on June 7, 1910. The elections were held while he was in prison, as a result of which Porfirio Díaz was declared the winner for a new term. At the end of the month, Madero was transferred to San Luis Potosí, where he was released on bail. 

Madero denounced and documented the electoral fraud, calling for cancelling the elections. His claim was not satisfied and therefore he escaped from San Luis and went to San Antonio, Texas, where on October 5, 1910 he published the “San Luis Plan” (Plan de San Luis), a document that was distributed in a clandestine manner. The San Luis Plan did not acknowledge the government of Porfirio Díaz, declared the elections void for the president and vice president, the Supreme Court justices, and for deputies and senators. He insisted that the ballot box was no longer the way to replace Díaz, calling for insurrection to ensure the democratic rights of Mexicans, setting the deadline for starting the revolution at 6 in the evening on November 20, 1910, and promising to convene a new electoral process once the rebellion was over.

The first armed uprisings took place in Mexico’s northern region, spreading across other states in the center and southern regions. The final blow to Porfirio Diaz’s government took place on May 10, 1911, when Pascual Orozco and Francisco Villa took Ciudad Juarez. The negotiations led to signing the Treaty of Ciudad Juarez (Convenio de Ciudad Juárez), which stipulated, among the conditions for peace, the resignation of Díaz and convening new elections. Francisco León de la Barra was designated interim president and Madero committed to discharge the revolutionary troops.

Porfirio Díaz resigned to the presidency on May 25 and, the following day, León de la Barra took office. Madero returned to Mexico City on June 7, 1911, amid great celebrations. In August, the Constitutionalist Progressive Party was founded, on the basis of which he ran for presidency. Although he obtained a landslide victory in the elections of October, and his government was an example of democracy and political liberties that attempted to solve domestic problems using the law and institutions, he could only govern for 15 months. Madero’s government faced four rebellions, those of Bernardo Reyes and Félix Díaz, which sought to restore the Porfirio Diaz regime, and those of Emiliano Zapata and Pascual Orozco, his former political allies. Madero’s government did not manage to consolidate and faced a fifth rebellion led by a section of the federal army, the army that had been defeated and that had been allowed to remain by him, granting it a key role in fighting rebellions. 

As the Ten Tragic Days erupted on February 9, 1913, Lauro Villar, the military chief of Mexico City’s main square, was wounded and Madero had no other choice but to appoint Victoriano Huerta, a military commander, who began negotiations with the insurgents. After ten days of fighting in Mexico City, he committed treason against Madero. On February 18, in the National Palace, Madero and his vice president José María Pino Suárez were taken prisoners, isolated and forced to sign their resignation, while Huerta assumed the presidency. On February 22, 1913, Madero and Pino Suárez were taken to the Lecumberri penitentiary, and both were assassinated behind that building. The death of Madero, considered the apostle of democracy, led to a second stage of the Mexican Revolution, the goal of which was to bring back his ideals and to finish the work started by him. 

Sources:

Francisco I. Madero, Epistolario, Mexico, INEHRM, 1985.

Ross, Stanley, Francisco I. Madero, apóstol de la democracia, Mexico, Grijalbo, 1959.

Ávila, Felipe and Salmerón, Pedro, “La revolución democrática”, in Breve historia de la Revolución Mexicana 1910-1920, Mexico, Crítica, 2017.