BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

46 BARBAROUS MEXICO
with the fighters. There may be a few guilty parties.
but absolutely no attempt is made to find them out.
For what a handful of patriotic Yaquis may possibly be
doing tens of thousand are made to suffer and die. It
is as if a whole town were put to the torch because one
of its inhabitants had stolen a horse."
The deportation of Yaquis to Yucatan and other slave
sections of Mexico began to assume noticeable proportions
about 1905. It was carried out on a small scale
at first, then on a larger one.
Finally, in the spring of 1908, a despatch was published
in American and Mexican newspapers saying that
President Diaz had issued a sweeping order decreeing
that every Yaqui, wherever found, men women and children,
should be gathered up by the War Department
and deported to Yucatan.
During my journeys in Mexico I inquired many times
as to the authenticity of this despatch, and the story was
confirmed. It was confirmed by men in the public departments
of Mexico City. It was confirmed by Colonel
Cruz, chief deporter of Yaquis. And it is certain
that such an order, wherever it may have come from,
was carried out. Yaqui workingmen were taken daily
from mines, railroads and farms, old workingmen who
never owned a rifle in their lives, women, children, babes,
the old and the young, the weak and the strong. Guarded
by soldiers and rurales they traveled together over the
exile road. And there are others besides Yaquis who
traveled over that road. Pimas and Opatas, other Indians,
Mexicans, and any dark people found who were
poor and unable to protect themselves were taken, tagged
as Yaquis, and sent away to the land of henequen. What
becomes of them there? That is what I went to Yucatan
to find out.