Mr. Bridgman to Mr. Hay.
La Paz, Bolivia, March 28, 1899.
Sir. I have the honor to report the occurrence of another hideous outrage and murder at the hands of the savages in Bolivia.
On March 1 Colonel Pando sent, from his army at Sicasica, 120 men commanded by Arturo Eguino, to Ayopaya, there to confer with Mr. Orellana as to the best means for simultaneously attacking Cochabamba.
On arriving at the town of Mohoza, Equino demanded a loan of 200 bolivians from the priest of the town and 100 bolivians from the mayor.
These demands being refused, the priest and mayor were imprisoned. Meanwhile, however, the priest had dispatched couriers to the Indian villages asking that the natives attack Pando’s men.
A large crowd of Indians came, and in spite of all measures taken to pacify them, the arms of the soldiers were taken away, the men subjected to revolting treatment, and finally locked inside the church for the night. In the morning the infernal priest, after celebrating the so-called “Mass of agony,” allowed the Indians to take out the unfortunate victims, two by two, and 103 were deliberately murdered, each pair by different tortures.
Seventeen escaped death by having departed the day previous on another mission.
Each day brings news of risings of the Indians in different sections of the northern part of the country.
A large party of whites arrived in La Paz to-day, fleeing from Indian threats. Unless the savages are speedily subdued the question of outrages and attacks by them will be, as my dispatch of three months ago stated, a most serious problem for Bolivia to combat.
I have, etc.,