 The conflict stemmed from resistance to dictator Porfirio Díaz and his "anti-agrarian and anti-indigenous Mexican policies".It was propagated by the fact that the Mexican Army and the Yaquis had been fighting a largely uninterrupted war against one another for several decades prior to 1896.The war forced many of the natives to flee north into the U.S. state of Arizona, where they settled around Tucson and Phoenix, occasionally recrossing the border to fight the Mexican soldiers.