Although the workers were forced to return to their positions with no demand being met, the action was a key event in the general unrest that emerged during the final years of the regime of President Porfirio Díaz and that prefigured the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

Senior Cananea Consolidated Copper Company positions were held by non-Mexicans, who in 1906 were more commonly former frontier acquaintances of the U.S. proprietor William Greene rather than professional book-keepers and managers.

During the celebrations of Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican employees made public their complaints, while the local authority applied martial law to avoid further conflicts.

Led by Juan José Ríos, Manuel Macario Diéguez and Esteban Baca Calderón, their demands were the removal of one foreman named Luis, the pay of five pesos for eight hours' work, the employment quotas ensuring seventy-five percent of the jobs for Mexicans and twenty-five percent for foreigners, the deployment of responsible and respectful men to operate the cages and that all Mexican workers to be entitled to promotions, in accordance with their skills.

While they were marching in front of the wood shop of the company, the American employees in charge of that department, the Metcalf brothers, turned hoses on them and then fired shots, killing three people.

[7] When the crowd approached the government building of the municipal president they were received by a 275-man American posse led by an Arizona Ranger acting against the Governor's orders.

At the order of Rafael Izabal Governor of Sonora, forty Rurales (Mexican mounted police) were despatched from Hermosillo to reinforce a detachment under Colonel Emilio Kosterlitsky already present.

At both the French-controlled Rio Blanco textile factory and the American-owned Cananea Copper Company mine, PLM literature was subsequently to be found distributed through the workers' settlements.

[14] Although the government forces present had behaved with relative restraint, the entry of armed foreigners into national territory caused Mexican outrage against the Diaz administration.

[15] The incident became linked with the Río Blanco strike of January 1907 as two symbols of the Porfirio Díaz administration's corruption, subservience to foreign interests and civil repression.

A new company manager, Dr Louis D. Ricketts, with extensive mining experience was appointed and introduced enlightened wage and employment practices.