The Wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-????, March 13, 1909, Image 6
Y wnrai u t . .. -. I IHAT little the dollar loving Amer- Wii lean nas aone m prying ana peep II Ing into the great natural treasure 11 houses of Sonora convinced him II years ago- that that western Mcxi II can province was a country well "Wl III CAIIlUillllg. XI UIHU half of the silver of the world has come out of Mexico, as Is probably the fact, then, from all reports, when the argentiferous deposits of Sonora are properly' opened up three-fourths of the world's silver will come from the land of Diaz. Sonora has been exporting $12,000,000 to $15,000,000 of silver a year and could have exported five times that amount and an incalculable quantity of gold but for one reason the country has not been' safe for white people, except lu the larger towns, because of the warlike Yaquis, who ' have been battling for generations against the Mexicans. But now the good news has been flashed over the wires that the long drawn Yaqui war is at an end and that a treaty favorable to the Indians has been negotiated, so that soon there will be such an inrush of greedy grlngoes, as the Mexicans call us, into Sonora as has never been seen before. F6r there will be no more night attacks upon ore wagon and supply trains, no more ter rorizing of the miners in their prospect holes and no more rushes to the gun rack in the lonely cabin on the mesa. It is characteristic of our commercial age that the chief interest of the white people in the Yaqui uprisings has not been a humane but a financial one. Although Americans have obtained concessions from the Mexican government of mining, cattle and farming lands, they have never been able to hold undisputed sway over them. Now the hardy gringo will descend upon Sonora, bent upon a conquest far more thorough than that of Gen. Scott in 1848. He lusts for the silver and gold hidden under the Sonora mountains, for great bands of cattle and for the fruits of the fertile valleys, and he will have them. Not' that the Americans have been essentially hostile to the Yaquis, for many guns and much ammunition have been taken over the border to aid them in their des perate fight, but that when Diaz has seen fit to parcel off a comfortable section of Yaqui land here and there to an enterprising Yankee for a con Bideration it has been only natural that Yaqui and Yank should have be come embroiled at . times. "The Yaqui Indians are the most stubborn fighters on earth," said Presi dent Diaz of Mexico eight years ago, "and if eyer we are to put them down we must strike at the root of their race we must exile their women and chil dren." So, month by month, since then thou sands of the little brown women of the Yaqui nntion In Sonora have been torn from their homes on reservations' and elsewhere, rounded up at Guaymas, on the west coast of Mexico, and, with their children, deported to San Bias and thence across country to the far fever lands of Yucatan, where many of them have died. None have ever returned to Sonora. This means of subduing "a race that has been in almost constant warfare against the Mexican government for more than 30 years has at last been effective, although it has been neces sary at the same time to keep from 2,000 to 5,000 troops in readiness or in the field to flsht the diminishing band of Yaquis, who have proved them selves as valiant and as unyielding as the Boers. The last two stands of the Yaquis have recently been reported in the dis patches. One of these was in a moun tain canyon Just north of Altar, where the Mexicans and Papagos lured the Yaquis Into ambush and killed a large number of them. The other and con cluding engagement followed a skir mish that was made by the Mexicans southeast of Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, in which It was reported that Bule, the chief-of the Yaquis, was killed and 100 of his men were slain. After this bloody battle the remnant of the Yaqui forces engaged in that fight marched into Hermosillo and surren dered. So many other events have been tak ing place on this populous planet, and the affairs of Sonora enter so little into the consideration of the people on this rim of the continent, with the ex ception of those American capitalists who have longed to unearth the mining treasures of that rich fjild and silver country, that we have been more interested in college football contests than in this terrible warfare that has been going on within five days' railway journey of New York for the last three decades and even longer. For, as matter of fact,, the Yaquis have never been ac peace with their hereditary foe since the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish in 1519, and from an es timated popula-i lion in 1620 of 200,000 the race has steadily de clined, chiefly be cause of its al most incessant warfare, to about 40,000 at the present day. Having regard ed the Yaqui at close range and having studied him and marked what manner of man he is any one may- be ex cused for an ad miration of him that surpasses my appreciation of any other of the native races of North America. Assuredly these people are the most industrious and most civil ized of all Indian tribes, being for the most part farmers, miners and craftsmen, and far superior to the average Sonoran of the haciendas and villages, who will not work while he has a peso in his pocket and while mescal can be had at the i i ii niiiiiiiii tuna s MKjoEaBnow .. x ,v.ia mi f.itjii iM?rcr.Y? ?m. i s u vmjmmmi mfMm . wm mm. xsw- : TO YUCATAf OK- -J .MH:3k4. .Li...ii ' 1 nyiut ium -M 2 YAQUI &ATTEG&OUADt cantina, and who, when he enters the army, is generally sent there from jail. As for the Yaqui as a fighter, he has proved himself a better man even than the Apache, while resorting to few, if any, of the Apache's bloodthirsty tricks of war fare. The Yaqui army has been regularly organized up to the last year, has been well drilled in the use of .the rifle, has had its generals and colonels and captains, ;Vd has given such a gouiS account of itself that it has kept 3,000 Mexican troops) v.nder Gen. Torres busy all the while in a warfare that has not been that of savages has, in fact, been fully as humane as that of its foe men. . It is not necessary to go back any further than- 1878 to get a good idea of what the Yaquis have been doing in trying to hold their, own against the people of Spanish descent in Mexico. In that year, because of trespass upon their lands and because the Mexicans had taken large numbers of , them to work upon their ranches in practical slavery, these tremulously tenacious fighters re sumed hostilities after a short period of peace. Gen.. Cajemi, their governor, took command and for seven years held the passes and strongholds against 5,000 troops under Gen. Pesquiera. , Although the Yaquis gave a good account of them selves, they lost many men and Gen. Cajemi was cap tured and shot. Still the defensive war was continued, and when at last the Mexicans drove them out of their strongholds and captured their mines there came a pe riod during which only desultory raids upon the hacien das were made. During that period the Yaqui women and boys and some of the non-combatant men of the tribe went out to earn money in the mines, ranches and fisheries to buy arms and ammunition to carry on the fight. A number of American miners who had. been unable peaceably to work their mines brought about the peace of Oritz in May, 1897. The government then began to take Yaqui boys from the reservations and send them to Vera Cruz, on the other side of the continent, to make soldiers of them. These boys were as good if not better sharpshooters than the Boer youth, and the Yaquis saw that in thus depriving them of what would be a great source of reliance in future battle they would eventually have to give up all hope of ever holding their own. So that the peace of Oritz only lasted a few months before there was another uprising and more fighting, chiefly of ; a guerilla nature, which continued for several, years. Meantime every cent that the non-combatants of the tribe could earn and save was handed over to the chiefs, who bought with this money enough Mauser rifles and mountain howitzers to equip very decently an army of 5,000 men, under Gen. Tetaviate, who, in April, 1899, took the field after having made this statement: "We Yaquis are a peaceful and industrious people. When the Mexicans want workers for- their mines or factories they come to us. We do not want war. We have never wanted it, but we want our rights. We made a treaty of peace with the Mexican government, our herd itary foe, in May, 1897, after a long series of wars, the last of which was more than ten years in duration. We intended to keep faith with the government of. Mexico, but it has pursued a course of cruel encroachment and menace. We are now ready to fight it again, and all the battles of the past will be as nothing rompared With the bloodshed that will follow our entry intojthe field." Gen. Tetaviate began operations in the lqwer vcev of the Ro Yaqui, where his men drove out the white settlers upon Yaqui lands. They cut the telegraph wires ind destroyed other means of communication, and it was some time before the hastily summoned Fifth cavalry and Eleventh and Twelfth infantry companies could be marched against them. Then followed a series of battles which generally concluded unsat isfactorily 1 for the Mexicans, though there was ari occasional rounding up of the rebels in which large numbers of ' them were slaughtered. On the approach of the troops the Indians usually took up c- f f HT1 Tincitlnna In fhc mnilTltatn fast.- nesses. One large band fortified itself in the Bacatete range, between the Yaqui and Matopo rivers, and another in the Sahuaripa mountains. Efforts were ' made to keep these two bands apart, but the working Yaquis all over Sonora and in California' and Arizona were constant-' ly coming in and joining, with their brethren and the depredations upon the ranches and, villages were widespread. , Meantime the Mexicans gathered in the women and children of their foemen for deportation to Yucatan, following the demand of Diaz to "exterminate the Ya quis. iviauueiiwu uy iixip atiu uy reports that the women and children were not merely deported, but that they were taken out Into the Gulf of Califor nia and thrown overboard from the troop ship Oaxaca, the desperate Indians attacked the hacien ras and also threatened the larger towns. Terror mad, the citizens of Nogales fled from their homes, and for a time martial law was proclaimed over the fear-stricken city of Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora. During the height of the excitement, troops were coming In bringing women and children for deportation, and also an occa sional band of Yaqui soldiers, who were generally thrust into prison over night and in the morning taken out, lined up and shot. One of the most terrible slaughters during the last war upon the Yaquis occurred in June,-1902. One evening 300 armed Yaquis descended upon four haciendas near Her-' mosillo and took away 600 of their tribe, Including women and children, . who were there employed. The band Torched toward Ures, reached Mazatan mountain, and while waiting. for the Mexican soldiers made bows,, ar rows and spears for those who were unarmed. On" June 15 900 Mexican soldiers came around the mountains, surprised the Yaquis, chased the armed war riors down the mountain, killing many of them and ta- 1 1 1 i 1 -I C King ail me iiuciciiua iuik. pi lsuiitsi h. ouuu aiicr lu? skirmish Ales Hrdlicka, representing the American mu seum, found in a little ravine on the mountain side the bodies of 64 of the. Indians, including a number of worn-, en, a little girl and a baby. The skulls of nearly ail the victims were so shattered by Mauser bullets as to be of no use for the museum for which Hrdlicka was collecting. In the hospital at Hermosillo in 1902 there, were as many as 12 wounded women and a girl of seven with three bullet wounds in her body. As another example of h:ave Mexican warfare 300 wom en and children who were captured near the Rancho Viejo were kept in a corral under guard for two days, during which time they were given nothing to eat but two and one-half bushels of raw corn on which they subsisted until night, when they were marched to Hermosillo, 35' miles away. . In July, 1902, an attempt was made by the Mexicans to surround 200 Yaquis in the San Mateo foothills; but the Indians learned ,of what was afoot, slipped into a side valley before the advance of the troops, and in the night strangled the sentries and, proceeding over to the sleeping soldiers, slew the whole column in the darkness and bound the officers to the trees, where they , were found when relief came. , . One reason why the last ten years' war has been more bloody than any that preceded it was that the Mexican government decreed that every Yaqui living on the pu eblos or working on ranches or anywhere else was to be treated as a prisoner- of war. Qualities- in Men. A sad nature sheds forth twilight. A merry and mirth ful nature brings daylight. A suspicious nature lnsensi- . bly imparts its chill to every generous soul within its reach. A bold and frank nature overcomes meanness in men. Fineness makes them firm. Firmness makes them nii.. T- directs, stimulates and develops taste. Henry Ward Beechei. , x