The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-03-05
Hundred Year War.

|
 l While the Yaqui war has lasted, with
 but short interludes for one hundred
 years, the relations of these stubborn de- lenders of their lands anl hunting grounds with our people have been ex-
 ceedingly friendly. The occasional ar
 mistiees which have been made from time to time to patch up a peace have almost always been initiated and carried out by
 American adventurers and prospectors
 over the border, the Yaquis refusing con
 sistenly to admit Mexcans within their villages even when they came suing for
 peace and bringing rich presents
 Until within the last decade visit to the Yaquis was considered quite an in
 teresting, but by no means a hazardous
 excursion by the yoanger officers of our
 navy while cruising surveying in the
 Gulf of California. The Yaquis would al- ways receive their visitors with perfect
 hospitality and good breeding, ...ey would
 regae them with the best they had and
 show them excellent shooting. The only
 descriptions which we have Of the coast
 villages of the tribe situated as they are
 amid swamps and lagoons N hich render
 them well nigh inaccessible, are due to
 the accounts which the jolly sailor lads
 have left us of their outings on shore of their mountain fastnesses and stone fort
 resses of the Sierra we have no knowledge
 whatever, for while frequently as many
 as twenty thousand Mexican troops have
 been upon the war path at once so far
 as the knowledge of the present writer. goes they have never captured one of the
 important strongholds.
 Within the last decade these friendly re-
 lations between our navy and the Yaquis
 have cooled considerably. The reason for
 this, which one hears frequently on the
 borders of the Yaqui country. Is that on
 several occasions in the course of the
 war the United States authorities have
 permitted the Mexican generals to secure
 strategic advantages by transporting their
 troops over our territory from Fl Paso
 to Nogales. In my opinion this probably
 only accounts in part for the changed dis
 position of the Yaquis toward us. The
 fact that the Mexican government un- able to conquer the Yaquis by force of
 arms, has sold to Americans almost ex-
 elusively mining and other concessions
 within the disputed territory probably accounts for the era of i'll feeling which
 has of regent years been unhappily in-
 augurated. Again, the irrepressibe con fiict has broken out between the pastoral occupant of the soil rich in ore and the hungry prospector who would get rich quick. Within the last few weeks John
 Kenneth Mackenzie, a celebrated mining
 engineer of Chicago; Young Sanger,
 member of the Pullman family and three
 or four other Americans have been killed. The circumstances attending these trage-
 dies are still shrouded in doubt. The tele-
 grams from Hermosllo have 1t that each and every one of these adventurous
 prospectore was murdered because the
 Indians surprised them trespassing, as they regard 1t, upon their territory And of course these reports may Le true. Still the fact that there ere other people in Sonora who hate Americans quite as
 much as do the Yaquis should not be lost sight of.
 His Honor in Warfare.
 It is fact that until quite recently the Yaquis have seldom been guilty of att taclsing or injui~ing non-combatants. The atrocities laid to their doors are or have been until quite lately, difficult to verify. The struggle is growing every day more | savage, and 1t is beyond doubt that in 1901 two Americans from tlermosillo were
 killed by Yaquis near Torim. They were photographers and professionally impru- dent. Though their request for permission to do so had been peremptorily refused, they went to the village and endeavored to photograph an armed band of free Yaquis In their war paint, or, rather, In their war togs, for the Yaquis do not | paint when they go to battle, and but rarely at other times.
 The Mexican officers who have to hght | the Yaquis have a high opinion or their courage, and 1t is said they generally re- gret the relentless war they are compelled l to wage upon them. They hght most stubbornly, but once captured they make not the slightest effort to escape execu-