BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

THE EXTERMINATION OF THE YAQUIS
to offer the men freedom and money to lead the troops
over the secret mountain trails to the fastnesses of their
friends. The alternative was the rope, yet I never knew
of one of these captives turning traitor. 'Give me the
rope,' they would cry, and I have seen such a man run,
put the rope round his own neck and demand that it be
tightened quickly, that he might not again be subjected
to so base an insult."
I have before me a letter signed by G. G. Lelevier, a
former member of the Mexican Liberal Party and editor
of one of their papers in the United States. Lelevier is
said to have afterwards gone over to the cause of the
government. Commenting on a photograph showing a
lot of Yaquis hanging from a tree in Sonora, the letter
says:
"This picture resembles very much another one that
was taken at the Yaqui river when General Angel Martinez
was in command of the Mexican army of occupation.
It was the custom of this general to hang men because
they could not tell him where the insurrecto Yaquis
were at the time, and he went so far as to lasso the
women of the Yaquis and to hang them also. It went
on so until the chief of the geographical commission reported
the facts to the City of Mexico and threatened to
resign if the practice continued. Then this monster of a
general was removed.
"But later on Governor Rafael Ysabal—it must have
been in 1902—made a raid on Tiburon Island where
some peaceful Yaquis had taken refuge, and then and
there ordered the Seri Indians to bring to him the
right hand of every Yaqui there, with the alternative of
the Seris themselves being exterminated. Doctor Boido
took a snapshot with a kodak, and you could see in it
the governor laughing at the sight of a bunch of hands
43