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  4. Document 249

Ambassador Thompson to the Secretary of State .

[Extract.]
American Embassy,
Mexico , May 2, 1906 .
No. 35.]

Sir: I acknowledge the receipt of the department’s instruction No. 12, of April 18 last, inclosing a copy of a letter from Mr. Henry [Page 1146] Love Clarke in which, having reference to the murder of Mr. Albert W. Sayles by Yaqui Indians, he makes certain inquiries regarding the measures taken by the Mexican Government to suppress or control the lawlessness of those Indians and to furnish escorts to persons asking for them, etc., and adding that the department would be pleased to have a report from me covering Mr. Clarke’s inquiries.

Referring to Mr. Clarke’s first question as to what, if any, efforts have been made by the Mexican authorities to suppress and control the lawless acts of the Yaqui Indians of Sonora, Mexico, since the massacre of the McKenzie-Coy party, which occurred in the month of January, 1905,1 respectfully refer the department to the substance of my dispatches Nos. 3,13, and 21, of March 12, March 30, and April 10, 1906, respectively, in which I reported the steps taken by the Mexican Government for the suppression of the lawless acts of the Sonora Yaqui Indians and the restoration of order in the districts where they had formerly committed depredations.

This embassy possesses no specific data showing what, if any, attacks have been made by the Yaqui Indians in the State of Sonora upon either Americans or Mexicans in the interval between the attack upon the McKenzie-Coy party and that made upon Mr. Sayles. Rumors of such attacks may have appeared from time to time in the newspapers, but no substantiation of Yaqui Indian depredations committed between the interval above mentioned has come to the knowledge of this embassy.

I have been informed that military escorts—federal and state troops—are the kind the authorities in Sonora provide for those persons going into the remote interior of that State when requested to do so, and the number of men composing such an escort naturally depends upon the size of the party needing its services.

I have, etc.,

D. E. Thompson.