Ambassador Thompson to the Acting Secretary of State.
Mexico, July 12, 1906.
Sir: I am in receipt of the department’s instruction No. 40, of May 31 last, accompanied by a copy of a letter from Mr. Henry Love Clarke requesting the department to obtain for him certain definite information concerning the measures taken by the Mexican authorities against the marauding Yaqui Indians in the State of Sonora during certain specified intervals with relation to the murders in that State by said Indians of the MacKenzie party and a Mr. Sayles.
Before bringing the matter to the attention of the Mexican Government I have thought it best to refer the department to Mr. McCreery’s dispatch No. 228, of March 3 last, with which he transmitted a clipping from El Diario Oficial, the official organ of the Mexican Federal Government, in which the governor of Sonora, following the express instructions of the President of the Republic, made a complete report upon the circumstances surrounding the murder of Mr. Sayles, which report is corroborated by the copies of letters from the manager and other employees of the Sultana mine, where Mr. Sayles had been working. I also invite the department’s attention to my dispatch No. 80, of the 6th ultimo, with which I transmitted a lengthy report from the governor of Sonora, published in the before-mentioned official organ, giving a clear view of the Yaqui troubles in Sonora and showing the earnest efforts made by the authorities, both civil and military, to prevent, as far as possible, any further depredations on the part of said Indians.
From these reports the department will observe that the measures adopted by the Government in the interval between the MacKenzie and the Sayles tragedies were the stationing of garrisons composed of state and federal troops throughout the small settlements of the regions infested by the Yaquis, and that the escorts were sufficiently able to protect travelers, since there is no record of any case where travelers under escort have been killed by the Yaqui Indians. The reports also show that the escorts in question are given by applying to the civil or military authorities of the locality where needed, and that Mr. Sayles could have obtained an escort in the manner in which the same had, with his knowledge, been obtained by Mr. Giroux, superintendent of the Sultana mine, where, as before stated, Mr. Sayles had worked, it being immaterial at the present time to state to whom requests for escorts had to be addressed, through what formalities they had to pass, or just what escort could have been promptly furnished Mr. Sayles, because, as stated by Mr. Giroux (see page 6, inclosure 2, in Mr. McCreery’s dispatch No. 228, of March 31 last), the deceased had been warned against traveling alone, and, as escorts had been furnished to the employees of the Sultana mines on several previous occasions, Mr. Sayles knew exactly from whom he could have secured an escort had he chosen to ask for one.
Therefore, from the voluminous evidence of Mexican officials, of Americans, and others in the State of Sonora already transmitted to the department by this embassy, there is no shadow of doubt that the Sonora authorities have furnished an escort to anyone needing [Page 1149] and applying for the same, and that those unfortunate persons, like Mr. Sayles, who were offered an escort before starting out on a trip and who, also like Mr. Sayles, refused to accept the same, knowing the danger of traveling in the Yaqui-infested regions of the State of Sonora, are simply responsible to themselves for the loss of their lives.
I have, etc.,