Hero

On March 21st of 1806, in the South of Mexico; Benito Juarez, one  of my many heroes was born.  Benito Juarez was the youngest of his siblings, son of indian (native from the Americas) farmers, who died three years after he was born, then he was sent to live with his grandparents, who died a couple of years after the arrival of Juarez and then was sent to live with his uncle who was a sheperd. One day, Juarez lost accidentally a sheep and runs away scared to the city, where he works as a peasant, in a printer, etc. Later on, a priests finds him and encourages him to get an education by going to the seminary, Juarez goes to the seminary but drops because he didn’t want to be really a priest, but a lawyer. So Benito Juarez atend law school and after years of study he becomes a successful lawyer. But Juarez doesn’t stop here and after some years, Juarez becomes Governor of Chiapas. Juarez had liberal ideals on that time that conflicted with the former Mexican President Santa Anna’s interests, therefore Santa Anna exiles him to New Orleans. When Santa Anna is overthrown, Juarez goes back to Mexico and becomes a judge in the Mexican Supreme Court and eventually becomes President of Mexico.

But when he becomes President, a conservative rebellion starts against the liberal government and leads to a civil war that lasted three years in which Juarez won, but left the country in almost in bankrupt, so Juarez decides to suspend the payments of the foreign debt to France, Spain and the UK. France decided to invade Mexico, but Juarez repels the invasion and successfully defends the country against the french.

For me, Juarez is my hero because he started from very humble origins and then he become great, but also when he became powerful he didn’t let the political power to go to his head and didn’t become a tyrant, he knew the value of strenght and not only became a heroic president but also a good man.