ABSTRACT
The character of Mexico’s Indian wars changed abruptly with the rise to power in 1876 of General Porfirio Díaz. For all practical purposes president for life and only driven from office by the Revolution of 1910, Díaz gave Mexico its first effective central government since independence from Spain in 1821. Dominated by technocrats (the so-called Científicos) whose first objective for Mexico was rapid capitalist development, the government of Don Porfirio believed that the recalcitrance to central authority of the country’s Indian peoples and their refusal to embrace the institution of private property would serve to discourage the flow of foreign investment needed to fuel Mexico’s economic ‘take-off ’. Thus, for the first time, the central government deployed large numbers of federal troops to aid in the suppression of the Yaqui and Mayan revolts and by the early years of the new century had largely succeeded in stamping them out. As we have seen, the Díaz regime also managed to strike an accord with the USA which made possible international cooperation in eliminating the Apache menace from the northern border regions, while keeping Mexican sovereignty largely intact.
