Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 5, 1881

No. 515.
Señor de Zamacona to Mr. Blaine.

[Translation.]

Legation of Mexico,
Washington, August 18, 1881.

Mr. Secretary: Referring to former communications in which I have spoken of the permits given to the Indians to quit the reservations to which they belong, and of the deplorable effect which such a practice has produced in the security of the frontier States of Mexico, I have the honor to call the attention of your Department to the inclosed extract from a report made by the agent at Mescaleros Agency, wherein proof is seen not only of the fact of leave being given in one case, but also that it had been granted 1or the specific purpose that the Indians in question might cross into Mexico. The agent adds that subsequently, and in virtue of military operations, these Indians were driven towards the south, and gathered until they formed a party of 70, which has committed its usual depredations.

The governor of the State of Chihuahua, within whose jurisdiction the sanguinary rapacity of the Apaches has recently been strikingly manifested, asserts moreover with reference to the testimony of officers belonging to the garrison of Fort Bliss, that from the reservation of San Carlos there have been allowed to cross into Mexico 40 Indians and 30 squaws who have committed innumerable murders and robberies in that State.

I permit myself to repeat, in view of these facts, the observations which, in my previous dispatches on this subject, I have had the honor to present to the attention of your Department, and I urge upon it anew the necessity of putting a stop to the practice referred to, in this note, a practice of whose pernicious consequences the frontier States of Mexico are unceasingly complaining.

I repeat to you, Mr. Secretary, the assurances of my distinguished consideration.

M. DE ZAMACONA.

[Inclosure.—Extract from National Republican of August 16, 1881.]

the apache indian outbreak.

A report has been received at the Interior Department from United States Indian agent Llewellyn, at the Mescalero Agency, New Mexico, relative to the recent depredations committed by the party of Mescalero Apache Indians now on the war-path. Concerning the cause of this outbreak Agent Llewellyn writes, under date of July 28:

“It seems that some few months since a lieutenant of the Army, then stationed here, gave a written permit to three Indians at this agency to go to Old Mexico and bring back a party of their friends who they claimed had left at the time of the Victoria troubles. This party was due home” three weeks ago, and at that time attempted to come in, but were chased and driven into the mountains 30 miles from the agency to the south. Since that time they have made, according to the statement of one of the packers for the scouts, three ineffectual efforts to get into the agency, being prevented each time by the scouts and soldiers. Finding that they could not return to the agency, as they had been led to believe they could, they concluded to go on the war-path. I learn, on good authority, that there are about 70 Indians in this party. The Indians here feel badly that their friends could not be permitted to return, but all unite in telling me that they will remain quiet and show the Great Father that their hearts are good.”