The San Francisco call., 1909-02-07
By Bailey Millard

NVF HAT little the dollar loving American has
NJ done in pFying and peeping into the great
Wv natural treasure houses of Sonora convinced
him years ago that that western Mexican
province a country we'll worth exploiting. If
more than half of the silver of the world has
out of Mexico, is probably the fact, then, from
all reports when the argentferous deposits of Sonora
properly opened up three-fourths of the worlds
silver viii come from the land of Daz.
Sonora has been exporting $12,0O0O00 to S15,000,-
900 Of silver a year and could have exported FIVE
times that amount and an ncalculable quantity of
gold but for reason-the country has not been
safe for white people, except in the larger towns be-
Of the warlike Yaquis who have been battling
for generations against the Mexcans.
But now the good news is flashed over the wires
that the long drawn Yaqui is at end and that
treaty favorable the Indians is being negotiated
that soon there will be such an thrush of greedy
gringoes the Mexcans call US, into Sonora has
been there before. For there will
be no more night attacks upon wagon and sup
ply trains, no more terrorizng of the miners in
their prospect holes and rushes to the gun
rack in the lonely cabin on the mesa
1t is characteristic of our commercial age that the
chief interest of the white people in the Yaqui up
risngs has not been a humane but financial one
Although Americans have obtained concessions
from the Mexican government of mining cattle and
farming lands, they have been able to hold
disputed sway over them Now the hardy gringo will
descend upon Sonora, bent upon a conquest far more
thorough than that of General Scott in 1848 He
lusts for the silver and gold hidden under the So
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 hos
tie the Yaquis, for many guns and much am
munition have been taken over the border to aid
them in their desperate fight, but that when Diaz
has seen fit parcel off a comfortable section of
YaQui land here and there to enterprising Yankee
Tor consideration it has been only natural that
Yaqui and Yank should have become embroied at
times
The Yaqui Indians the most stubborn fight
ers on earth" said President Diaz of Mexico eight
years ago, and if ever to put them down we
strike the root of their race-we must exile
their women and children"
So month by month since then thousands of the
little brown women of the Yaqui nation in Sonora
have been from their homes on reservations and
elsewhere rounded up at Guaymas, the west coast
Of Mexico and with their children deported to San
Bias and thence country to the far fever
lands OF Yucatan, where many of them have died
None has ever returned to Sonora
This of subduing race that has been in
almost constant warfare against the Mexican gov
ernment for than thirty years has at last been
effective although 1t has been necessary at the same
time keep from 1000 to 5000 troops in readiness
in the field to fight the diminishing band of
Yaquis who have proved themselves as valiant and as
uDyielQlnS as the BOerS.
The last two stands of the Yaquis have recently
been reported in the dispatches. One of these was
IN mountain canyon just north of Altar where the
Mexicans and Papagos lured the Yaquis into ambush
and killed large number of them. The other and
concluding engagement followed a skirmsh that was
made by the MexIcans southeast of Hermosillo the
capital OF Sonora, in which it reported that Bule
the chief OF the Yaquis, killed and 100 of his
slain. After this bloody battle the remnant
OF the Yaqui forces engaged in that fight marched
into Hermosllo and surrendered
So many other events have been taking place on
this popuous planet, and the affairs of Sonora enter
little into the consideration of the people with
the exception Of those American capitalists who have
longed to unearth the mining treasures of that rich
gold and silver country, that we have been more in
terested in college football contests than in this
terrible warfare that has been going on for the last
three decades and even longer. For, as matter OF
fact the Yaqus have never been at peace with their
hereditary foe since the conquest of Mexico by the
Spanish in 1919 and from estimated population in
1920 of 100000 the has steadily declined chiefly
because of its almost incessant warfare, to about
10000 at the present day.
Having regarded the Yaqui close range and
having studied him and marked what manner of man
he is, I may be excused for an admiration of him
that surpasses my appreciation OF any other of the
native races of North America. Assuredly these
people the industrious and most civilized of