Today in Labor History September 5, 1906: Followers of the Flores Magón brothers left Douglas, Arizona and attacked the town of Agua Prieta, in the Mexican state of Sonora. The 1906 attack was part of the Magonistas’ first attempted revolution. It came in the wake of the bloody Cananea Strike, 30 miles to the southwest of Agua Prieta, where 23 workers had recently been killed. The anarchist Magonistas had been active in that strike which, along with their failed 1906 revolution, helped pave the way for the more famous Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. Two more battles were fought in Agua Prieta in 1911 and 1912.

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Today in Labor History June 1, 1906: The bloody Cananea copper miners' strike began in Sonora, Mexico. The miners were demanding 5 pesos a day and an 8-hour workday, commensurate with what the U.S. citizens who were working side-by-side with them were earning. As many as 100 miners were killed in the strike, mostly by U.S. citizens working for the company. Although they were forced back to work without winning any of their demands, it contributed to the general unrest leading up to the Mexican Revolution.

The anarchist, Ricardo Flores Magón, along with members of his Partido Liberal Mexicana, organized a brigade of revolutionaries, who traveled from Arizona to the Cananea copper mines with the goal of exterminating all Americans employed there. The Arizona Rangers captured several of them. Magón and many others were extradited to Tombstone, Arizona, charged with violating U.S. neutrality laws, and imprisoned until 1910. After this, the Magonistas conquered parts of Baja California, including Tijuana, during the Mexican Revolution.

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