Benito Juárez

Benito Juárez (1806-1872)was a Mexican lawyer and politician of Zapotec origin from Oaxaca who served as the President of Mexico from 1858-1872. His tenure as president saw interruption during the Reform War and the during the subsequent French occupation. From 1863-67, Juárez led a government-in-exile while opposing the reign of Maximilian, who was actually reform minded himself, and offered Juárez the office of prime minister. Juárez refused. In 1867 Maximilian was defeated, and Juárez returned to his office formally. He was subsequently re-elected in 1867 and in 1871, and died in office of a heart attack. He was the first Mexican leader who did not have a military background, and also the first full-blooded indigenous national ever to serve as President of Mexico and to lead a country in the Western Hemisphere.

Benito Juárez in The Guns of the South
In 1867, Benito Juárez met with a series of defeats at the hands of the forces Maximilian, supported by French troops.

While U.S. President Horatio Seymour did send troops to the U.S.-Mexican border as "moral support" for the rebels,, even that limited aid vanished when the U.S. went to war with Britain.