Midwest Unrest

Cananea and Rio Blanco

Joe and Mike talk about the Porfiriato, the period before the Mexican Revolution when the country was ruled by Porfirio Diaz, and his bloody quest to make Mexico a paradise for foreign investors and local feudal landowners. This period of economic "progress" saw mass dispossession of campesinos (peasants) from their land and wholesale genocide again indigenous people, all for the profit of a few. However, Diaz's reign would soon be challenged by the Mexican people. Here we examine two bloody strikes at Cananea and Rio Blanco; the brutal repression of these workers would be the death knell of the Diaz dictatorship.