Why did many Mexican peasants lose their land before the Mexican Revolution?

Before the Mexican Revolution, Mexican peasants lost their land primarily due to the agrarian policies of the Porfiriato, the era of dictator Porfirio Díaz.

The loss of land occurred through several mechanisms:

• Dissolution of Communal Lands: The government continued the policy of breaking up the ejido—traditional communal lands held by Indian villages—without providing adequate protections against fraud or intimidation.1
• Legal Alienation: A law passed in 1894 allowed public lands to be transferred to private ownership at insignificant prices without acreage limits, facilitating the concentration of land into the hands of a few wealthy landowners.1
• Expropriation: Approximately 5,000 Indian communities that had held land since before the Spanish conquest were expropriated, forcing their inhabitants to become laborers on large haciendas.1

By 1910, these policies resulted in most of Mexico's land being owned by a few thousand individuals, while at least 95 percent of the rural population was left without land of their own.1