The Porfiriato

		The period that culminated in the revolution is known as the Porfiriato. Porfirio Diaz was President of Mexico between 1876 and 1911. During that time he effectively dispossessed the Mexican population of 90% of communal land and left only 3% of the rural population with ownership of land. His policies supported foreign investment in Mexico to the extent that by 1911 the U.S. controlled 81 percent of the mining industry while Britain controlled 15 percent. Daniel Guggenheim owned the largest privately owned business in Mexico, the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO). These acquisitions by foreign interest were made possible through the mining code of 1884 that enabled foreign investors to claim subsoil rights.

Foreign investment displaced thousands of indigenous people in Mexico. The Richardson Construction Company of Los Angeles purchased 993,650 acres as a result of the surveying law of 1883 in the Yaqui River Valley. The reaction of the indigenous Yaqui people to this displacement resulted in the Diaz regime violently relocating them to the Yucatan Peninsula. Workers in the urban centers also felt oppression as a result of the Diaz regimes foreign policy. In 1907 a strike at the Rio Blanco Textile factory led to mass riots, the execution of six leaders and one hundred dead strikers. The collective oppression that the Mexican masses felt from land displacement, labor exploitation, foreign control of natural resources, and political exclusion resulted in the Mexican Revolution.