Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1886
No. 336.
Mr. Jackson to Mr. Bayard.
Mexico, August 28, 1886. (Received September 7.)
Sir: I have the honor to inclose herewith what purports to be a semiofficial Mexican statement of the Erresuris case.
The El Siglo XIX is the evening official paper of the Mexican Government
[Page 721]I have thought it wise to send it in connection with my dispatch No. 301 of yesterday.
I will also send a copy to Consul Linn for his information.
I am. &c.
Clipping from El Siglo XIX, August 26, 1886.
the erresuris case—a semi-official mexican statement.
The nisi prius judge of the Rio Grande district has sent to the state department a report on the killing of Francisco Erresuris. This report will probably be published in due time, but meanwhile we will tell what we know of its contents.
Francisco Erresuris was a Mexican citizen by birth, being a native of San Juan do Allende, a town in the State of Coahuila. He served in our Army from May 2, 1879, until the end of 1881, as a private, and from there on until May 26, 1885, as a sergeant. After obtaining his discharge from the regular Army at the date mentioned, he enlisted in the Fiscal Gendarmery, in which heremained some littte time, until expelled by General Hipolito Charles for bad conduct. The chief of public security in the Rio Grande district, Francisco Mondragon, in the discharge of his duty, and in compliance with instructions received to cause the arrest of every criminal, took measures for the arrest of Erresuris, who had stolen 210 head of cattle during the last months of 1885, which he drove across the river into Texas, at a point between Piedras Negras and Jimenez. During February, 1886, he stole 73 horses from the pastures of Santa Monica, Rosales, and Nava. In Moral township he stole 60 horses from Apolonio Montalvo, and 20 from Juan Garza. During the first days of July he stole 30 animals from the Guadalupe hacienda, which he took into American territory to a ranch called Texas. Besides, it appears that he was concerned in the killing of an American in Remolino township, belonging under the jurisdiction of the court at Zaragoza. The police surprised him in his house, which is situated closely to the river’s edge at Piedras Negras, and attempted to arrest him as a notorious criminal. But lie, after making armed resistance, jumped into the river and escaped to the American side by swimming.
On account of these and other facts, Mondragon requested Sheriff Bonifacio Diaz de Leon at Eagle Pass to arrest Erresuris, in order to prevent his escape while a formal demand was being made. The American judge, before whom the matter was placed, upon hearing the facts, ordered the arrest of Erresuris and his delivery into the hands of the Mexican authorities, and this order was complied with. Erresuris was brought across the river by the public ferry and was delivered to Mondragon with-his hands tied. Mondragon ordered the handcuffs to be taken off as soon as the prisoner was in his charge. Immediately after receiving the prisoner, Mondragon consigned him, in the usual form, to the competent judge, which was the criminal judge at Zaragoza. After this was done, the American consul, Mr. E. D. Linn, called upon Mondragon privately and without official character, to ask him if he could not surrender Erresuris to him, because he seemed to him, this was the word used, to be an American citizen. Mondragon naturally replied that the prisoner had already been consigned to the court. While matters were in this condition, Mondragon received orders from the Coahuila government to proceed to the capital, with which order he complied. While he was on his way there, and stopping in San Antonio, Tex., three soldiers took Erresuris from the jail to bring him before the judge at Zaragoza. While they were on the road with him, he suddenly threw himself upon one of his guards, and taking away the man’s carbine fired at the second, whose horse ho wounded. The guard then fired upon Erresuris to prevent his flight and killed him immediately, as has since been fully established by the investigation.
These are the facts, and although some American papers have contorted them, and have made serious charges against the Mexican authorities, others in New York, Galveston, and even in San Antonio, have taken up defense of the conduct of the Mexican authorities as perfectly justifiable. It is not true that Erresuris was entitled to American citizenship. His father, in the year 1873, declared his intention of becoming an American citizen, but he died soon after, and nothing else ever was done to secure American citizenship to Erresuris. Far from considering himself an American citizen, Erresuris, as we have stated already, served both in the regular Mexican army and the Fiscal Gendarmery.
[Page 722]consul linn’s report.
The official report made by Consul Linn, at Piedras Negras, on the Erresuris case, differs from the Mexican story in several important particulars. Linn states that, hearing of the irregular extradition of Erresuris, he made a demand upon Mondragon for the prisoner’s immediate return, on the ground that he had been kidnapped, and that he made this demand in the name of the United States. Mondragon, while admitting that Erresuris had come into his hands in an irregular manner, refused to comply with the demand, on the pretense that the prisoner had already been consigned to the judge at Zaragoza, who alone could order his return. Sheriff Oglesby also asked Mondragon for the return of Erresuris, and received a negative reply late on the afternoon of July 27. Linn then resolved to apply to the judge at Zaragoza, but, on returning to his office on the morning of July 28, he learned that Erresuris had been taken from the jail the night before, and had been shot, about a mile west from Piedras Negras, by Mon dragon’s men, under command of one Bartolo Fuentes, while attempting to escape, it was stated. On the succeeding day, at the request of Erresuris’ mother, Linn applied to several of the local authorities, and finally obtained consent for the taking up of the body, in order to inclose it in a coffin. This was done, and Erresuris’ arms were found pinioned to his side and a towel over his eyes, in which 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 further care or attention.
Mr. Linn further states that Mondragon started for Saltillo on the evening before the shooting, and remarked while about to board the train for San Antonio, at Eagle Pass, to Mr. Lagrange, the station agent, that he had left orders with his men to take Erresuris from jail and shoot him that night. The report also says that Erresuris stood in mortal terror of being murdered by Mondragon, with whom he had a difficulty of long standing, and that Erresuris was given a good character by Mr. Williamson, his employer, and some of the best Mexican citizens, in the face of the assertion made by the authorities that Erresuris was a notorious horse-thief and criminal. Mr. Linn also states that Erresuris himself showed him a certificate, borne out by the official records, according to which he declared in 1873, before the clerk in Maverick County, his intention of becoming an American citizen, and that there was no proof of Erresuris ever having sworn allegiance to any other Government since.
It is rather significant that Consul Linn obtained no knowledge of the service of Erresuris in the Mexican army, nor seems to have taken any steps to investigate the criminal record of Erresuris given by the Mexican authorities. Another dark point is the Mexican statement that the declaration of intention was made in 1873 by the father of Erresuris, but never by the latter himself.
Secretary Bayard, in communicating Consul Linn’s report to Governor Ireland of Texas, characterizes the acts of Maverick County officials in connection with the matter, as constituting kidnapping, and with regard to Mondragon he says: “If it would appear that Mondragon or any other Mexican instituted on the American side fraudulent or deceptive proceedings, constituting under the laws of Texas “kidnapping,” defining the same to be the taking and carrying away of a free person by force or deception, as described in article 3 of the treaty of extradition, a case may possibly be presented for a demand on Mexico for the extradition of the offenders.”