Confident of his support and certain that protests against misgovernment would be regarded by the President as seditious, many of them abused their power at will.

Notable among them were the local officials, called jefes politicos, whose control of the police force enabled them to indulge in practices of intimidation and extortion which ultimately became unendurable.
Though symptoms of popular wrath against the Diaz regime, or diazpotism as the Mexicans termed it, were apparent as early as 1908, it was not until January, 1911, that the actual revolution came.

It was headed by Francisco I.Madero, a member of a wealthy and distinguished family of landed proprietors in one of the northern States.

What the revolutionists demanded in substance was the retirement of the President, Vice President, and Cabinet; a return to the principle of no reelection to the chief magistracy; a guarantee of fair elections at all times; the choice of capable, honest, and impartial judges, jefes politicos, and other officials; and, in particular, a series of agrarian and industrial reforms which would break up the great estates, create peasant proprietorships, and better the conditions of the working classes.

Disposed at first to treat the insurrection lightly, Diaz soon found that he had underestimated its strength.