Margarita Maza

Biography

Margarita Eustaquia Maza Parada was born in 1826 in Oaxaca City to a wealthy European (Criollo) family. Her father, Antonio Maza, was an agricultural businessman known locally as "El Gachupín" (The Spaniard), and her mother was Petra Parada Sigüenza. Thanks to her upper-class background, Margarita received a refined education. Years before her birth, Josefa Juárez García—Benito Juárez's sister—had worked as a maid and cook in the Maza-Parada household.

After their parents and grandparents died, Josefa and her siblings were orphaned. Her younger brother Benito Juárez left his hometown of San Pablo Guelatao in 1818 at age twelve to work and study in Oaxaca. Josefa helped him secure a position with the Maza family, and he developed a close relationship with them. With aid from a Franciscan named Antonio Salanueva, who recognized his intelligence and desire to learn, Juárez entered a seminary.

Feeling no calling to the priesthood, he chose to study law in college, where he also became politically active. He was elected to the Oaxaca city council, earned his law degree, practiced as a lawyer for several years, and was appointed a judge in 1841. Margarita accepted Juárez's proposal, and they married on October 31, 1843, at the church of San Felipe Neri in Oaxaca City. He was 37; she was 17.

Their interracial marriage stirred controversy and drew scrutiny from the city's Criollo community. They had 12 children together, with seven surviving to adulthood: one boy and six girls. (Another source says they had eleven children: three boys and eight girls, of whom two boys and a girl died young.) They also adopted Susana Chagoya, Juárez's daughter from a relationship before his marriage; her mother died when she was three. Margarita later got to know Tereso, Juárez's older son from that earlier relationship.

Family life and First Lady

Margarita Maza de Juárez managed a full household with servants to assist her growing family as her husband advanced in politics. As an educated woman, she is believed to have supported her husband in his work and taken an active role in discussing politics, though such actions went unrecognized for decades. Benito Juárez succeeded to the presidency in 1858 from his position as chief justice of the Supreme Court, following the Constitution; the Conservatives had forced out the previous president, and for a time two governments ran in competition.

He represented the Liberal Party and was later elected to the office in his own right. During the French Invasion of Mexico that began in 1862, Juárez led the resistance against the French and the Mexican Empire they installed under Emperor Maximilian I. Margarita initially stayed with her husband in Northern Mexico, but then left the country to protect their children. She lived with her family in New York City and then Washington, D.C., where they spent a few years in exile.

Two of their young sons died, in 1864 and 1865. In the United States, she took on a diplomatic role, meeting with top-ranking Americans including U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who received her as the First Lady of Mexico. The U.S. recognized Benito Juárez as representing the only legitimate government of Mexico. Along with her daughters and other Liberal Mexican women, she organized support for the war effort, raising funds for troops, hospitals, and civilian victims of the war.

After Maximilian I was executed in 1867, the war ended and Margarita returned to Mexico with her family. Her husband resumed the presidency and was re-elected, serving until his death in 1872.

He survived his wife, who died of cancer, by a year. They were buried together in the Juárez mausoleum in Mexico City. He married María Klerian, a French woman, and the couple had no surviving children.