Justo Rufino Barrios (1835-1885) was a Guatemalan general and president whose sweeping innovations gave form to modern Guatemala and earned for him the sobriquet "the Reformer."

Justo Barrios was born on July 19, 1835, in the department of San Marcos in western Guatemala. His well-to-do parents had land holdings that extended into adjoining Mexico. He studied law in Guatemala City and became a notary, but in 1862 he returned home and engaged in farming until he joined the liberal revolution against conservative President Vicente Cerna.

The revolutionaries triumphed in June 1871, and their leader, Miguel Garcia Granados, became provisional president. Barrios, however, was the stronger personality. As military commander in the western departments, then as acting president, and finally as elected president after April 1873, he shaped the revolution and dominated Guatemala until his death.

Politically, Barrios ran an open dictatorship only slightly mitigated after 1879 by a charade of constitutionalism. He imposed internal...