José María Pino Suárez

For his unwavering dedication to these principles and his ultimate sacrifice, Pino Suárez is considered as a National Hero in Mexico and is affectionately remembered as "El Caballero de la Lealtad" ("The Loyal Gentleman").

El Peninsular quickly gained readers and advertisers, standing out for its use of modern printing technology, coverage of national and international news, and its editorial team that included prominent Yucatecan intellectuals.

After a significant military victory for the revolutionary cause, Pino Suárez was one of four peace commissioners tasked with negotiating the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez (1911), marking the end of the Porfirian dictatorship after three decades in power.

The honorific "Campeche de Baranda" commemorates his role there, while an enormous statue of his father don Pedro the elder, sword tightly in hand, greets the modern day motorist along the city's malecón.

[27]Another uncle of Pino Suárez was Joaquín Casasús,[28] a lawyer, economist, diplomat, and banker who was a leading member of the influential Cíentificos group and made a substantial fortune representing American and British interests in Mexico.

Alfredo Pino Cámara, was an Associate justice of the Supreme court[39] and is remembered for having acted as presiding judge in the criminal proceedings against Tina Modotti, the Italian actress and photographer accused of the First Degree Murder of Julio Antonio Mella, a political activist and one of the founders of the Communist Party of Cuba.

His grandson, Ismael Moreno Pino, served as deputy foreign secretary and Ambassador of Mexico to Germany, The Netherlands, Chile, the OAS in Washington, D.C., and the United Nations in New York City and Geneva, Switzerland.

On the one hand were Eusebio Escalante, José María Ponce Solís, Carlos Peón and Cámara Luján himself, who represented a group of capitalists "made up of the traditional landowning families [...] whose prestige came from the viceregal era and who 'demonstrated a mysterious ability to adapt to the changing economic order'.

[63]In 1912, when Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo died, Pino Suárez received a letter from Alejandro Pidal y Mon, director of the Royal Spanish Academy, proposing to fill the vacant chair.

"[66] Pino Suárez gathered some of the most brilliant minds in the Yucatecan intelligentsia to work at the newspaper, including Serapio Rendón [es],[67] who would later serve as a maderista Congressman before being brutally assassinated by the Huerta régime.

However, the denunciations of the system of exploitation of the peasants in some henequen haciendas that appeared after February 1905 provoked the anger of the landowners, who pressured companies to remove advertisements and readers to cancel their subscription to the point of threatening the newspaper's financial stability.

In his efforts to maintain the newspaper and defend freedom of speech against such pressures, Pino Suárez participated in August of that year in the founding of the "Asociación de la Prensa Yucateca" (Yucatan Press Association), of which he served as vice-chairman.

One of the most famous accounts, journalist John Kenneth Turner's aptly titled Barbarous Mexico, contains harrowing descriptions of Maya and Yaqui Indians forced to work as slaves on hemp plantations under the brutal sun of Yucatán, starting well before daylight and ending well after sunset, their day's only meal a couple of tortillas, a cup of beans, and a bowl of rancid fish broth […] American capitalists found the lure of so much cheap labor well-nigh irresistible.

"[66] After this event, the Pino Cámara family withdrew from public life, going to live for two years to the Polyuc Hacienda, a remote sugar plantation In December 1908, Francisco I. Madero, published The Presidential Succession in 1910, which argued in favor of a transition from the military dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz.

Faced with these events, Pino sent his family to the home of a sister of Doña María who lived in San Juan Bautista [...] having just arrived there, a friendly government official transmitted the confidential instructions he had just received from the capital of the Republic to arrest her husband and send him to Mexico.

But Doña María was no longer a weak and fearful woman she might have once been, pain had tempered her character and her anxiety permanently strengthened her resolution, she immediately decided to leave her children in the care of her sister and board the first available ship with the sole purpose of defending her life companion.

As a dramatic coincidence, she happened to share the trip with the military officials that had been sent out by the federal government to arrest Pino; the most tremendous anguish took hold of her spirit at the thought that they might reach their destination at the same time as her, but undaunted, she manages to conceive a plan; the boat they had boarded set sail at night and spent the day moored in the various riverside towns on their itinerary, loading and unloading cargo; On the first such stop, she onboards the ship, manages to get hold of a horse, which she dispatches carrying the message which will save her husband.

[86]Persecuted by express order of the President of the Republic, Pino had to cross the border to Guatemala from "where he undertook his pilgrimage through the mountains to the English colony of British Honduras [modern day Belize], where he tried to get in touch again with his political supporters in search for supplies to send to the revolutionary expedition, he had instructed to invade the coasts of Yucatan and Campeche.

"[79] However, the triumph of the Revolution in the north of the country would render the military campaign that Pino was preparing in the south of the Republic, with the assistance of general Luis Felipe Domínguez Suárez [es], his cousin, completely unnecessary.

Faced with the loss of this important border city, President Díaz's advisers, headed by José Yves Limantour, Secretary of the Treasury, became convinced that the dictator must resign to avoid a civil war and a possible military intervention by the United States.

[35] Pino Suárez, on the other hand, was the ideological successor of Carlos Peón, a former Governor, who believed in classical liberalism and who had been inspired by the French Revolution, being described as a "millionaire landowner [who] loved to present himself as a kind of Yucatecan Count Mirabeau".

"[96] After the act, he was escorted by two mounted gendarmerie regiments to the National Palace where President Madero, accompanied by his Ministers, received the vice-president to whom he said the following words:"You have just sworn to protect and preserve the Constitution and I know, because I know you well, that your oath is sincere and you will comply with it.

This situation generated serious problems in the administration, since all attempts at reform were hampered by conservative ministers supported by some members of the bourgeoisie, such as Madero's own father, and by the reactionary sector of the press, whose attacks were terribly virulent.

That same day, after inspecting the battle that had broken out in National Palace, Pino Suárez and González Garza went to the Chapultepec Castle, the presidential residence, to inform President Madero of the events that were developing in the city center.

Prior to this, Madero had already travelled to Cuernavaca to enlist the support of the army headed by Felipe Ángeles, a capable and respected general who had remained loyal to the government and who was successfully quenching the Zapata rebellion in the State of Morelos.

As these events were developing in the National Palace, Huerta had invited Gustavo Madero to a luncheon at Gambrinus, an elegant restaurant in the city center, ostensibly to smooth their misunderstandings and give him a full report of the military advances.

Lascuráin conveyed Huerta's offer to Madero and Pino Suárez: if both men resigned from their respective positions, he would grant them safe conduct to travel to the port of Veracruz, from where he would allow them to embark to the foreign country of their choice.

"[106] In 1969, shortly before her death, Maria Cámara Vales, his widow, was awarded the prestigious Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor by the Mexican Senate, an accolade granted to individuals who have significantly contributed to the country’s civic values and national progress.

This recognition, one of the highest civilian honors in Mexico, underscored the enduring legacy of both Maria Cámara and José María Pino Suárez as a symbol of courage and resilience during one of the nation's most tumultuous periods.

In 2020, to mark the 107th anniversary of the assassination of Francisco I. Madero and José María Pino Suárez, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador inaugurated a museum dedicated to their memory within the National Palace (Palacio Nacional).

His great-grandfather was Pedro Sainz de Baranda , a hero of the Mexican Wars of Independence .
José María Pino Suárez and María Cámara Vales on their wedding day (1896).
Pino Suárez visits the Aerial Exhibition, accompanied by Gerald Brandon, a journalist.
The Presidential Succession in 1910. – a book which would change the course of Mexican history.
Francisco I. Madero, 37th President of Mexico between 1911 and 1913.
Gustavo Madero , the president's brother, was the grey eminence of the Maderista movement. Pino established "a strong friendship" with him. Going forward, Gustavo would "unconditionally support Pino in the Maderista movement." [ 82 ]
Leaders of the 1910 Revolution are pictured after their victory at the Battle of Ciudad Juárez in May 1911. Pino Suárez is pictured seated in the far left.
The Peace Commissioners (from left to right): José María Pino Suárez, Dr. Francisco Vázquez Gomez , Francisco Madero Hernández, and Francisco S. Carvajal seated around a table, during the signing of the Treaty of Ciudad Juarez (1911)
Pino Suárez was the ideological successor of Carlos Peón , a former Governor of Yucatan (1894–97), who believed in classical liberalism and who had been inspired by the French Revolution , being described as a "millionaire landowner [who] loved to present himself as a kind of Yucatecan Count Mirabeau ". [ 89 ]
1911 caricature of Pino Suárez, with the seat of Governor of Yucatán open to him.
Items from the Madero-Pino Suárez campaign.
Madero and Pino Suárez arrived in Mexico City in July 1911, being cheered on by hundreds of thousands of supporters. At dawn, an earthquake in Michoacán registered a 7.8 magnitude and was felt in the Capital. After that, a popular rhyme circulated throughout the city: "the day Madero arrived even the earth trembled."
Vice-president Pino Suárez leaves Congress after swearing the oath of office in November 1911
Caricature of Zapata and Madero.
Portrait of President Francisco I. Madero and Vice-president José María Pino Suárez
Madero's second government lasted between 1912 and 1913. After the February 1912 reshuffle, Pino Suárez became Secretary of Education and his influence in the administration grew significantly, even being described as "dominant" [ 101 ]
Pino Suárez dining with politicians of the Bloque Renovador . To his right is Gustavo Madero who headed the Renovador movement in Congress.
President Madero and Vice-president Pino Suárez receiving at suffragettes the Chapultepec Castle , then the Presidential Residence .
J.M. Pino Suárez (center) is photographed at the Ministry of Education with Miguel Díaz Lombardo, the outgoing Secretary of Education, (left) and Alberto J. Pani , the Undersecretary (right)
Madero and Pino Suárez in the last public event which they attended shortly before their assassination.
The Madero and Pino-Cámara families photographed at the Chapultepec Castle , then the presidential residence.
Madero and Pino Suárez portrayed with the Porfirista Army which eventually would betray them. To Madero's left is Pedro Lascurain , the Foreign Secretary.
A contemporary caricature shows General Victoriano Huerta as the assassin of Madero and Pino, their two skulls hanging from his neck.
Monument to José María Pino Suárez in Villahermosa , Tabasco