The Slim family, like thousands of their countrymen, arrived on Mexican soil following the footsteps of the first Lebanese who left their homeland to “live the American dream.”
The first Lebanese people settled in New York in 1870; their businesses multiplied. New Yorkers were struck by the attire of this group of immigrants. Thus, it was these immigrants who formed the first “Oriental” or “Middle Eastern” neighborhood called Little Syria.
Although official documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not record the names of the first Lebanese immigrants who arrived in Mexico, it is an accepted fact that the precursor was the priest Boutros Raffoul, who arrived in 1878 through the port of Veracruz. However, other sources cite a merchant named Santiago Sauma as one of the initiators of the first Lebanese colony established in 1880 in Yucatan.
Julián Slim Haddad, born July 17, 1887, in Jezzine, Lebanon, arrived in Mexico in 1902 through the Tampico port where he began working alongside his brother José, thirteen years his senior. José Slim Haddad had arrived in 1893, and was followed by his three older brothers, Elías, Carlos, and Pedro, in 1898. This family was part of an era that saw thousands of people leaving their homeland for different parts of the world. In fact, one-fourth of the population had left Lebanon before the outbreak of the First World War, leading to their empire’s dismemberment.
Within years, there were approximately ten thousand Lebanese people in Mexico. The Mexican government began to impose regulations that would act as obstacles for Middle Eastern immigrants.
It was at the time of these regulations that José and Pedro moved from Tampico and made their way to the capital. Once there, they founded their own shops in the city center and José Slim Haddad became the first Lebanese merchant in Mexico City.
The Slim brothers moved to the capital in search of new horizons. They arrived as the Díaz dictatorship was coming to an end. Social unrest was growing and the number of armed peasants was increasing. Despite the imminent war, the Slim family hoped to keep working in order to forge their future.
Those were the times when businessmen, rather than those of rich ancestry, received support from the dictatorship, which had a taste for unimaginative and lucrative activities. The business class of that era was made up of foreign bourgeoisie, primarily French, British and newly rich Mexicans. Apart from delighting in the joie de vivre, they did in fact continue to encourage progress.
Gold production between the years of 1902 and 1903 reached fifteen tons and silver rose to two thousand tons in the same period. Before concluding the first decade of the century, gold production reached more than thirty tons.
But all that glitters is not gold. The fire of the revolution set the social and political environment ablaze. The Slim brothers remained undaunted and continued to work. They had made the decision to settle in Mexican territory, their new homeland, so they had to make it work.
Emiliano Zapata, the leader and advocate of agrarian reform, was born on August 8, 1879, in Anenecuilco. As a descendant of an old peasant family, the confidence of the peasants swelled, as did his local prestige. In 1910, with much determination, he took up arms.
Coincidently, Pedro Slim came to be friends with Emiliano’s older brother Eufemio Zapata while working in Veracruz after being introduced by a mutual friend, Moisés Salomón.
Emiliano Zapata was one of the main leaders of the insurrection. On March 29, 1911, the revolutionaries launched a locomotive from the Chinameca property against the gates, a tactic that was repeated throughout the course of the armed struggle. On that occasion, Zapata and his men stormed the compound, seizing rifles from the property and horse ranch. Zapata was forming his revolutionary army that would have over a thousand men in arms.
In that same year, on May 11, 1911, José and Julián Slim went to Mexico City to present an incorporation agreement that would form their company, the Eastern Star, before the notorious Mariano Gavaldón Chávez. And so, in the midst of the revolution, the Slim brothers grew their business.
The first step they took as new entrepreneurs of Lebanese descent was to form a new society that gave commercial knowledge to the Notary Public number eleven, a position held by the attorney Gavaldón Chávez.
The document records the first steps the Slim brothers took in business, which over the years acted as the basis of what became the most powerful commercial and financial empire of the country.
The corporation of the Slim Haddad brothers was baptized in honor of their homeland as the Eastern Star. Their initial capital was MX$25, 000.
The Slim brothers’ bet on the country’s economy gave them reason to succeed in business. The crisis had passed. All branches of economic activity were moving toward a path of progress. By 1911, exportable agricultural production exceeded MX$71 million, an unheard-of amount until then. Corn and bean harvests doubled those of a decade earlier. Cotton, sugar cane and tobacco doubled in volume as well as worth. Of all exportable products, only coffee and chickpeas didn’t quite turn heads. By contrast, chewing gum, henequen and rubber broke all records. Industrial production was worth almost MX$500 million, slightly less than double the number from a decade earlier. The metal mining industry produced MX$270 million and manufacturing covered the rest. While the textile industry did not regain the momentum it had before 1908, the tobacco market stagnated and alcohol went downhill. The sugar and iron industries more than offset this loss and compensated for the decline in other branches. Clearly, the year 1911 was a year of economic boom.
In May of 1914, Julián Slim, who was then only twenty-six years old, bought his brother’s fifty-percent share of the company, which was worth MX$30,000.
Julián, now the sole owner of Eastern Star and patriarch of the Slim dynasty, flourished as a merchant while his brother José, pegged by nostalgia, returned to Lebanon.
In 1920, Julián sent a cablegram to one of his New York purchasing agents, Dib Barquet, coaching him in good business purchasing decisions.
Julián wrote to Barquet:
I received the duplicate of the order you made for the Clark house and checking prices, I see that the Iris Safety Pin billed us on May 8 last year at the same price, but with a higher discount: more than seven percent. Do not allow yourself to be intimidated by the attention you provided him, but try, if anything, to get the best benefits, of which I especially recommend that you avoid making purchases of major houses, because they are always looking for a margin commission. Go to the directory; find the manufacturers directly, so that there is no room to split the commission.
Julián sent Barquet thousands of dollars, francs and German marks in credit letters in order to buy goods and products such as perfume, jewelry, hosiery and silk from the major manufacturing capitals of the world so he could then sell them at much lower prices in Mexico through Eastern Star.
In 1928 at the age of forty-one, Julián, the most capable businessman of the Slim Haddad family was the president of the Lebanese Chamber of Commerce. This was only one year after adjustments were made to the immigration laws. Julián took a defensive stance in relation to the rights of his community after documents proving residence of Lebanese immigrants in Mexico were presented to Mexican officials. Always active, Julián Slim gave a strong push to the Chamber of Commerce and he put together a census of all Lebanese businesses and business owners. He also founded the Hotel San Julián and the restaurant Gruta del Edén. The inexhaustible Julián went on to become one of the main promoters of the Lebanese Center in Mexico City.
After three years of seeking Mexican citizenship, on December 12, 1930, Julián was granted citizenship by President Pascual Ortiz Rubio. Julián then sent a commemoration of Lebanese citizens of Mexico to the government.
“Ever since my father arrived, he had the conviction to go ahead and move forward with a country that received him with open arms,” Slim remembers.
José Slim, Julián’s brother, received the French Legion of Honor for Teutonic Order thirty years after his return to Lebanon and just before his death in 1944, Julián’s brother.
The first formal institutions of the Lebanese community established in Mexico were the Palestinian Social Center of Monterrey, founded in 1929, the Mexican Yucatan Club in 1932, and the Lebanese League of Mexico in 1937.
Years later, in 1945, construction began on the Hospital Fajer with the purpose of offering health services and social assistance to members of the Lebanese community. However, once completed, the Fajer family opted to sell it to the government, which converted it into a public hospital: one of the most important feats of the era.