Editing Porfirio Díaz (section)

== Early years ==
[[File:Mamadeporfirio.jpg|thumb|left|upright|María Petrona Cecilia Mori Cortés, mother of Porfirio Díaz, photo {{Circa}} 1854 in Oaxaca]]
Porfirio Díaz was the sixth of seven children, baptized on 15 September 1830, in [[Oaxaca City|Oaxaca, Mexico]], but his exact date of birth is unknown.<ref>{{Harvp|Garner|2001|pp=25, 44, n.4}}</ref> 15 September is an important date in Mexican history, the eve of [[Miguel Hidalgo]]'s [[Grito de Dolores]], which triggered the [[Mexican War of Independence]] in 1810. After Díaz became president, it would become customary to commemorate the ''Grito de Dolores'' on the eve of its anniversary.<ref>{{Harvp|Garner|2001|p=21}}</ref><ref name="Garner_25">{{Harvp|Garner|2001|p=25}}</ref>

Díaz's father, José Faustino Díaz Orozco, was a [[Criollo people|Criollo]] (a Mexican of predominantly [[Spanish people|Spanish]] ancestry).<ref name="Garner_25"/><ref name="brit"/> José Díaz was an illiterate ''dependiente'', or workman employed by a firm of merchants. In 1808, he had married María Petrona Cecilia Mori Cortés, whose mother was [[Mixtec]], and whose father could trace his ancestry from [[Asturias]].{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=2}}

Eventually, Jose de la Cruz had saved enough to start planting [[agave]], and he opened a wayside inn in [[Oaxaca City]] to sell the products of his business.{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=3}} Jose de la Cruz died in 1833 of cholera<ref name="Garner_25"/><ref name="brit">{{Cite web |title=Porfirio Diaz Biography |url=http://www.biography.com/people/porfirio-d%C3%ADaz-40907 |access-date=March 15, 2012 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc |page=70}}</ref> when Díaz was only three years old.{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=3}} Petrona Mori began to manage the inn while raising her multiple children.{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=3}}

===Education===
The young Díaz was sent to primary school at the age of 6<ref name="Garner_26">{{Harvp|Garner|2001|p=26}}</ref> and at one point was apprenticed to a carpenter.{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|pp=3–4}} In 1845, at the age of fifteen, Díaz entered the ''Colegio Seminario Conciliar de Oaxaca'', to study for the priesthood, sponsored by his godfather, José Agustín Domínguez, canon of and eventually Bishop of Oaxaca.{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=4}}

In 1846, the [[Mexican-American War]] broke out, and Díaz joined a Oaxacan military battalion. He practiced drills and attended lectures on tactics and strategy at the [[Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca|Institute of Arts and Sciences]], but he never saw combat by the time the war ended in 1848.{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=4}}

By 1849, Díaz decided that he did not have a vocation to the priesthood<ref name="Garner_26"/> and over the objections of his family decided to switch his studies to law.<ref name="brit"/><ref name="Garner_27"/>{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=5}} He gained the friendship of Don Marcos Pérez and Indigenous judge and professor of law at the [[Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca|Institute of Arts and Sciences]] through which Díaz also came to know his future colleague and president of Mexico, [[Benito Juárez]] who was at that time Governor of Oaxaca.<ref name="Garner_27">{{Harvp|Garner|2001|p=27}}</ref>{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=30}} Díaz passed his first examination in civil and canon law in 1853, at the age of 23.{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=5}}

===Plan of Ayutla===
In that same year however, a [[Conservative Party (Mexico)|Conservative Party]] coup overthrew the [[Liberal Party (Mexico)|Liberal]] government of [[Mariano Arista]] and raised Santa Anna for what would turn out to be his final dictatorship. Many prominent Liberals were expelled from the country, including Benito Juárez who found refuge in New Orleans. Don Marcos Pérez was arrested, but Díaz was able to communicate with him in prison with the help of Díaz's brother {{ill|Félix Díaz Mori|lt=Félix|es}}.{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|pp=34–37}}

In March 1854 the [[Plan of Ayutla]] broke out against Santa Anna led by the Liberal [[caudillo]] [[Juan Álvarez]]. After openly expressing support for Álvarez, Díaz was forced to flee Oaxaca and joined up with the Liberal partisan, Francisco Herrera.{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=39}}<ref>{{Harvp|Garner|2001|pp=35, 241}}</ref> Authorities managed to attack and disperse Herrera's troops, and Díaz once more had to flee, but the Ayutla movement was increasingly growing in strength.{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|pp=39–40}} When the Liberals captured the city of Oaxaca, Díaz was made subprefect of [[Ixtlán District|Ixtlan]].{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|p=40}} As sub-prefect Díaz helped in an ill-fated effort to put down a barracks revolt in Oaxaca,{{Sfn|Hannay|1917|pp=41–42}} but the Ayutla movement ultimately triumphed by August 1855, when Santa Anna resigned, subsequently fleeing the nation.