Porfirio Díaz

Porfirio Díaz dominated Mexican politics from 1876 to 1911 in the period known as the Porfiriato. His government brought economic growth, railroads, foreign investment, and order, but also authoritarian rule, inequality, and repression.

For learners, Díaz matters because his long rule set the stage for the Mexican Revolution. He is both a modernization figure and the symbol of the dictatorship that revolutionaries opposed.

Porfirio Díaz’s full name was José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori.

A technological contribution attributed to Porfirio Díaz is the first telephone call in Mexico, between Chapultepec Castle and the National Palace. El Hijo del Ahuizote was a satirical newspaper opposed to Porfirio Díaz’s regime. Mexico’s first stretch of railway, from Veracruz to El Molino, was inaugurated in 1850. During the Porfiriato, Mexico’s railways expanded to nearly 19,000 kilometers of track. The ‘ley fuga’ was a Porfiriato-era practice in which a prisoner’s escape was staged so he could be shot in the back.