Jaime Torres Bodet
Jaime Mario Torres Bodet was a prominent Mexican politician and writer who served in the executive cabinet of three Presidents of Mexico. Torres Bodet was born in Mexico City, his mother was Emilia Bodet Levallois, a Peruvian of French heritage, his father was Alejandro Torres Girbent from Barcelona. The couple met in Peru and migrated to Mexico in the late 19th century, his father was activities which impressed Jaime as a young child. Jaime was one of two children, he had a younger brother, who died young and to whom Torres Bodet does not refer in his memoirs. His mother was a great influence on him, but his relationship with his father was less close as he was home, he arranged shows such as appearances by Enrico Caruso. The family was wealthy, living in a home on Donceles Street that allow them to see then-president Porfirio Diaz arrive for official business at the Chamber of Deputies across the street. Both of Torres Bodet's parents stressed the arts, his early education was the purview of his mother, who taught him piano and the Gallic language.
This allowed him to enter directly into the third grade. In 1912, he graduated the sixth grade, he received as a gift the collection of "The Natural Episodes" by Benito Pérez Galdós, along with many other books, he attended high school at the National Preparatory School, where his literary development began, befriending like-minded people in Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano, José Gorostiza, Carlos Pellicer and Luis Garrido. Torres Bodet came of age during the Mexican Revolution, he published his first book poems at age 16. He lost sight while returning to Mexico City from Cuernavaca, he spent the last years of his life dedicated only to writing his memoirs. According to Solana, he planned to end his life after finishing them, he had decided. His diplomatic career ended, he had a wife but nephews on his side. His decision to commit suicide was influenced by a book called The Temple of the Golden Pavillion 1956 by Yukio Mishima, he was impressed but the idea of destroying a perfect temple rather than letting it decay.
He was affect by the deaths of various friends and associates after long or debilitating illnesses. In 1974, he ended his life with by gunshot; the official version of the story stated. Solana states Torres Bodet was fine both physically at the time of his death, he spoke French, which he learned as a child This opened both diplomatic doors for him. He was a specialist in French literature, learned English and Italian. At only 18 years of age, in 1920, Torres Bodet was appointed an administrator at the National Preparatory School as well as a teacher of literature at the School of Advanced Studies. In 1921, José Vasconcelos made him his personal secretary. Soon after, he was appointed the head of libraries for the Secretariat of Public Education. In addition to these responsibilities, he founded a magazine called Falange along with several friends and the support of Vasconcelos, he was appointed to the rectory of the National University, tasked with formulating the legal basis of the new educational system.
In 1929, he published Biombos, Destierro. In the same year, he founded with a group of friends a magazine called Los Contemporáneos; the group behind this publication would become known as the "no grupo" or "grupo sin nombre" and consisted of Enrique González Rojo, Benardo Ortiz de Montellano, José Gorostiza, Salvador Novo, Xavier Villaurrutia along with Torres Bodet. The purpose of Contemporáneos was to promote an expressive and poetic movement called Nuevo Ateneo, which had begun in 1924; the publication was criticized as for not being in line with the current revolutionary ideology, nor patriotic enough. In fact, it was apolitical, itself becoming a political statementFrom 1938 to 1941 he worked with a younger generation of writers such as Rafael Solana, Octavio Paz, Efraín Huerta and Alberto Quintero on a project and publication called Taller Poético, his work has fallen into relative obscurity since his death despite being well-appreciated during his time. He had contact with various other writers such as García Lorca, Alberto del Toro Aguirre, Pedro Salinas, Paul Valery and Valery Larbaud.
Torres Bodet was appointed Secretary of Public Education by President Manuel Ávila Camacho. He was the ambassador of Mexico to France from 1954 to 1958. In 1958–64, he was again appointed to serve as Secretary of Public Education, this time under President Adolfo López Mateos, he believed that the answer to Mexico’s problem lie with education, that it could diminish crime, lack of employment, etc. This was true with vocational education, despite himself being a poet. According to his personal secretary Rafael Solana, President Manuel Ávila Camacho offered to guarantee him the presidency, but Torres reminded him that it was prohibited under Article 82 of the Mexican Constitution as he was only a first generation Mexican, he retired from public life after his stint as the Secretary of Public Education, rejecting various positions that were offered to him. Between 1929 and the outbreak of the Second World War, Torres Bodet held diplomatic positions in Madrid, The Hague, Buenos Aires and Brussels.
He served as director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scien
Flag of Mexico
The flag of Mexico is a vertical tricolor of green and red with the national coat of arms charged in the center of the white stripe. While the meaning of the colors has changed over time, these three colors were adopted by Mexico following independence from Spain during the country's War of Independence, subsequent First Mexican Empire; the form of the coat of arms was most revised in 1968, but the overall design has been used since 1821, when the First National Flag was created. Red and green are the colors of the national army in Mexico; the central emblem is the Mexican coat of arms, based on the Aztec symbol for Tenochtitlan, the center of the Aztec empire. It recalls the legend of an eagle sitting on a cactus while devouring a serpent that signaled to the Aztecs where to found their city, Tenochtitlan. A ribbon in the national colors is at the bottom of the coat of arms. Throughout history, the flag has changed several times, as the design of the coat of arms and the length-width ratios of the flag have been modified.
However, the coat of arms has had the same features throughout: an eagle, holding a serpent in its talon, is perched on top of a prickly pear cactus. The coat of arms is derived from an Aztec legend that their gods told them to build a city where they spot an eagle on a nopal eating a serpent, now Mexico City; the current law of national symbols, Law on the National Arms and Anthem, that governs the use of the national flag has been in place since 1984. The current national flag is used as the Mexican naval ensign by ships registered in Mexico. Before the adoption of the first national flag, various flags were used during the War of Independence from Spain. Though it was never adopted as an official flag, many historians consider the first Mexican flag to be the Standard of the Virgin of Guadalupe, carried by Miguel Hidalgo after the Grito de Dolores on September 16, 1810; the Standard became the initial symbol of the rebel army during the Mexican War of Independence. Various other Standards were used during the war.
José María Morelos used a flag with an image of the Virgin to, added a blue and white insignia with a crowned eagle on a cactus over a three-arched bridge and the letters V. V. M.. The Revolutionary Army used a flag featuring the colors white and red in vertical stripes; the first use of the modern colors—green and red—was in the flag of the unified Army of the Three Guarantees after independence from Spain was won. While similar to the national flag, used today, the eagle in these arms is not holding a serpent in his talons and a crown has been affixed to the head of the eagle to signify the Empire. Variants of this flag that appeared in this period included a naval flag that had the tricolor pattern, but only contained the eagle with the crown above its head; the military used a similar square flag, but the eagle was larger than on the national flag. The national flag was decreed by Agustín de Iturbide in November 1821 and first used in July 1822; this flag was no longer used upon the abolishment of the empire.
The first national flag was established in the first year of Mexican recognized sovereignty. The imperial government, set up chose a tricolor flag of green and red and charged with the national coat of arms; the official decree stated that Sole article:... the national flag and flags of the army shall be tricolor, adopting forever the colors green, white and "encarnado" arranged vertically, with the crowned eagle in the center of the white stripe, according to the following design The second national flag was adopted after the establishment of the first federal republic in 1823. The new flag was chosen for the republic in April of that year, the only differences being the appearance of the central emblem; the crown was removed from the eagle's head and a serpent was placed in the eagle's right talon. Another addition to the flag is a branch of oak and laurel branches, a tradition, carried over to the current flag; this flag was discontinued in 1864 upon the dissolution of the first federal republic.
The third national flag was that of the Second Mexican Empire. Once again, the national flag used the green and red tricolor pattern with the white stripe being charged with the national arms. However, the ratio of the flag was changed from 4:7 to 1:2 and four eagles, which had crowns above their heads, were placed at each corner of the flag; the design, ordered by the Emperor Maximilian, gave the arms a look similar to the French Imperial arms, but he decided to add a bit of "Mexican flavor" to the flag. The coat of arms was described in a decree issued in November 1865 as: oval in shape in blue; the border is gold charged by a garland of laurel. The crest is the Imperial Crown; as supporters, two griffins from their upper half in black and the lower in gold. The shield is surrounded by the collar of the Order of the Águila Mexicana, the motto: "Equidad en la Justicia" The current national flag was adopted on September 16, 1968, was confirmed by law on February 24, 1984; the current version is an adaptation of the design approved by presidential decree in 1916 by Venustiano Carranza, where the eagle was changed from a front-facing to a side-facing position.
Before the adoption of the current national flag, official flags have been used b
José Inocente Lugo
José Inocente Lugo was a Mexican lawyer and politician who served as governor of the State of Guerrero
Martyr
A martyr is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, refusing to renounce, or refusing to advocate a belief or cause as demanded by an external party. This refusal to comply with the presented demands results in the punishment or execution of the martyr by the oppressor. Applied only to those who suffered for their religious beliefs, the term has come to be used in connection with people killed for a political cause. Most martyrs are considered holy or are respected by their followers, becoming symbols of exceptional leadership and heroism in the face of difficult circumstances. Martyrs play significant roles in religions. Martyrs have had notable effects in secular life, including such figures as Socrates, among other political and cultural examples. In its original meaning, the word martyr, meaning witness, was used in the secular sphere as well as in the New Testament of the Bible; the process of bearing witness was not intended to lead to the death of the witness, although it is known from ancient writers and from the New Testament that witnesses died for their testimonies.
During the early Christian centuries, the term acquired the extended meaning of believers who are called to witness for their religious belief, on account of this witness, endures suffering or death. The term, in this sense, entered the English language as a loanword; the death of a martyr or the value attributed. The early Christians who first began to use the term martyr in its new sense saw Jesus as the first and greatest martyr, on account of his crucifixion; the early Christians appear to have seen Jesus as the archetypal martyr. The word martyr is used in English to describe a wide variety of people. However, the following table presents a general outline of common features present in stereotypical martyrdoms. In the Bahá'í Faith, martyrs are those who sacrifice their lives serving humanity in the name of God. However, Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, discouraged the literal meaning of sacrificing one's life. Instead, he explained. Martyrdom was extensively promoted by the Kuomintang party in modern China.
Revolutionaries who died fighting against the Qing dynasty in the Xinhai Revolution and throughout the Republic of China period, furthering the cause of the revolution, were recognized as martyrs. In Christianity, a martyr, in accordance with the meaning of the original Greek martys in the New Testament, is one who brings a testimony written or verbal. In particular, the testimony is that of the Christian Gospel, or more the Word of God. A Christian witness is a biblical witness. However, over time many Christian testimonies were rejected, the witnesses put to death, the word martyr developed its present sense. Where death ensues, the witnesses follow the example of Jesus in offering up their lives for truth; the concept of Jesus as a martyr has received greater attention. Analyses of the Gospel passion narratives have led many scholars to conclude that they are martyrdom accounts in terms of genre and style. Several scholars have concluded that Paul the Apostle understood Jesus' death as a martyrdom.
In light of such conclusions, some have argued that the Christians of the first few centuries would have interpreted the crucifixion of Jesus as a martyrdom. In the context of church history, from the time of the persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire, it developed that a martyr was one, killed for maintaining a religious belief, knowing that this will certainly result in imminent death; this definition of martyr is not restricted to the Christian faith. Though Christianity recognizes certain Old Testament Jewish figures, like Abel and the Maccabees, as holy, the New Testament mentions the imprisonment and beheading of John the Baptist, Jesus's possible cousin and his prophet and forerunner, the first Christian witness, after the establishment of the Christian faith, to be killed for his testimony was Saint Stephen, those who suffer martyrdom are said to have been "crowned." From the time of Constantine, Christianity was decriminalized, under Theodosius I, became the state religion, which diminished persecution.
As some wondered how they could most follow Christ there was a development of desert spirituality, desert monks, self-mortification, following Christ by separation from the world. This was a kind of white martyrdom, dying to oneself every day, as opposed to a red martyrdom, the giving of one's life in a violent death. In Christianity, death in sectarian persecution can be viewed as martyrdom. For example, there were martyrs recognised on both sides of the schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England after 1534, with two hundred and eighty Christians martyred for their faith by public burning between 1553 and 1558 by the Roman Catholic Queen Mary I in England leading to the reversion to the Church of England under Queen Elizabeth I in 1559 and three hundred Roman Catholics martyred by the Church authorities in England over the following hundred and fifty years in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. More modern day accounts of martyrdom for Christ exist, depicted in books such as Jesus Freaks though the numbers are disputed.
There are claims that the numbers of Christians killed for their faith annually are exaggerated. Despite the promotion of ahimsa within Sanatana Dharma
Chiapas
Chiapas the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the 31 states that along with the federal district of Mexico City make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into 124 municipalities as of September 2017 and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Other important population centers in Chiapas include Ocosingo, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Comitán and Arriaga, it is the southernmost state in Mexico. It is located in Southeastern Mexico, it borders the states of Oaxaca to the west, Veracruz to the northwest and Tabasco to the north, by the Petén, Quiché, Huehuetenango and San Marcos departments of Guatemala to the east and southeast. Chiapas has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the south. In general, Chiapas has a tropical climate. In the north, in the area bordering Tabasco, near Teapa, rainfall can average more than 3,000 mm per year. In the past, natural vegetation in this region was lowland, tall perennial rainforest, but this vegetation has been completely cleared to allow agriculture and ranching.
Rainfall decreases moving towards the Pacific Ocean, but it is still abundant enough to allow the farming of bananas and many other tropical crops near Tapachula. On the several parallel "sierras" or mountain ranges running along the center of Chiapas, climate can be quite temperate and foggy, allowing the development of cloud forests like those of the Reserva de la Biosfera el Triunfo, home to a handful of resplendent quetzals and horned guans. Chiapas is home to the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque, Yaxchilán, Bonampak and Toniná, it is home to one of the largest indigenous populations in the country with twelve federally recognized ethnicities. Much of the state's history is centered on the subjugation of these peoples with occasional rebellions; the last of these rebellions was the 1994 Zapatista uprising, which succeeded in obtaining new rights for indigenous people. The official name of the state is Chiapas, it is believed to have come from the ancient city of Chiapan, which in Náhuatl means "the place where the chia sage grows."
After the Spanish arrived, they established two cities called Chiapas de los Indios and Chiapas de los Españoles, with the name of Provincia de Chiapas for the area around the cities. The first coat of arms of the region dates from 1535 as that of the Ciudad Real. Chiapas painter Javier Vargas Ballinas designed the modern coat of arms. Hunter gatherers began to occupy the central valley of the state around 7000 BCE, but little is known about them; the oldest archaeological remains in the seat are located at the Santa Elena Ranch in Ocozocoautla whose finds include tools and weapons made of stone and bone. It includes burials. In the pre Classic period from 1800 BCE to 300 CE, agricultural villages appeared all over the state although hunter gather groups would persist for long after the era. Recent excavations in the Soconusco region of the state indicate that the oldest civilization to appear in what is now modern Chiapas is that of the Mokaya, which were cultivating corn and living in houses as early as 1500 BCE, making them one of the oldest in Mesoamerica.
There is speculation that these were the forefathers of the Olmec, migrating across the Grijalva Valley and onto the coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico to the north, Olmec territory. One of these people's ancient cities is now the archeological site of Chiapa de Corzo, in, found the oldest calendar known on a piece of ceramic with a date of 36 BCE; this is. The descendants of Mokaya are the Mixe-Zoque. During the pre Classic era, it is known that most of Chiapas was not Olmec, but had close relations with them the Olmecs of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Olmec-influenced sculpture can be found in Chiapas and products from the state including amber and ilmenite were exported to Olmec lands; the Olmecs came to what is now the northwest of the state looking for amber with one of the main pieces of evidence for this called the Simojovel Ax. Mayan civilization began in the pre-Classic period as well, but did not come into prominence until the Classic period. Development of this culture was agricultural villages during the pre-Classic period with city building during the Classic as social stratification became more complex.
The Mayans built cities on west into Guatemala. In Chiapas, Mayan sites are concentrated along the state's borders with Tabasco and Guatemala, near Mayan sites in those entities. Most of this area belongs to the Lacandon Jungle. Mayan civilization in the Lacandon area is marked by rising exploitation of rain forest resources, rigid social stratification, fervent local identity, waging war against neighboring peoples. At its height, it had large cities, a writing system, development of scientific knowledge, such as mathematics and astronomy. Cities were centered on large political and ceremonial structures elaborately decorated with murals and inscriptions. Among these cities are Palenque, Yaxchilan, Toniná and Tenón; the Mayan civilization had extensive trade networks and large markets trading in goods such as animal skins, amber and quetzal feathers. It is not known what ended the civilization but theories range from over population size, natural disasters and loss of natural resources through over exploitation or climate change.
Nearly all Mayan cities collapsed around the same time, 900 CE. From until 1500 CE, social organization of the region fragmented into much smaller units and social structure became much less complex. There was some influence from the ris
Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes Macías was a Mexican novelist and essayist. Among his works are The Death of Artemio Cruz, Terra Nostra, The Old Gringo and Christopher Unborn. In his obituary, The New York Times described Fuentes as "one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking world" and an important influence on the Latin American Boom, the "explosion of Latin American literature in the 1960s and'70s", while The Guardian called him "Mexico's most celebrated novelist", his many literary honors include the Miguel de Cervantes Prize as well as Mexico's highest award, the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor. He was named as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he never won. Fuentes was born in Panama City, the son of Berta Macías and Rafael Fuentes, the latter of whom was a Mexican diplomat; as the family moved for his father's career, Fuentes spent his childhood in various Latin American capital cities, an experience he described as giving him the ability to view Latin America as a critical outsider.
From 1934 to 1940, Fuentes' father was posted to the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D. C. where Carlos attended English-language school becoming fluent. He began to write during this time, creating his own magazine, which he shared with apartments on his block. In 1938, Mexico nationalized foreign oil holdings, leading to a national outcry in the U. S.. In 1940, the Fuentes family was transferred to Chile. There Carlos first became interested in socialism, which would become one of his lifelong passions, in part through his interest in the poetry of Pablo Neruda, he lived in Mexico for the first time at the age of 16, when he went to study law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City with an eye toward a diplomatic career. During this time, he began working at the daily newspaper Hoy and writing short stories, he attended the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. In 1957, Fuentes was named head of cultural relations at the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs; the following year, he published Where the Air Is Clear, which made him a "national celebrity" and allowed him to leave his diplomatic post to write full-time.
In 1959, he moved to Havana in the wake of the Cuban Revolution, where he wrote pro-Castro articles and essays. The same year, he married Mexican actress Rita Macedo. Considered "dashingly handsome", Fuentes had high-profile affairs with actresses Jeanne Moreau and Jean Seberg, who inspired his novel Diana: The Goddess Who Hunts Alone, his second marriage, to journalist Silvia Lemus, lasted until his death. Fuentes served as Mexico's ambassador to France from 1975 to 1977, resigning in protest of former President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz's appointment as ambassador to Spain, he taught at Cambridge, Princeton, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania and Cornell. His friends included Luis Buñuel, William Styron, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, sociologist C. Wright Mills, to whom he dedicated his book The Death of Artemio Cruz. Once good friends with Nobel-winning Mexican poet Octavio Paz, Fuentes became estranged from him in the 1980s in a disagreement over the Sandinistas, whom Fuentes supported. In 1988, Paz's magazine Vuelta carried an attack by Enrique Krauze on the legitimacy of Fuentes' Mexican identity, opening a feud between Paz and Fuentes that lasted until Paz's 1998 death.
In 1989, he was the subject of a full-length PBS television documentary, "Crossing Borders: The Journey of Carlos Fuentes," which aired in Europe and was broadcast in Mexico. Fuentes fathered three children. Only one of them survived him: Cecilia Fuentes Macedo, born in 1962. A son, Carlos Fuentes Lemus, died from complications associated with hemophilia in 1999 at the age of 25. A daughter, Natasha Fuentes Lemus, died of an apparent drug overdose in Mexico City on August 22, 2005, at the age of 30. Fuentes described himself as a pre-modern writer, using only pens and paper, he asked, "Do words need anything else?" Fuentes said that he detested those authors who from the beginning claim to have a recipe for success. In a speech on his writing process, he related that when he began the writing process, he began by asking, "Who am I writing for?"Fuentes' first novel, Where the Air Is Clear, was an immediate success. The novel is built around the story of Federico Robles – who has abandoned his revolutionary ideals to become a powerful financier – but offers "a kaleidoscopic presentation" of vignettes of Mexico City, making it as much a "biography of the city" as of an individual man.
The novel was celebrated not only for its prose, which made heavy use of interior monologue and explorations of the subconscious, but for its "stark portrait of inequality and moral corruption in modern Mexico". A year he followed with another novel, The Good Conscience, which depicted the privileged middle classes of a medium-sized town modeled on Guanajuato. Described by a contemporary reviewer as "the classic Marxist novel", it tells the story of a privileged young man whose impulses toward social equality are suffocated by his family's materialism. Fuentes' best-known novel, The Death of Artemio Cruz appeared in 1962 and is today "widely regarded as a seminal work of modern Spanish American literature". Like many of his works, the novel used rotating narrators, a technique critic Karen Hardy described as demonstrating "the complexities of a human or national personality"; the novel is influenced by Orson Welles' Citiz
Victoriano Huerta
José Victoriano Huerta Márquez was a Mexican military officer and 35th President of Mexico. After a military career under President Porfirio Díaz, Huerta became a high-ranking officer under pro-democracy President Francisco I. Madero during the first phase of the Mexican Revolution. In 1913 Huerta led a conspiracy against Madero, who entrusted him to control a minor revolt in Mexico City and assassinating Madero, his brother and Vice President Pino Suarez; this maneuver is called the Ten Tragic Days. The Huerta regime was opposed by revolutionary forces, plunging the nation into a civil war, he was forced to resign and flee the country in 1914, only 17 months into his presidency, after the federal army collapsed. While attempting to intrigue with German spies in the US during World War I, Huerta was arrested in 1915 and died in U. S. custody. His supporters were known as Huertistas during the Mexican Revolution, he is still vilified by modern-day Mexicans, who refer to him as El Chacal or El Usurpador.
Barbara W. Tuchman described him as "a pure-blooded Indian with a flat nose, a bullet head, a sphinx's eyes behind incongruous spectacles, a brandy bottle never far from hand. Wily, patient and sober." Victoriano Huerta was born in the settlement of Agua Gorda within the municipality of Colotlán, son of Jesús Huerta and María Lázara del Refugio Márquez. He identified himself as indigenous, both his parents are reported to have been ethnically Huichol, although his father is said to have been Mestizo. Huerta learned to read and write at a school run by the local priest, making him one of the few literate people in Colotlán, he had decided upon a military career early on as the only way of escaping the poverty of Colotlán. In 1869 he was employed by visiting Gen. Donato Guerra to serve as his personal secretary. In that role he distinguished himself and, with Gen. Guerra's support, gained admission to the Mexican National Military Academy at Chapultepec in Mexico City in 1872; as a cadet, Huerta excelled at math, leading him to specialize in topography.
President Benito Juárez praised Cadet Huerta when inspecting the Academy, noting that the army needed officers of indigenous origins. Upon graduating from the military academy in 1877, Huerta was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers. After entering the army as a lieutenant in the engineers in 1877, he was put in charge of improving the Loreto and Guadalupe forts in Puebla and the castle of Perote in Veracruz. In January 1879 he was promoted to captain and assigned to the staff of the 4th Division in Guadalajara, in charge of engineering; the commander of the 4th Division was Gen. Manual González, a close associate of President Porfirio Díaz, the dictator of Mexico. In 1880 Díaz stepped back from the limelight, turning over the presidency to González before returning to office in 1884. In the interim, Huerta's career prospered thanks to the patronage of González, he married Emilia Águila Moya, whom he met on 21 November 1880 in Mexico City. They had a total of 11 children; the names of his children surviving him in 1916 were Jorge, María Elisa, Luz, Dagoberto and Celia.
Huerta participated in the "pacification campaigns" in Tepic and Sinaloa, where he distinguished himself in combat. He was known for ensuring that his men always got paid resorting to finding the money in ruthless ways. Following a complaint from the Catholic Church that Huerta had plundered a church to sell off its gold and silver to pay his men, Huerta justified his actions on the grounds that "Mexico can do without her priests, but cannot do without her soldiers". On another occasion, following a complaint from a bank that he emptied out one of its branches at gunpoint to get money to pay his men, Huerta pointed out he left a receipt and would pay back the bank what he had stolen when he received the necessary funds from Mexico City. Huerta spent nine years of his military career undertaking topographic studies in the states of Puebla and Veracruz, he traveled extensively to all parts of Mexico in this position. French cultural influence was strong in 19th-century Mexico, Huerta's hero was Napoleon.
He supported Gen. Díaz as the closest approximation to his Napoleonic ideal, believing that Mexico needed a "strongman" to prosper. By 1890 Huerta had reached the rank of Colonel of Engineers, under the administration of Porfirio Díaz. From 1890-95 Huerta lived in Mexico City, becoming a regular visitor to the Chapultepec Castle, was seen as part of Díaz's "court". Through Huerta was well liked at the Chapultepec Castle, acquiring the persona of a trim, efficient officer, stern to his subordinates while displaying a courtly, polished manner towards his superiors, he began to suffer from severe insomnia and began drinking during this time. In January 1895 he commanded a battalion of infantry against a rebellion in Guerrero led by Gen. Canuto Neri; the rebellion was ended when Díaz brokered a deal with Neri, who surrendered in exchange for a promise to remove the unpopular state governor. Huerta confirmed his reputation for ruthlessness by refusing to take prisoners and continuing to attack the followers of Neri after Díaz had signed a ceasefire.
In December 1900 Huerta commanded a successful military campaign against Yaqui Indians in Sonora. During the near-genocidal campaign against the Yaqui, Huerta was more concerned with mapping out the terrain of Sonora, but at times he commanded forces in the field against the Yaqui. From 12 April-8 September 1901 Huerta put down a rebellion in Guerrero "pacifying" the state. In May 1901 he
Mexico_-_ribbon_bar.png){kind=small}
