page_title: History of Sonora
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Sonora / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Caption: Esperanza Stone. Discovered by Major F. R. Burnham, Yaqui Delta, Senora, Mexico . Maj. Burnham on left; Dr. Holder on right. 1909.
context_page_description: The Free and Sovereign State of Sonora is one of 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo. Sonora is located in Northwest Mexico, bordered by the states of Chihuahua to the east, Baja California to the northwest and Sinaloa to the south. To the north, it shares the U.S.–Mexico border with the states of Arizona and New Mexico, and on the west has a significant share of the coastline of the Gulf of California.
context_section_description: The policies of the Díaz government not only cause resentment among the Yaquis, but among the rest of Sonora and the country. One of the preludes to the Mexican Revolution was the 1906 Cananea miner's strike, which sought negotiations with American mine owner William Greene, but he refused to meet with the approximately 2,000 strikers. The strike quickly turned violent when the miners tried to take control of the mine and exchanged gunfire. Greene appealed for federal troops, but when it was obvious they could not arrive in time, he appealed to Arizona and Sonoran government to allow Arizona volunteers in to help. This increased the scale of the violence. When Mexican federal troops arrived two days later, they put everything to a brutal end, with the suspected leaders of the strike executed. However, the strike would make the resentment against Diaz grow, not wane with more strikes in other areas.
  In 1906, Major Frederick Russell Burnham, a celebrated American scout and explorer, went to Senora in search of mineral resources.  While there he met the naturalist Dr. Charles Frederick Holder and the two men soon became associated with the early Yaqui River irrigation project and also made archeological discoveries of what they believed to be remnants of Maya civilization in the region, including the Esperanza Stone. Burnham reasoned that a dam could provide year-round water to rich alluvial soil in the valley; turning the region into one of the garden spots of the world and generate much needed electricity. He purchased water rights and some 300 acres (1.2 km²) of land in this region and contacted an old friend from Africa, John Hays Hammond, who conducted his own studies and then purchased an additional 900,000 acres (3,600 km²) of this land—an area the size of Rhode Island. In late 1910, the Mexican Revolution broke in earnest, and Díaz was quickly deposed. The rest of the war would determine who would take over next. The then governor of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza, sought refuge in Sonora, and became one of the principal players during the rest of the war, with his main base of operations in Hermosillo. A number of the revolutionary leaders who joined Carranza in Sonora came not from peasant backgrounds but rather the lower middle class of hacienda-managers, shopkeepers, mill-workers, or schoolteachers, opposed to large-scale landowners and the Porfirian elite. Burnham led a team of 500 men in guarding mining properties owned by Hammond, J.P. Morgan, and the Guggenheims in the state of Sonora. However, the onset of the Mexican Revolution frustrated their plans. After Díaz was deposed, Carranza was in contention for power against Álvaro Obregón and others. The Yaquis joined with Álvaro Obregón's forces after 1913. In his case study of the American colonization scheme, Professor Bradford concluded: "a combination of Indian problems, the intricacies of the developing Mexican revolutionary process, and a less than clear-cut mandate from Washington, DC, served to bring the colony down."
  By 1920, Carranza was president of Mexico, but found himself opposed by Obregón and others. Carranza tried to suppress political opposition in Sonora, which led to the Plan of Agua Prieta signed that year to formalize Obregón's and his allies' (primarily Abelardo L. Rodríguez, Benjamín Hill and Plutarco Elías Calles) resistance to Carranza. This movement soon came to dominate the political situation, but it caused widespread political instability. Obregón would succeed in deposing Carranza and becoming the next president of Mexico. For the 1924 presidential elections, Obregón chose Plutarco Elias Calles to succeed him, who was also a revolutionary leader from Sonora. This effectively ended the war, but hostilities had again destroyed the Sonoran economy. From 1920 to the early 1930s, four Sonorans would occupy the Mexican presidency Adolfo de la Huerta, Obregón, Calles and Rodríguez.
  The Chinese first arrived at Guaymas in the late 19th century and congregated there and in Hermosillo. Over the following decades, they would move into growin
caption: The Esperanza Stone. Found by Major Frederick Russell Burnham in the Yaqui Valley in 1908. Burnham left; Charles Frederick Holder, right
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