In an attempt to remove and exile, then dictator, Porfirio Díaz Mexican Revolutionary leaders formed a large militia of peasants and farmers to fight for their land and execute El Plan de Ayala, which was the plan for reform created by the revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata. ”In the southern state of Morelos, as early as 1909, Emiliano Zapata had started recruiting thousands of peasants to fight for land reform in support of El Plan de Ayala, approved by Zapata’s supporters in 1911” (National Endowment for the Humanities). The forming of Militias by revolutionary leaders was enough to scare Porfirio Díaz into stepping down and resigning from his dictatorial position in the Mexican government.
Life for Mexican citizens in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s was lacking certain freedoms due to the rule of the dictator Porfirio Díaz. ”The Mexican Revolution started in 1910, when liberals and intellectuals began to challenge the regime of dictator Porfirio Díaz, who had been in power since 1877” (National Endowment for the Humanities). In Mexico from 1877 to 1910 the dictator Porfirio Díaz ruled Mexico. Porfirio Díaz and his dictatorship was going against the Mexican constitution and stripped Mexican citizens of certain freedoms relating to land ownership and labor.