WHAT HAPPENED IN MEXICO’S HISTORY TO CAUSE RESTRICTED ZONE REGULATIONS?
To fully understand the restrictions placed on property ownership in Mexico, it is necessary to review a piece of Mexico’s history. When the Spaniards arrived in 1517, a small minority of foreigners and the wealthy upper class dominated Mexican land. After Mexico declared independence in 1821, it was faced with a period of foreign intervention and political instability as it struggled to establish itself as a new world power. It was not until President Porfirio Diaz’s dictatorial regime from 1877 to 1910 that Mexico finally experienced an era of peace and economic growth. Under President Diaz’s regime, Mexico sold nearly all of its mineral resources to foreign investors, improving the living standards of the Porfirian elite, but doing little for most of rural Mexico which remained oppressed. Tremendous disagreement and opposition among the Mexican people and the Porfirian elite ultimately led to the onset of the Mexican Revolution. After President Diaz was forced to flee the country in
