page_title: Treaty of Ciudad Juárez
section_title: Compromise
hierarchical_section_title: Treaty of Ciudad Juárez / Compromise
caption_attribution_description: Bain News Service,, publisher. President Diaz [between 1910 and 1915] 1 negative&#160;: glass&#160;; 5 x 7 in. or smaller. Notes: Title from unverified data provided by the Bain News Service on the negatives or caption cards. Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress). Subjects: Mexico Format: Glass negatives. Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication. Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, &lt;a href="http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print"&gt;hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print&lt;/a&gt; General information about the Bain Collection is available at &lt;a href="http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain"&gt;hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain&lt;/a&gt; Persistent URL: &lt;a href="http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.09385"&gt;hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.09385&lt;/a&gt; Call Number: LC-B2- 2222-6
context_page_description: The Treaty of Ciudad Juárez was a peace treaty signed between the President of Mexico, Porfirio Díaz, and the revolutionary Francisco Madero on May 21, 1911. The treaty put an end to the fighting between forces supporting Madero and those of Díaz and thus concluded the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution.
  The treaty stipulated that Díaz, as well as his vice president Ramón Corral, were to step down by the end of May, and that he was to be replaced by Francisco León de la Barra as interim president and hold presidential elections. Those who had suffered losses due to the revolution would be indemnified, and there would be a general amnesty. Díaz resigned on May 25, and interim president Francisco León de la Barra was the new incumbent. Díaz and his family, his vice president Corral, plus José Yves Limantour and Rosendo Pineda left Mexico for exile.
  Significantly, the treaty did not mention or institute any social reforms that Madero had vaguely promised on previous occasions. It also left the Porfirian state essentially intact.
context_section_description: As early as March 1911 Madero's representatives met in New York with Díaz's finance minister, José Yves Limantour, and the Mexican ambassador to the US in order to discuss the possibility of peace between the two sides. Limantour proposed an end to hostilities and offered an amnesty for all revolutionaries, the resignation of the then-vice president Ramón Corral, the replacement of four Díaz cabinet ministers and ten state governors by ones chosen by Madero and the establishment of the principle of "no-reelection", which would prevent Díaz from seeking yet another term as president (which would have been his ninth). Madero responded positively, although he also stated that any kind of peace deal had to include an immediate resignation by Díaz.
  Faced with the siege of Ciudad Juárez and the outbreak of rebellion in Morelos, Díaz and members of his cabinet became more willing to negotiate and launched a "skillful peace offensive" aimed at Madero. This was largely a result of panic among the large landowners associated with the Díaz regime (the hacendados) and the financial elite, which represented a "moderate" wing within the government. Some among the Porfiristas, in fact, expected that Zapata would soon march on Mexico City itself, unless peace was concluded with Madero.
  The moderate view within the Díaz government was represented by Jorge Vera Estañol, who in a memo to the minister of foreign affairs wrote that there were two revolutions taking place in Mexico: a political revolution, based mostly in the north whose main aim was to establish free elections and remove Díaz himself from power, and a social revolution whose aim was "anarchy", which was spreading throughout the countryside. Estañol recommended coming to terms with the first group of revolutionaries by agreeing to the principle of no re-election and a general amnesty, in order to prevent the second group from succeeding. In addition to his fear of "anarchy", Estañol was also worried that the social revolution would lead to a military intervention by the United States.
  Estañol's views represented those of the portion of the upper class which was willing to come to terms with at least a portion of the middle class in order to crush the peasant uprisings, as exemplified by those of Zapata, which were erupting throughout Mexico. Limantour, who broadly agreed with Estañol, had the support of the Mexican financiers, who feared the downgrading of Mexican international credit and a general economic crisis as a result of ongoing social unrest, as well as that of the large landowners who were willing to come to terms with Madero if it would put an end to the agrarian uprisings.
  These social group were in turn opposed by the more reactionary elements within Díaz's government, mostly concentrated in the Federal Army, who thought that the rebels should be dealt with through brute force. This faction was represented by Gen. Victoriano Huerta, who would later carry out an attempted coup d'état against Madero. Likewise, Gen.--and potential successor to Díaz--Bernardo Reyes stated in a letter to Limantour that "the repression [against the insurrectionists] should be carried out with the greatest energy, punishing without any pity anyone participating in the armed struggle". In the end, however, Díaz dismissed the advice from his generals as "Custer-like bluster" and chose to seek peace with the moderate wing of the revolution. Limantour had finally managed to persuade him to resign.
  At the same time there was also disagreement among the rebels. The "left wing" of the revolutionary movement, represented by Zapata and Orozco (Villa, for the time being, tended to support Madero), warned against any possible compromises with Díaz. In the end their suspicions proved correct, as the treaty that was eventually signed neglected issues of social and agrarian land reform that were central to their struggle.
caption: Porfirio Díaz on horseback in 1910 or 1911.
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