BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

THE CONTRACT SLAVES OF VALLE NACIONAL 75
kidnapping of women and of men. Hundreds of halfdrunken
men are picked up about the puique shops of
Mexico City every season, put under lock and key, and
later hurried off to Valle Nacional. Children, also, are
regularly kidnapped for the Valle Nacional trade. The
official records of Mexico City say that during the year
ending September 1, 1908, 360 little boys between the
ages of six and twelve disappeared on the streets. Some
of these have later been located in Valle Nacional.
During my first Mexican trip El Imparcial, a leading
daily newspaper of Mexico, printed a story of a boy of
seven who had disappeared while his mother was looking
into the windows of a pawn shop. A frantic search failed
to locate him; he was an only child, and as a result of
sorrow the father drank himself to death in a few days'
time, while the mother went insane and also died. Three
months later, the boy, ragged and footsore, struggled
up the steps and knocked at the door that had been his
parents'. He had been kidnapped and sold to a tobacco
planter. But he had attained the well-nigh impossible.
With a boy of nine, lie had eluded the plantation guards,
and, by reason of their small size, the two had escaped
observation, and, by stealing a canoe, had reached El
1-lule. By slow stages, beggi ng their food on the way,
the baby tramps had reached home.
The typical life story of a labor agent I heard in
Cordoba on my way to the valley. It was told me first
by a negro contractor from New Orleans, who had
been in the country for about fifteen years. It was told
me again by the landlord of my hotel. Later, it was
confirmed by several tobacco planters in the valley. The
story is this:
Four years ago Daniel T , an unsuccessful Spanish
adventurer, arrived, penniless, in Cordoba. In a few