Benito Juárez: Background information when reading Season of the Swamp

In his novel Season of the Swamp, Yuri Herrera illuminates the year and a half Benito Juárez spent as a political exile in New Orleans, an often-overlooked period in the life of Mexico's first Indigenous president.

Juárez was born in 1806 to a Zapotec family living in the town of San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, Mexico. He was orphaned at a young age, after which he was raised by his uncle and attended a local seminary school. Later, he earned a law degree from the Institute of Arts and Sciences of Oaxaca, the first student from that school to do so. He entered politics by running for and winning a position on his municipal council as a member of the Liberal Party, which aimed to expand civil rights and religious freedom in Mexico. This put them in opposition to the Catholic Church and the established aristocracy, who wanted to maintain their control over Mexico. Juárez went on to hold a number of political offices, serving as representative on the state and federal ...