Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1886

No. 333.
Mr. Bayard to M. Jackson.

Department of State,
Washington, August 14, 1886.

No. 233.]

Sir: I transmit herewith for your information copy of a detailed report, with accompanying papers, received from Mr. E. D. Linn, United States consul at Piedras Negras, touching the recent kidnapping of Francisco Arresures by the collusion of officers of the State of Coahuila and of Maverick County, Texas, under circumstances which leave no reasonable doubt that a brutal murder was the object and result of the successful attempt of the Coahuila officials to get unlawful possession of Arresures.

You have been heretofore instructed to ask for an investigation of Arresures’s murder and the punishment of the guilty parties. Your No. 283, of the 3d instant, reports that you have done so, and a telegram received from you yesterday, August 13, is understood to communicate the Mexican reply to your application. It states that the government of Coahuila claims Arresures as, by law, a Mexican and a fugitive from justice. After extradition, and while being conducted to the court, he took flight, and in subsequent pursuit was killed.

The testimony now before the Department shows that such a reply on the part of the Government is evasive and inaccurate.

The citizenship of Arresures is not material. He appears to have resided for some years in the United States, and there to have declared his intention to become its citizen. He was therefore not merely under the protection which the laws of the United States and of the State of Texas, where he had his residence, throw over him as an alien resident, but entitled to the peculiar protection, as against any unlawful exercise of authority emanating from the land of his origin, with which our laws invest those aliens lawfully within their jurisdiction who have acquired rights of inchoate citizenship by duly making declaration of intention to become citizens.

Under any circumstances, being accused of crime committed in Mexican jurisdiction, he could only be demanded from the United States, within whose jurisdiction he was alleged to have taken refuge, in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of extradition of December 11, 1861, between the United States and Mexico, that is:

Only when the fact of the commission of the crime shall he so established as that the laws of the country in which the fugitive or the person so accused shall be found would justify his or her apprehension and commitment for trial if the crime had been there committed.

There is not the slightest proof, or even suggestion, that the safeguards with which the treaty surrounds the surrender of a fugitive, in accordance with the solemn prescriptions of international and municipal law, have been considered or respected in the case of Arresures. He was simply kidnapped on Texan soil by the complicity of the sheriff and county judge of Maverick County, Texas, and by the sheriff, or persons acting by his orders, conveyed, under false pretenses and in violation of law, to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, and there handed over to Francisco Mondragon, captain of the Fuerza de Seguridad of Coahuila.

The sheriff and the county judge of Maverick County, Texas, have been held and are now undergoing examination for their complicity in the crime.

This disposes of the allegation that Arresures was “extradited.” Arresures was not placed within Mexican jurisdiction under the lawful operation of the treaty, by which he could alone have been removed without his own consent, and long established precedent in the relations of states in matters of extradition give the Government of the United States the clearest right to claim a return from Mexico of a person there held under color of a fraudulent proceeding. The right and duty of Consul Linn to demand his restoration to the jurisdiction from which he had been kidnapped is clear, and were Arresures still alive and in the hands of the Mexican authorities the Government of the United States would not hesitate to make peremptory demand for his return, a demand which it is confidently conceived the Government of Mexico must have admitted.

Upon the second allegation of the telegram, that while Arresures was being taken to the court “he took flight and in subsequent pursuit was killed,” little need be said, but that most seriously. This plea is one of unhappily familiar repetition. While often preferred heretofore under circumstances tending to throw grave doubts upon its truth, this Government has never met with so conclusive an instance as this where a solitary and unarmed man, taken from his bed at dead of night by a body of armed men, conducted just outside the town limits, and while pinioned and blindfolded had been alleged to have attempted flight from his guard. Such a statement mocks the moral sense and defies credulity.

On receipt, August 12, of a telegram from the governor of Texas, reporting Mondragon’s acquittal by the court at Piedras Negras, I sent you a telegram, * * * emphasizing the marked contrast of the speedy action in Mondragon’s case with the dilatory proceedings in Cutting’s case, and the injurious impressions which must be thereby produced.

From the brief space intervening between Mondragon’s arrest and reported release, it is conjectured that his “acquittal” may have been merely his discharge, on the expiration of the constitutional period of detention, for want of evidence deemed by the judge of first instance sufficient for his commitment for further proceedings. It is incredible that the evidence now brought forth as to the condition of Arresures’s body when exhumed could have been before the court which released Mondragon.

It is incumbent upon this Government, as an international duty, and in the name of civilization and common humanity, to hasten to bring to the knowledge of Mexico the facts disclosed in Consul Linn’s report, to the end that no miscarriage of justice shall be permitted. A Government like that of Mexico, which so strenuously contends for reliance upon the decision of its judicial branch to qualify its international obligations, cannot permit itself to rest under imputation that the machinery of justice is permitted to shield criminals, nor afford to assume international responsibility by accepting and approving any palpable mockery of the forms of law, such as this case of Arresures, as reported to us, appears to present.

I am, &c.,

T. F. BAYARD.

[Inclosure in No. 233.]

Mr. Linn to Mr. Porter.

United States Consulate,
Piedras Negras, Mexico, August 3, 1886. (Received August 13, 1886.)

No. 18.]

Sir: I have the honor to report that on the night of July 26, 1886, there was arrested in Eagle Pass, Tex., by Deputy Sheriff Bonifacio Diaz, and other officers, acting under instructions of Sheriff T. L. Oglesby, of Maverick County, Texas, a naturalized citizen of the United States named Francisco Arresuris.

That within fifteen minutes after his arrest Arresuris was conveyed to the Rio Grande River and crossed by skiff to Piedras Negras, where he was delivered to Francisco Mondragon, captain of the Fuerza de Seguridad, or State Rangers, of Coahuila, who incarcerated him in the city jail.

On the morning of July 27, Arresuris made a written appeal to me, alleging his American citizenship, and demanding consular protection. I at once addressed a note of inquiry to the sheriff of Maverick County, Texas, at Eagle Pass, requesting from that officer a statement of the facts of Arresuris’s arrest, its cause, and of all proceedings of court therewith connected. In reply thereto the sheriff (a copy of his letter accompanying this report) stated that he had Arresuris arrested upon warrant issued by Joseph Hofstetter, county judge of Maverick County, Texas, and that he had delivered him to the Mexican officers in obedience to the said warrant from the county judge. It being apparent that Arresuris had been delivered to the Mexican officers without even the form of an extradition trial, and upon a warrant of a county judge who acted without having even formal charges preferred against the prisoner, I called at once upon Captain Mondragon, and demanded that Arresuris be redelivered to the Texas officers. I was accompanied to Captain Mondragon’s private house by Mr. William Schnhardt, a citizen of Piedras Negras, and formerly vice-consul of the United States at this place, and by Mr. John O. Williamson, a citizen of Eagle Pass and the employer of Arresuris. It was in Mondragon’s private residence the demand for Arresuris’s return to Texas was made. I explained the grounds of the demand to be that the prisoner had been delivered in violation of extradition laws, and that he stood as kidnapped. In support of this I handed to Mondragon, Sheriff Oglesby’s letter on the subject, which he read. I also called his attention to the requisites of the law regulating extradition of persons accused of crime. Mondragon admitted that the prisoner had been irregularly delivered to him, but he declined positively and at once to return him to Texas. He did so upon the grounds that he had that morning “transferred the case to the district judge at Zaragoza (in Coahuila), to whom I must apply for the prisoner’s return to the United States.” I argued the injustice that would be done Arresuris in thus sending him so far from his family and friends under this illegal proceeding, and, producing my exequatur as United States consul, I again demanded in the name of the Government the immediate return of this prisoner. Mondragon replied that “he could not comply, because the case had been sent to a higher court.”

Feeling it to be useless to further endeavor to influence Mondragon, I returned to the consulate, and at once wrote a letter to Sheriff Oglesby, urging him to use every means to secure Arresuris’s return. Sheriff Oglesby then wrote to Mondragon, asking for Arresuris’s return to him, promising to hold him until regular extradition proceedings could be instituted before Judge Hofstetter, the Texas extradition agent the sheriff’s letter was sent to Mondragon by Deputy Diaz, the same officer who delivered the prisoner to the Mexican officers. This demand by Sheriff Oglesby met with a positive refusal to return the prisoner. It was late in the afternoon of the 27th when this final reply from Mondragon was received, and not anticipating the bloody event so soon to take place, I prepared to make application to the district judge at Zaragoza for Arresuris, which application was to be presented on the next day.

On returning to my office on the morning of the 28th, I was informed that Arresuris had been taken from the city jail at or about the hour of 1 o’clock of the night previous; that he had been carried about 1 mile west of the town of Piedras Negras and there shot to death by a party of Mondragon’s troops.

I at once made diligent inquiries as to its truthfulness, and found that Arresuris had been dealt with as reported, and that Bartolo Fuentes was the officer immediately in charge of the squad that did the killing. It was also reported that the prisoner was endeavoring “to escape,” hence his death. The body of the murdered man was brought to Piedras Negras and interred in a shallow grave, about 2 feet in depth, in the town cemetery by Mondragon’s troops. On the succeeding day, at the request of Arresuris’ mother, I applied to several of the local authorities and finally obtained consent of Sr. J. M. Cardenas Madero, gefe politico of this district, for the taking up of the body in order to inclose it in a coffin. This was done, and Arresuris’ arms were found pinioned to his side and a towel as a bandage over his eyes, in which condition he had very evidently been shot. His body had been thrown into the grave in the clothing he had on, without shroud or coffin or farther care or attention.

On the evening previous to the shooting of Arresuris, Mondragon passed over to the Eagle Pass side of the Rio Grande and boarded the train for San Antonio, Texas, thence to go to Saltillo, Mexico. While waiting at Eagle Pass, a few minutes before the leaving of the train, he remarked to Mr. Francisco La Grange, a worthy witness, and an agent in the employment of the railway company at Eagle Pass, that he (Mondragon) had left orders with his soldiers to take Arresuris from jail and to shoot him that night.

This statement, together with the condition in which Arresuris’s body was found, and the further fact, that the prisoner had from the first moments of his arrest and delivery asserted that Mondragon would have him killed,” which statement he repeated many times during the short time of his imprisonment, goes to disprove the charge that Arresuris was shot while “attempting escape,” a phrase so exceedingly handy for use, when the prisoner’s lips have been sealed in death to any contradiction. I have made thorough inquiries regarding the cause of this summary death of Arresuris. The officers concerned in it assert that Arresuris was a bad man, against whom there were charges of horse-stealing, while the dead man’s friends and relatives assert that a personal difficulty of several years’ standing caused Mondragon, when having him in his power, to destroy him. Arresuris himself said that Mondragon would have him killed because of a personal difficulty between them. Mondragon, it is currently reported here, has had several other men shot quite as summarily.

An examination of the records of Maverick County, Texas, shows that Francisco Arresuris made declaration to become a citizen of the United States in the year 1873. He presented to me a certificate of this declaration, signed by the district clerk of Maverick County, and there is no proof that he has sworn allegiance to any other Government.

His employer, Mr. Williamson, represents him as being a peaceable, industrious, and sober man, while many of the best Mexican citizens in this town also certify to his good character. It is certain, however, that Mondragon will endeavor to prove him a horse thief, which, together with his plea of “attempted escape,” is to be the justification offered for the taking of this man’s life.

I believe the killing of Arresuris to have been a brutal murder, perpetrated in defiance of law and without any justifying causes. It was committed, too, when a demand for his return to the United States had been made by an officer fully authorized by this Government to make it. This brutal murder is, then, both a wrong done an American citizen and an insult to our Government.

On the 28th ultimo, I telegraphed Hon. T. F. Bayard, Secretary of State of the United States, at Washington, the principal facts in this case, a copy of which now accompanies this report, and on the succeeding day I also telegraphed the governor of Texas, Hon. John Ireland, the particulars of this murder, he having requested me to do so. A copy of this telegram also accompanies this report. I also inclose a copy of a letter received from Joseph Hofstetter, county judge of Maverick County, Texas, explaining his action in this case; also copies of two letters received from the murdered man, the one marked A being his demand for protection, and the one marked B being the one delivered to me after his death, although written in the afternoon of the 27th of July. In letter B he admits his fear of Mondragon’s treatment for the night, and subsequent events prove his fear to have been well founded. Also a copy of letter from J. M. Cardenas Madero, gefe politico, authorizing the removal of Arresuris’s body for more decent interment, is also inclosed. There also accompanies this report an article taken from the San Antonio (Texas) Daily Express, a reputable newspaper, which claims that Mondragon in like manner shot, without trial, another American citizen, Juan Galindo, in April last. There is no doubt of the killing of Galindo, as asserted in this newspaper article, as I was at the time fully advised, it having occurred within my consular district; but Galindo was represented as a Mexican citizen and a horse-thief, shot “while making escape,” hence I made no report to the Department nor took official cognizance of the affair, as well as in several other cases of killing likewise reported.

* * * * * * *

By the direction of the governor of Texas, the county attorney of Maverick County, Texas, instituted criminal proceedings against the county judge, the sheriff, and Deputy Diaz, who, on preliminary trial, were placed under bail bonds of $1,000 each for further trial before the district court of the county of Maverick. Complaint was also filed against Mondragon, in the same case (the charge being kidnapping), but his absence in Mexico prevented his trial.

I have written thus fully to the Department in order that it may be furnished with every material fact in my possession concerning this case.

* * * * * * *

I have, &c.,

E. D. LINN.

[Inclosure 1 in No. 18.]

Mr. Oglesby to Mr. Linn.

Eagle Pass, Tex., July 27, 1886.

Dear Sir: On the morning of the 26th a warrant for the arrest and delivery of Francisco Arresuris was sent me from Piedras Negras, Mexico; upon receipt of same, I had him arrested and obtained an order from the county judgo to deliver him, and did so, taking a receipt for said party. This morning I was told that he was an American citizen; have examined the records here of the county and district clerk’s office, and find that the said party declared his intentions to become a citizen in 1873. This is about all I know about the matter. As I have been accustomed in like manner heretofore to deliver up parties under same circumstances, thought it was coming under the province of the law.

Most respectfully, &c.,

T. L. OGLESBY,
Sheriff, Maverick County, Texas.

[Inclosure 2 in No. 18.]

Copy of telegram sent to the Hon. T. F. Bayard, Secretary of State, from Piedras Negras consulate, relative to hilling Francisco Arresuris.

Piedras Negras (via Eagle Pass), July 28, 1886.

Hon. T. F. Bayard,
Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.:

On night 26th instant, by connivance of sheriff, Texas side, Francisco Arresuris, a naturalized American citizen, was kidnapped from Eagle Pass. On yesterday, as United States consul, I made demand for this man from Mexican officers. This was peremptorily refused, and last night Arresuris was taken from jail, carried a short distance from Piedras Negras, and shot to death by Mexican authorities. This outrage, joined to constant similar ones on American citizens hero, urges on our Government vigorous measures of redress.

E. D. LINN.

[Inclosure 3 in No. 18.]

Copy of telegram sent Hon. John Ireland, governor of Texas, from Piedras Negras consulate, July 30, 1886.

Austin, July 30.

Governor Ireland having been advised by accounts in the San Antonio papers of the execution of Arreusis by the Mexican authorities, after he had been delivered to them by the extradition agent at Eagle Pass, upon a requisition believed to be bogus, and charging him with horse-theft, sent the following telegram yesterday to Hon. Ed. Linn, American consul at Piedras Negras:

“Send me full particulars of the arrest and killing of F. Arreusis.

“JOHN IRELAND,
“Governor.”

Mr: Linn replied as follows:

Eagle Pass, July 30, 1885.

Your telegram just received. Francisco Arreusis was arrested by Deputy Sheriff Diaz at Eagle Pass, by order of Sheriff Oglesby, on the night of the 26th instant. He was handcuffed, and in fifteen minutes was delivered to the Mexican officers across the Rio Grande. Oglesby claimed he acted on a warrant of County Judge Hofstetter, who says Oglesby persuaded him to sign this order for the arrest and delivery. No papers from Mexico for his arrest, except a letter from Mondragon, a captain of the State rangers in Coahuila, which made a general charge of horse-stealing against Arreusis. A protest against being delivered, to the Mexican officers was strongly made by Arreusis, who insisted that he would be killed by Mondragon, his personal enemy. He appealed to me for protection on the morning of the 27th, and I at once demanded his return to Texas on the ground of his being kidnaped. I also had Oglesby to demand the prisoner’s return on the same ground. Both demands were refused by Mondragon, and at 1 o’clock at night Arreusis was taken from jail and brutally murdered by three of Mondragon’s troops. In 1873 Arreusis made a declaration of citizenship in Maverick County. He lived with his family in Eagle Pass at the time of his arrest, being an omnibus driver. The best citizens in Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras testify to his good character. Oglesby says he had a private understanding with Mondragon by which an escaped murderer from Texas, for whom a large reward had been offered, was to be delivered to Oglesby in exchange for Arreusis. Public indignation is very great on both sides of the river over this affair.

ED. LINN,
United States Consul.

A.

To the American Consul:

Before you with due respect, and the best I can do at this time with the right I have and I wish to state that it has been twelve years and months that I am an American citizen and resident of Eagle Pass I was living in said town and working up to last night, when I was taken from my work by armed men, who crossed me to this side, and delivered me to the captain of the rangers. The motive that they crossed me for I am ignorant of, therefore 1 appeal to you, that you may have a formal investigation of the outrage they have committed.

FRANCISCO ARRESURIS.

B.

To the American Consul of this city:

The great fear which I labor under makes me molest you at each step. The crime that I am accused of is made known to me by a friend, saying to me that Mr. Mondragon has been informed that I am a captain of a band of bandits who were creating a great many crimes. In the first place they say that I tried to kill Juan W. Riddle, that he had fought with me, and by good fortune escaped. I can prove to Mr. Mondargon by Juan W. Riddle himself, for no one knows better than he, that I am working in the Maverick stables. I can also prove this by all of the employés of Eagle Pass, and by others if such were necessary, and by this bad information received by Mr. Mondragon I am afraid that he will take me out at midnight and commit an infamy with me, as they have done with other individuals; therefore, to prevent such consequences you can take the necessary steps, and give me time to present my documents showing that I am an American citizen, and prove my conduct in the places where I have lived. Task you to take into consideration my appeal.

FRANCISCO ARRESURIS.

[Inclosure 4 in No. 18.]

Statement of Joseph Hofstetter.

On Monday, the 26th day of July, 1886, at or near 7 o’clock p.m., Sheriff Oglesby with Mrs. Oglesby drove up to my residence in the town of Eagle Pass, and asked for me; upon my stepping up to the gate he told me that he wanted an order from me to deliver up a Mexican horse-thief to the Mexican authorities; that he was the man he had been spotting for the last month or six weeks. I asked him whether the man was a Mexican citizen; he said he knew he was. I then told Captain Oglesby that I would be down at my office soon. I at once started to the court-house, Captain Oglesby overtaking me before I reached the office, and leaving his wife outside in the carriage, holding the horses. Opening my office, I again asked Captain Oglesby whether he was certain that the man he wanted delivered was a Mexican citizen; he assured me he was.

I then asked him, “How about the papers? Have you got the warrant and testimony from the authorities in Mexico?” (or words to that effect), when he answered, “The papers are all right; they will be turned over to you the first thing in the morning;” whereupon I issued the following order:

The State of Texas,
Maverick County:

To the sheriff of Maverick County, greeting:

You are herewith directed to deliver to Francisco Mondragon, chief of police, Piedras Negras, Mexico, one Francisco Erresurios, whom you now hold in your custody, and who is accused of theft of horses in the Republic of Mexico, as is proven by letters from said Mondragon.

JOS. HOFSTETTER,
County Judge and Extradition Agent, Maverick County, Texas.

All this happened between 7 and 7.30 o’clock p.m. on Monday, the 26th instant. Leaving my office, I went home. Next morning about 9 o’clock a.m., I met Captain Oglesby in front of the court-house door, and again asking him about the papers for the man, he answered, “I will [have] the papers here in a few minutes,” or similar words.

I have up to date hereof not yet received the papers, Captain Oglesby stating to me that he had not yet received them himself.

[Inclosure 5 in No. 18.—Translation.]

Mr. Madero to Mr. Linn.

Fuente, July 29, 1886.

Sir: In accordance with the desires expressed in your esteemed favor of to-day, in relation that I may give permission to the mother of him whose name was Francisco Arresuris, killed yesterday by the force of “public security,” in compliance with their duty, so that she may unearth her son and put him in a coffin, that she may pay to him the last sad tribute as a mother upon this earth, I have the honor to state to you that I will see the presidente del municipale de P. Negras, so that he, together with the jues civil, give permission to the mother of Arresuris to take him up this very day and put him in a coffin as she wishes to do, so this act may be complied with immediately and with all necessary precautions demanded by law.

I have, &c.,

J. M. CARDENAS MADERO

.

[Inclosure 6 in No. 18.]

Extract from San Antonia (Texas) Daily Express, August 6, 1886.

Del Rio, Tex., August 5 (special).

another mexican outrage—mondragon, the fiendish murderer of poor resures, kills another american.

Since the assertion of Governor Ireland regarding the maltreatment of Texas subjects on the frontier by the Mexican authorities, our people have become again warm over the capture and murder of a citizen of this place about four months since, the particulars of which are about as follows, and can be sustained fully and unequivocally whenever necessary: A few months before this occurrence Messrs. Roach and White, of this place, had occasion to cross from the Mexican side to this side a herd of the horses they had received in exchange for goats in Mexico. In charge of the herd was a man who had long been in their employ, named Juan Galindo.

Galindo was born in Mexico, but at the age of nineteen years came to Texas and lived and married in San Antonio, and in the year 1870 became a citizen and voted there. He afterwards moved to Del Rio, where his parents reside at this time. In crossing the horses above referred to, owing to some irregularity in the custom-house papers he was arrested by the Mexican authorities and confined in jail a few days, and upon having his examining trial was released, there being no cause to hold him. He came to this side shortly afterwards, and as occasion required, worked sometimes in Mexico and again here, as there are several large firms interested in stock on both sides.

About the first of last April, he, however, in company with H. D. Bonnett, formerly sheriff of Bexar County and afterwards river guard at Del Rio, and two Mexican citizens of good repute, passed over into Mexico to gather some horses with the owner of said horses. After having been there about two weeks, and while riding one day near the town of Pillotes, a small town of Coahuila, about 50 miles from the border, Galindo was arrested by this same Francisco Mondragon and put in jail over night, and the next night taken out and brutally murdered by the order of Mondragon, which was executed by one of his lieutenants and a few of his men. Galindo pleaded for a trial, but was not even allowed the form of such, they confiscating the horse, carbine, and saddle he had with him, which he had borrowed. Galmdo’s old mother and father, with his widow and three orphan children, live in the suburbs of Del Rio, and it was with much difficulty the life of his gray-headed mother was saved after the cruel and sudden blow from the loss of her favorite son. Galindo was a cousin of Resures, killed by order of the same officer, Mondragon, and with less pretense of an excuse. His relatives here say it was done by the influenco of a woman living in Las Vacas, opposite Del Rio, who pretended to have lost a horse in the herd referred to, and who had control of this same murderer and coward, Mondragon. Your correspondent can verify all that he says regarding the matter and is ready to do it. The killing was on April 23 of this year, and was heretofore kept quiet by the ignorance of the parties directly interested and an apathy of the citizens, caused by repeated outrages on the frontier without a sign of protection. However, since the positive stand now taken by our governor this matter will surely be investigated and laid before him for such action as he may deem proper.