Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 4, 1871
Mr. Nelson to Mr. Fish
Sir: I herewith transmit a copy of a communication from William Schuchardt, esq., our commercial agent at Piedras Negras, addressed to B. J. Gautier, esq., our vice-consul at Matamoras, in response to certain inquiries which I directed to the latter, concerning Indian depredations on the northern frontier.
Yours. &c.,
Mr. Schuchardt to Mr. Gautier
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, dated March 23, 1871, asking for information in regard to depredations on this frontier, committed by Indians from Mexico, and in reply I have to state as follows:
A great many of these depredations on the Texas frontier, there is no doubt, are committed by Kickapoo, Lipan, and Mescalero Indians, living off a short distance from the Rio Grande, and, so to speak, under the protection of the Mexican authorities, they sanctioning the sale of stolen animals by these Indians, and allowing the citizens to trade with and supply the murdering and marauding savages with ammunition and other things they need for making new raids into the settlements of a friendly country. Some time in December last a band of Mescaleros crossed the Rio Grande, at some place above here, into Texas; stole down the country for about thirty-five miles, where they at once commenced their depredations, killing a Mr. Adams, together with two vaqueros; stole all the horses in the vicinity; from there went up the country, attacked a Mexican cart train on the main road from Eagle Pass to San Antonio, took everything belonging to the train, and captured a little boy who had hidden himself near the said train. Thence they went to Mr. Spear’s rancho, situated on the San Antonio road, crossing the Turkey Creek, where they took, in bright daylight, out of Mr. Spear’s pen, all the horses they could find. The Indians wearing hats and other apparel of civilized people, the inhabitants of the rancho for some time took them for cattle-drivers, and when they became aware of their mistake had hardly time enough to escape into the bushes which surround the rancho.
The Kickapoo Indians, who, since the year 1863 or 1864, live near Santa Rosa, Mexico, about one hundred miles from here, also make their raids into Texas, leaving the ranchos of Western Texas for the distance of one hundred and twenty miles from the Rio Grande bare of good horses. Several times the owners have gone to Santa Rosa to claim their property, knowing it to be there and already sold to citizens of that place, and in some instances they succeeded in obtaining their property, but in others, where the horses or mules were found in the possession of influential men of the village, the delivery of them was refused.
The Mexican accomplices of these Kickapoos seeing that stolen horses were followed up to Santa Rosa by the owners, they thought that place no longer safe, and accordingly take the animals traded from the Indians further into the interior towns, where they have a ready market for any quantity of stolen property and any number of stolen stock.
I am informed that in Saltillo, Parras, and Alamo de Parras there is an immense number of valuable American horses obtained through the raids into Texas by the Kickapoos, the Indians knowing very well that, once across the Rio Grande into Mexican territory, they are out of the reach of their pursuers, and so always escape punishment.
In many instances the Indians stepped out of the river on the Mexican side when their pursuers arrived at the bank of the river on the Texas side, being mocked at by the Indians, safe in a territory where they could not be followed. Among the men here, all sympathizing with these Indians and their acts against the people of Texas, there is one who credited to a Lipan some $20 worth of ammunition and other things, to be paid to him by the Indian with the spoils of the raid; the Indian was then to [Page 644] make with others into Texas, and, sure enough, after some time, the man was paid by the Indian with a Spencer carbine belonging to the United States. The Indian related in a mocking way to a crowd of Mexicans, listening with great interest, how he had followed for some time a party of United States soldiers going up the country, and how he at last succeeded in cutting off one soldier, who had strayed a short distance from the command, and how this man begged him to spare his life, offering up arms, horse, and all that he had, but how he, however, killed him and took everything from him; the Mexicans listening to the Lipan’s story all through as if it had been a very funny trick.
Here can be seen the unfriendly feelings of the Mexicans toward their American neighbors, manifesting joy at the misfortunes caused by raids of a cruel savage enemy from Mexico. In conclusion, I inclose a slip cut out of the San Antonio Herald; the contents only confirm my statements.
Besides the raids of the Indians at peace in Mexico, are those of the Mexicans, who are doing a wholesale cattle-stealing in Texas, and after once reaching the Mexican side with their plunder, offer openly and undisturbed, at very low prices, the stolen cattle, and there is no authority who interferes in this traffic, except when the owners of the stolen property follow the thieves over to Mexico; then the authorities are obliged to interfere, and after half of the stolen cattle is absorbed in costs of herding the same, &c., the cattle are given back to their owners; but there is always shown an indisposition on the part of the authorities to do justice to an honest foreigner against a thieving Mexican. I never heard yet that cattle-thieves were punished, even when detected, beyond a few days in prison, and they got out to commit the same crime again, but with more precaution.
It seems that the authorities consider the non-realization of profit and the loss of the stolen cattle sufficient punishment for these villains, as the crime was merely committed against a gringo, as they call the Americans, in the excess of their patriotic feelings.
A Mexican criminal is here considered as entitled to more consideration than an honest Texan, who is nearly driven to desperation through the continual suffering from Mexican outlaws, and they are excusable in some measure when they take justice into their own hands.
There is now a man in prison at this place for stealing cattle, who, only a few months ago, was surprised in the same crime fourteen leagues below this place, in the Presidio de Rio Grande, crossing stolen cattle over the river. He succeeded in escaping to this place and there never was any demand made for him. He had lived in Texas for the last five or six years and came here last year as a fugitive from justice, having killed a man near San Antonio, Texas; besides this murder, he was implicated either as principal or accessory in four or five others. Such men are running at large in all the frontier towns of Mexico, a small river being there safeguard against the laws they so often violate, and which they will continue to do, encouraged by having escaped all punishment heretofore.
Yours, &c.,