Revolución de los Ríos

The Revolución de los Ríos (Revolution of the Rivers) refers to an uprising lasting from 1867 to 1868 by the Mayo and the Yaqui people who lived along the Mayo and the Yaqui Rivers in Sonora, against the government of Mexico.

The uprising began during the collapse of the Second Mexican Empire as Mexican Republican rule was being reestablished in Sonora. The government repeatedly defeated the Yaqui and the Mayos, but they kept regrouping and renewing the war. The conflict eventually resulted in a massacre when Mexican troops gathered over 400 Yaqui men, women, and children into a church at Bacum and then began firing upon it, leaving up to 120 civilians dead. The uprising did not end until flooding at the end of 1868 along the Mayo and Yaqui rivers left the Indigenous communities too devastated to continue waging warfare.