Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-01-31
Yaquis in the Prison Yard at Guaymas.

men arrested and put IN the chain gangs at
HermosillO and the women and children sent
to Yucatan The warning Indians fercely resented
these cruel wrongs and remembered them when they
went into battle
The Yaquis extremely loyal to their own people
No captive has been known to turn traitor,
where his life hung i'll the balance. When asked for
information about the doings of his people the in
variable answer of prisoner has been, mo Sc" CT
don't know'9
AS rule they have not molested Americans. but
they have found it difficult at times to differ
entiate between them and the Mexicans particularly
in the dark, and on such occasions. Of course, the
grngO has had the worst of it, Although the stages
have regularly from the railroad stations to the
American mines, only once has one OF them been
attacked and its occupants killed Two Americans
from HermosilIo were slain by Yaqus Torim
in peculiar circumstances. They were trying to
photograph an armed band Of the Indians and when
they warned not to do so and would not desist
they promptly shot
So long did the recent war last-ft has been about
ten years since the outbreak in the lower Rio Yaqui
Vaey-and in such determined fashion was it carried
that the government became tired of sending new
recruits from the City of Mexico to HermoSlO and
began to lose interest in the operations To the
officials at the Mexican capital Sonora sparsely
settled frontier State in which fighting always
likely to be going on, if not with the Yaqus, then
with the Serbs other tribe. What the officials
at the capital needed picturesque little object
lesson, and one day it was given to them. After
peaed and unavailng requests for achievements to
make up for the many men who had gone down before
the Yaqui Mausers, General Torres had eleven hun
dred uniform caps boxed up and shipped to the head
of the War Department at the City of Mexico,
panied by this brief but meaningful note:-
"Please fill these caps with soldiers"
This was the best appeal he could have made and
the men were sent to him forthwith.
Throughout Sonora 'the of determination" as
it was called after DiaZ issued his famous deportation
of women decree, assumed the nature Of very
CHASTITY joke, albeit joke that appreciated
by those sitting at the actual seat of warfare than at
NogaleS and Guaymas though both those towns have
had their Indian scareS Men have been shot down
ON the very outskirts of Cuaymas while the Yaaus
once held virtual possession of Nogales
Tn
under General Rafael Ysabel Governor of Sonora
went out in pursuit of Yaqui band fifty miles north
of Guaymas and barely escaped ambush and slaugh-
ter Near the Sonora Railway in the same year the
Indians made successful raid upon a wagon train
that was going from Carlo to the Sultana Mine Just
as the teamSterS were tying up the horses for the
night bowling band Of fifty Yaquis descended upon
them The transfers captured and the wa CONS
were looted of 900 in silver and then burned There
were many other attacks by marauding bands chiefly
for the purpose of obtaining food and to carry
ON tbe war But the Mexicans have made onslaught
non the foragers, killing many of them sight and
stringing others up to the telegraph poles that
pullman passengers along the line have been treated
70 some strange and ghasIy sights.
Rut these have been only individual and casual
h1ood1ettings in the great war in which the Next
can watchword has been "Exterminate the Yaquisr'
The history Of ambush, of night attack and whole
sale slaughter has been dark One rejecting if the
truth be known but little credit either side, if
accept the YaQus as something more than savage
fighters and Mexico as fully civilized nation
There has been nothing by way Of decisive battle
in any of the great fights made by the Mexicans
with the Yaquis Even when, soon after the at
tempted occupation of NOgaes by the Yaqus General
Torres with three thousand soldiers marched against
a force of twenty-five hundred Yaquis he failed to en-
cage Them the Indians quickly scattered about as
sharpshooters, hung about the Mexican camp at
night and picked off after without suffer
ing any loss whatever. When, as was uncommon 4
mass movement of the Indians made the tao
tics pursued the quick rushing in of the main
body of warriors, the firing of several volleys
the hasty scattering in all directions when behind
a mesquit shrub a stone, the sharpshooters would
bang away and do deadly work.
Like the subjugatiOn of the brave Beers the war
so far as the YaquiS have been concerned has been
one of erosion. By the gradual wearing away of their
forces they have come down from great strong race
to a mere handful. After the order by which they
were all to be treated prisoners of war wherever
found they dared not go to work to earn money on
the ranches in the mines, and their resources
dWinded from year to year until of late they have
been in half starved condition Then too the
Mexicans have managed to stir up the ~Papagos
against them These Indians really gave the finish
ing touches to the work of conquest.
And so a brave race has gone down almost TO
determination The pity of it all is that this tribal
ablest industrial class. Any American in Mexico
will tell you that a Yaqui is worth as laborer on
the railroad in the mines any two other native
workmen But when the sorrowful subdued rem
of the tribe return home after all these long
years of warfare they will not find their women there
Fatherhood the upbringing of children and the per-
petuatiOn of their denied to them. Forty
years from now they will be extinct as tribe and
nis'' will be written after the history Of as brave
a people lived upon the earth