Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-05-09
A FlGHTIN MAN.
The Yaqui Indian Is the "Fuzzy
Wuzzy" of Mexico.

| government Oh MeSlCO, dCCOTuliS W u
report received here, and preparations
are being made to equip 5000 more
for fighting in the next two weeks.
| A number of places in Sonora have
been raided by the Indians and many
Americans are preparing to leave the
country, it is said. The Yaquis' knowl-
! edge of the mountain country Of So
nora and their experience in fighting
the federal troops makes them among
the most dangerous foes with whom
the Diaz government has to DEAL
DISCRIMINATING" the Yaqul Indians
has been the favorite pastime with the
established government of Mexico ever
| since the time of Cortez, and though
| thousands of these people have been
| shot and thousands more sent to die on
the plantations and in the swamps Of
| Tehuantepec and Yucatan there are
still enough able bodied Yaquis left to
cause considerable trouble If they join
the insurrectos, as it is said they in
tend to do.
Insurging has been the vocation Of
every Yaqui-man, woman or child
since long before the present rebellion
broke out in Mexico. Rebellion and
| warfare seem to be inborn traits Of
the Yaquis, carefully cultivated from
one generation to the next. That it Is
right to shed the blood of Mexican
| official or soldier is Yaqui tradition,
and it Is one that has been carefully
lived up to.
Time after time Mexican officials
have announced that now the Yaquis
| were going to be eXterminated and
newspaper writer's have either rejoiced
| or lamented over the news.
In September, 1899. Don Rafeal
Ruiz, a rich landowner of Hermisillo,
Sonora, near the Yaqui country, was
Star he said:
within two months there will not
| be alive in Mexico a Yaqui bearing
arms. The Yaquis will be driven out
of their mountains to the sea, where
they must surrender or die"
Nine years later in September, 1908,
| there were enough Yaquis alive and
bearing arms to murder Don Rafael on
the road between Hermisillo and
| Ures.
The trouble between the Yaquis and
the government Is primarily that the
Yaquis want to be Independent in
stead of living in the semi-serfdom Of
the Mexican peon. They live in the
| southern part of the state of Sonora.
| Sonora Is a rich mining country and
it was inconvenient to have the va
quis claiming the ground as their own
merely because they had lived on it
for a few hundred years.
There was a serious outbreak of the
| Yaquis in 1899, which 1t took more
than a year to subdue. The Indians
had been given a sort of home rule,
The Yaquis asserted that In the di-
vision and allotment Of lands which
had followed the establishment of this
home rule" the best allotments had
| been given to Mexicans, while the va
uuis had been given the plots most
poorly watered. So they started on
| the warpath burning villages and
| numbering the inhabitants. A number
of Americans were slain and then the
district was flooded with federal SOL
diers.
| Another was of determination was
carried on. Thousands of men were
| killed and the women and children
were packed into Mexican jails. Then
they were taken to work as prison.
ers of war on the hemp plantations In
| the wet, hot states Of the south. Fam
| lilies, were broken up, and children
taken from their mothers. Chained
together like galley slaves the wretch
ed men and women were driven aboard
ships and carried off like so many cat
] tie to work as long as they could in
the fever ridden jungles of Yucatan.
To say that the Yaquis were treated
like cattle would not be the truth.
No enterprising ranchman would have
allowed his cattle to be handled as
these Indians were.
Yucatan meant death to the Yaquis.
| Brought up in a country of high alti-
tudes, these hardy mountaineers sue
cumbed easily to the horrors Of the
| torrid, moist plantation land to which
they were sent, to which was added a
sort of work to which they had never
been accustomed. Often the wretch
ed prisoners jumped over the sides Of
the slave ships. preferring to be
drowned rather than die in the south
ern swamps.
But 1t was only after a tremendous
deal of fighting that the Yaquis were
subdued sufficiently to make this
wholesale expectation possible. Like
| the Soudanese natives Of whom Kip
ling wrote, the natives may have been
poor benighted 'eathen," bat they
were and are certainly first class
fghtin' men," Decades of warning in
the hills made the Sonora Indians able
to endure all kinds of hardships and
the Mexican army, composed III part
| of criminals and in part of drafted
men. had their hands full handling
| them.
| One of the most remarkable proofs
of the Yaquis' endurance is their run
ming ability. Travellers who have lived
in Sonora say that it is not an uncom-
mon thing for one of these Indians to
run ten miles an hour for four hours
In the time of the Spanish rule these
Indians often acted as couriers, and
it is said that the Spanish government
of Mexico used to get fish from the
coast as fresh as President Diaz is able
to procure today by the somewhat
leisurely railroad system of Mexico
Kansas City Star.
| AN OLD TIME LIBEL.