Mr. Secretary: Referring to the communications
of this legation of August 28, and December 27, 1880, and in order that
the Department of State may be informed with regard to some facts of
great importance to the security of the border districts of Sonora and
Arizona, I inclose an extract from the reports recently received in
relation to the matter by this legation.
In a dispatch recently addressed to the undersigned by the department of
foreign relations of Mexico, the undersigned is instructed to call the
attention of the Department of State to the importance of adopting, as
speedily as possible, measures for the repression of robbery in the
region in question, inasmuch as such repression will doubtless have a
beneficial influence upon trade between the two republics as well as
upon the relations between the inhabitants of the frontier
districts.
[Inclosure.—Extract from report made to
Mexican legation.]
The Arizona newspapers, in various articles published on the 20th,
22d, and 24th of February last, call the attention of the United
States Government to the frequency with which depredations are being
repeated in the State of Sonora, by bands of outlaws organized on
the soil of the United States. The governor of Arizona Territory has
sent a petition to Congress, asking that measures may be taken for
the preservation of peace and order on the frontier, and suggesting
that a force of 100 men be raised at once, to be stationed
there.
The Arizona Daily Star of February 24 says that not a day passes
without the commission of some new depredations; that on that very
day (the 24th) news had been received of the theft of 85 head of
cattle from the lands belonging to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé
Railroad, which was supposed to have been committed by one “Billy
the Kid,” a prisoner who had broken jail in New Mexico.
These bands of desperadoes steal cattle from the American side of the
boundary line, and sell them in Sonora and Chihuahua; they then
steal other animals in those States, which they sell in Arizona and
New Mexico.
Mr. D. J. M. Elias, a resident of San Pedro, in the State of Sonora,
has preferred a complaint through the consul of Mexico at Tueson,
and this complaint has been published in the Fronterizo. It refers
to the thefts and outrages of which Mexicans residing in Sonora are
victims, and the writer begs that his complaint may be transmitted
to the legation of Mexico at Washington, to the end that the United
States Government may be asked to remedy the evils which he
describes.
The Daily Arizona Journal published an article on the 31st ultimo in
relation to the depredations in Sonora, which contains the following
passage:
The thieves and desperadoes who rendevous on the American side of the
line have become unendurable. They are described as being worse than
the Apaches in the heyday of their career. The citizens appeal to
Americans who are coming in this way to
[Page 827]
properly represent the matter to their
government and intercede in their behalf. * * * Is it possible that
within the boundaries of the best organized government on the
planet, a few outlaws, the whole number probably not exceeding 100,
can band together, defy the civil authorities, and, while taking
advantage of the security our soil affords, reach out and paralyze
the industries of a neighboring State I Are there no means in the
hands of our authorities by which these outrages can be checked?
Cannot the marshal summon a posse and throttle these ruffians?
It is hinted that there is no provision for the payment of the
officers for such work, but can there be a doubt that Congress would
promptly meet such a contingency with a special appropriation?
The good name of the country is at stake—a paramount consideration;
but far more even than this hangs upon the proper settlement of this
question. Sonora is rapidly filling up with Americans. The
advantages to be derived from commercial and social intercourse
between the two countries have been acknowledged and elaborated by
our most prominent citizens and statesmen.
Our territory has an immediate personal interest in the question. We
want their trade and they want our goods. The chances are all in our
favor, with proper treatment; but because of the wholesale
spoliation that has been perpetrated by these border ruffians, the
people of that portion of Sonora are growing suspicious.
