Reports of the committee of investigation sent in 1873 by the Mexican government to the frontier of Texas

Preface To The Translation. '

This book is a translation, ordered by the Mexican Government, of the reports presented by the commission which it sent to the frontier, to investigate the depredations committed on both sides of the Rio Grande. The President of the United States, in compliance with a recommendation of Congress, had previously dispatched an investigating commission to the Texan border, to inquire in to the robberies complained of in Texas, and alleged to have been perpetrated by Indians and citizens of Mexico. That was the origin of the appointment in the neighboring country of a similar commission. The Mexican Government wanted to have the matter investigated on its side, and as impartially as possible, for it felt the necessity of being prepared against the plots of some malicious claimants and other ambitious private parties in this country.

The result of the Mexican investigation is shown in these reports, now published in English for the information of the American people. It proves that the complaints of the Texans are groundless, inasmuch as the cattle stealing done among them is not the work of any residents in the adjoining country, but of Indians belonging to the United States, and their own outlaws disguised as Indians. If either of the two nations can complain of Indian and other depredations — as it is now demonstrated — it is Mexico, some of whose entire States have been ruined by Indians and banditti from the United States, who still depredate there to a certain extent, robbing horses and perpetrating other outrages. The origin of those evils on both banks of the river, it is clearly proved, consists, in a great measure, in the encouragement given to the Indians for plunder by the traffic carried on with them ever since 1835, tolerated and consented by the American an-

IV

Preface

thoi’ities, and in wliicli the Indians exchange their booty, most frequently from IVIexico.

Besides the lack of foundation in the Texan claims, the absurdity of their amount, in consequence of an enormous exaggeration, is evidenced by the official data showing the value of all the property in the counties referred to by the claimants. They complain of having lost much more than they ever could possess, while they still certainly retain a good deal.

The work of the Mexican border Commission has been wonderfully laborious. They visited all the towns and many ranchos not remote from the Rio Grande, all along the river on its right bank, as far up as La Resurreccion, a distance of about 450 miles. Wherever public archives could be found, they ransacked them most industifiously, with a view to lind some traces of the facts under investigation. They examined nearlj" 300 witnesses, whose testimonies, with otlier documentary evidence annexed to the reports, covei- 17,688 pages in manuscript.

The official edition, from which this translation is taken, has an appendix containing a tabular statement of the names, domiciles, &c., of 278 witnesses examined on the principal questions, besides other tabular and detailed notices of Indian incursions into the Mexican frontier States (covering 42 folio pages), and some few interesting data about the removal of the Kickapoos from Mexico, and Indian hostilities in that country. One of the documents inserted in that appendix is a message sent to the Legislature of Texas, by Gov. E. J. Davis, dated Austin, April 19, 1873, bitterly lamenting the frightful demoralization of the State, since, according to the Governor’s calculations, more murders had been committed in it, during three months, with a population of little more than 800,000, than in the State of New York (excluding the city of New York), with more than thi’ee million souls. The Governor also alludes to the culpable su])pression of the cattle registry in one county— a fact, we may say, which tends to prove that cattle stealing in that section had its protectors there, and not in Mexico.

PREFACE.

V

For the convenience of the reader who may want to be informed about the foundation of the Texan complaints against Mexican Indians and robbers, rather than other matters interesting the Mexican frontier, we beg leave to refer him to the first report in its whole, up to page 223, and more particularly to the second one, under the headings, “ Indian Depredations in Texas” (page 341), and ‘‘Robbery of Cattle and Horses ” (page 383). As of general interest, we also would especially recommend the portion entitled “ Indian Policy of the United States,” commencing at page 427.

Table Of Contents

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First Report, dated Monterey, May 15, 1873, on the depredations and offenses committed on the Texas frontier, without particular reference to Indians, and with statistical data to prove the absurdity of the claims proposed by Texans 8

Communications to the Seeretaries of Foreign Relations, of War and

II

In the examination of the relations between the frontiers since 1848, the first striking point is the system of cattle thieves. During the Texan war and afterwards, in fact up to 1848, horse and cattle stealing increased to so great an extent, in the district north of Rio Bravo to Xueces, as to almost depopulate the country by ridding the inhabitants of their stock.

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Bands of Americans, Texans, Mexicans, and Indians, in a few years, exhausted the wealth of that region. The settlers were few in number, and lacked the vigilance of either the Mexican or Texan authorities, so that they not only lost their wealth, but gave scope to a degree of license and immorality of itself dangerous and degrading. The early emigrants to that part of Texas did nothing towards correcting this state of things, hut, on the contrary, aggravated the evil, for they were not themselves noted for rectitude or sobriety. It was the refuge for criminals flying from justice in Mexico; adventurers from the United States, who sought a fortune, unscrupulous of the means of procuring it; and vagrants from all parts of the State of Texas, hoping, in the shadow of existing disorganization and lawlessness, to escape punishment for their crimes. Under this head the Commission does not class all the early emigrants to Southwestern Texas since 1848. Far from this ; it acknowledges in many of them the highest moral standard, hut, compared with the mass, they constituted but a small proportion, too small to give tone to that class of people, and check the characteristic lawlessness of the district.

The thirst for wealth had become such a strong passion, that any means of procuring it seemed fair and legal. The district from Rio Bravo to ^^ueces had been cleared of its live stock ; only the land remained ; and rapacity knowing no bounds, the lands were seized, by many through force of arras, but generally by persons clothed with feigned legal power. This frontier district, extending along the Rio Bravo, abounded in droves of horses : the horse thieves of Mexico commenced operations here, which assumed from the onset alarming proportions, and the traflic in Texas of horses stolen from Mexico became a matter of commonplace merchandise. The facility which the horse thieves enjoyed, since 1848, of disposing of the stolen animals on the Texan shore of the Rio Bravo, increased the evil to an alarming extent. This pernicious influence has injured the industrial impulses of the Mexican frontier, since the results of horse stealing, and the evil influence of the thieves, have proven more fatal to the country than the revolutions.

Horse stealing in Mexico may be classed under two dif-

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ferent heads : one, the appropriation of roving droves, taken a few leagues from the banks of the Kio Bravo, within Mexican territory, transported across the river into Texas, and driven in lots into the interior of the State ; the other is the seizure of horses in the interior of the Mexican frontier wherever horses can be found.

Although testimonial evidence on all these points has been most useful and important, yet circumstantial proofs culled from the archives have in all eases been more conclusive. In those examined by the Commission are a series of regulations framed by the municipal and police authorities for the suj^pression of horse thieves in the towns lying on the bank of the river. Very few of these measures looked to the prevention of the traffic in stolen cattle from Texas, from which it would seem that this evil did not exist to the same extent ; whilst on the contrary, the laws* had in view the damages resulting from horse stealing in Mexico, and the transportation of the horses into Texas, proving that this was the greater traffic, and the one that needed greater legislation. Measures for the prevention of this crime have been issued in every town along the river, from which it may be deduced tiiat like injuries were experienced in every village on the Mexican line ; and as these preventive measures were constant and frequently repeated, it would seem that the injuries were constant and frequently recurring.

It is useless for the Commission to go into a detailed account of the various measures adopted by Mexican authorities to suppi’ess this evil, but, considering these documents of intrinsic value as bearing on the characteristic relations of both frontiers, the Commission took especial care in the selection of extracts from all of these regulations, arranging them in chronological order, and at times copying them entirely, when they offered any particular interest.

The great weight of these proofs cannot be estimated from a few isolated measures of this kind, but must be judged as a whole ; for whilst instituting a repressive system of horse stealing on the Mexican frontier for the Texan market, since 1848, they also indicate the robberies organized on the Texan shore of the Rio Bravo, in injury to Mexican proprietors.

u

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The judicial record is another element for illustrating the frontier question, since 1848, as regards horse stealing in Mexico, In the majority of criminal prosecutions against the cattle thieves, the evidence produced went to show that the stolen animals had been conducted by the thieves to the United States frontier, and then sold to dealei's. The Commission has made chronological extracts from all criminal cases relative to cattle thieves tried before the judicial court of each of the towns they visited, and the entire number of these different extracts corroborates the deductions made from the preventive measures adopted by the executive authorities. The number of horses stolen in Mexico for the Texan market may be judged by the following :

1st. From the testimony of those whose horses were stolen, and who had proofs of their having been carried into Texas. The horses, having on several occasions been pnikued, were found by their masters, who instituted criminal proceedings against the thieves, the result of which sometimes proved favorable, but generally the costs were so heavy that they often amounted to as much, and at times to more, than the value of the property recovered.

2d. From that of persons who were eye-witnesses to the acts of the robbers, some of them men who had charge of the horses, others who had seen the horses driven across the river to the Texan border, and still others who had aided in the pursuit from the bank of the river into the interior of Texas.

3d. By testimony of members of the police force who, in pursuit of the thieves, noticed that their depredations extended to Jimenez, Marina, and Tamaulipas, sixty leagues south of the Bio Bravo, after the continued robberies had exhausted the horses of the districts of Matamoros and San Fernando, thirty leagues south of the river.

4th. From evidence of those competent to judge of horseflesh, and familiar with their pasturage since 1848, who have remarked the diminution or total disappearance of them in certain districts where horses had previously abounded, from robberies and entirely independent of their destruction from revolutions.

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5tli. From that of merchants who, having driven horses into Texas, found difficulty in disposing of them, by reason of the low prices at which stolen horses could he bought, and which was far below their market value. Stolen horses are generally sold in Texas at prices below what the proprietors charge for them in Mexico. Competition is constant when it is remembered that robberies are continued. The nearer you approach the Rio Bravo the greater the competition, and for this reason the dealers in horses honestly procured drive them into the northern part of Texas when possible, so as to secure better sales, and escape the competition with dealers of stolen horses who as’semble in the neighborhood of the Rio Bravo.

Notwithstanding all these convincing and varied proofs, which the minutest scrutiny only served to corroborate, and despite the previous testimony given by persons, the majority of whom bear the most unimpeachable reputations, the Commission, in its research for the true facts of the case through the medium of official documents, did not fail to make use of the slightest written proof that could be made of avail. '

The repeated measures taken by the administrative authorities doubtless indicate the increase of horse stealing in Mexico for the Texan market, for it is not natural that regulations of such a stringent nature could, through a long series of years, have been enacted by different persons and in different districts, and so tenaciously adhered to, had not the interest at stake been one of great importance ; on the contrary, all the data collected from this source point to the general evil, but the Commission needed something still more definite than lesfal enactments, pointing only to generalities. Statistics are in their infancy in this country, and unable to furnish the Commission with the exact figures, and they were in consequence compelled to be satisfied with the best information they could procure, from scarce and isolated sources.

The robberies at length assumed such proportions that the Town Council of Reynosa, on the 11th of March, 1852, addressed the Mexican consul at Brownsville, informing him of the injuries suffered by the proprietors; and also stating that a band of Americans under Frederick Mathews had established

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themselves in Las Salinas, and collected a drove of horses amounting to four hundred, stolen from the pasturage on the bank of the river; the corporation also added that this was not the first time that Mathews had engaged in such traffic, and asked the consul to inform the authorities of Brownsville, and request that something be done to stay the evil.

The consul replied that he had conferred with the collector of customs, and that that officer had oi’dered the horses so introduced by Mathews to be seized as contraband ; that the last heard of Mathews he was near Nueces on his way to San Patricio, and that they hoped to overtake him. The consul added that he had induced the collector of customs, to publish a notice threatening the importers of horses with the penalty of the law, if any were found guilty of making contraband importations.

This notice was accordingly published in the “Bandera Americana,” a periodical issued in Brownsville, a copy of which dated April ITth, 1853, has been filed with the “ expedienter In this notice, John S. Pliea, collector of customs at Point Isabel, declares that having received information that a large number of horses had been stolen from Mexican citizens of Reynosa, and had been illegally introduced into the States, and taken to the interior of Texas to be sold, the inhabitants are warned of the penalties of law incured by any who knowingly and willingly take part m these fraudulent proceedings.

They were not successful in recovering all the horses stolen by Mathews ; a part only were taken on their way to San Antonio de Bejar, of which seizure the consul gave notice to the authorities of that town ; but such was the iusecui’e and disorganized condition of affairs in Texas, that the owners of the stolen animals were attacked by bands of American highwaj-- men, attempting to regain the stolen property by main force.

Not only do these various documents exhibit the exactness of the judgment formed by the Commission, but they also show how the illicit traffic had increased, mentioning one lot of stolen horses amounting to over four hundred in number. The gravity of the question is revealed by the steps taken by the town

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council in the appeal to the Mexican consul at Brownsville, and in the prompt measures taken by the custom-house officials, especially those at Point Isabel, who not only took the matter up, but sought through the application of the laws, the remedy of the ills complained of and endured on the Mexican frontier, probably because they were well aware of the extent of the injuries done to the inhabitants along the whole length of tlie Mexican line.

Horse stealing on so vast a scale from the pastures along the river has greatly diminished in the last few years. Tlie Commission is of opinion that this diminution may be attributed to the scarcity of animals, owing to robberies and revolutions ; but although horse stealing lessened in the river pasturage, it continued with some energy in the districts somewhat distant from the river, where the interests of the country were greater.

Laying aside all the corroborative evidence by the various witnesses on this point, there is one document well worthy of special attention. Don Trinidad Garza y Melo, a lawyer, made some notes for the criminal statistics of Nuevo Leon, on the 4th of February, 1870, and these were published long before any one dreamed that they would serve as an index for these investigations. Seiior Garza Melo was Judge of the Supreme Court of the State in the years 1868 and 1869, and he affirms that the data from which his work was compiled were selected from expedientes’’^ issued by him. Out of three hundred and eight^'-six cases tried before him in those two years, one hundred and thirty-three, that is, the third part, were for horse stealing. . He attributes the frequency of tliis crime to the three following causes : the disorders growing out of a common pasturage ; the extent and loneliness of the plains ; and finally, the proximity of the Kio Bravo, to the left shore of which the stolen animals could be so easily and quickly transported, with the certainty of disposing of them without delay in foreign territory, and with the still more positive certainty of not being pursued or molested.

By the frequency of the crime the number of animals stolen may be fairly estimated ; by the number of cases tried we can judge of the evilj by the condemnation of the delinquents in

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some cases, and by the accusations, even where there was no evidence to point to the true criininai, it will be conclusive that a wrong exists, and that its destructive results may still be perceived ; that it has only changed its vantage ground ; that as soon as the animals in one district had been captured and the interests of the country damaged, it bad passed to another, where its evil influence was experienced by not only the proprietors, but also the laboring classes of society.

III

A careful study of the origin and subsequent development of horse stealing in Mexico for the Texan market, afibrds abundant information of the different persons who have been addicted to this class of crime. A distinction should be made between those serving as emissaries and the originators and actual instigators of the crime. To determine this question as regards the first, and the inducements held out to them by the Texan frontiersmen in the robberies committed in Mexico, it will be necessary to distinguish the actual residents of the country from those considered by the Commission as simply instruments, and to this end the following classification was decided upon :

Under the head of those serving as instruments of others in the depredations in Mexico, whose residence is supposed to be in that country, may be mentioned the following classes :

1st. Those who reside in Mexico.

2d. Those who have no fixed place of residence, and wander from place to place, and who, when pursued on the Mexican frontier, flee to Texas, and return to Mexico after a period of years, when persuaded that they have been forgotten, or that it would be impossible to prove their crimes.

3d. Those who reside in Texas.

These latter may be divided into two classes. 1st. Texan citizens who have always resided in Texas, both American and Mexican. 2d. Emigrants from Mexico who take up their

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abode in Texas after becoming citizens, or at all events exercise that right, althoiigli abusively.

The emigrants from Mexico to Texas may be subdivided into tliree categories ; but before natning them it is necessary to explain that the greater portion of Mexican emigrants to Texas are honest, hard-working people, fleeing the revolutions in their own countr3\ and giving their labor, and not unfrequently capital, to the State. These are not the emigrants to whom we allude, but there are others who lend themselves as instruments of the horse thieves, and who may be classed as follows: 1. Criminals escaping from the course of the law and seeking refuge on the Texan shore, or who without having been prosecuted take up their nominal abode there, so as to commit their criminal depredations on the Mexican frontier with impunity ; and it has been observed that the majoi'ity of those who are engaged in horse stealing in Mexico reside in Texas. 2. Deserters trom the soldiery on guard on the Mexican frontier. 3. Laborers who, on account of the scarcity of hands in Texas and the rate of wages in the States, with great anticipations of acquiring a fortune, and at the same time fleeing from their obligations at home, and who are apt to commit robberies before leaving.

It is absolutely necessary to comprehend these distinctions so as to appreciate the question of the frontier ; but whilst they serve as one of the elements by which to resolve it, they are not the only, and perhaps are the least important features in the case.

It is expedient to investigate where the robberies were organized, where the combinations were formed, that led to the depredations in our country; it is probable that where these combinations were made, a number of criminals must have been united, perhaps accidently, who resided in Mexico or who as vagabonds were domicile ! in Texas.

The question of habitation becomes secondary in this case, and disappears altogether when the place where the crime originated, is fairly located. We must next examine where the stolen goods were transported ; where the trattic in them was established ; for if the crime had reached such an extent

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as to have a market for the disposal of stolen animals, we have already made an elementary principle, the abode of the delinquents being a matter of little importance as their names. It is very certain that horse stealing would never have reached such an extent had there not been a safe place where the crime could be planned, and after commission, the criminal could feel assured not only of safety but of prompt disposal of the stolen property by advantageous sales.

The principal idea in this question, is to locate the place where the robberies originated, and were encouraged, and made of avail ; the secondary consideration, is the place of abode of those who were employed as instruments for the commission of the crime; but although this latter is of lesser moment, it does not lack importance, since it shows that the greater number of cattle and horse theives, as well as the most audacious of them, reside principally on the opposite shore, and have crossed from thence to perpetrate depredations in Mexico.

A great many of the documents examined by the Commission enumerate the robbers who have crossed the river to steal horses. From these documents the Commission has made chronological extracts, and sometimes entire copies of the preventive regulations, issued by the bordering towns. In all these series of laws, it may be noticed that great stress was laid by the authorities of the Mexican frontier, on the robbers crossing the river from Texas to Mexico, and on the organized band of theives who arranged their plans on the Texan shore, and crossed over into Mexico to execute them.

These measures plainly indicate that although some of the residents of Mexico have contributed to the number of horse thieves, that the greater danger and damage are experienced by the robbers from Texas, whose only intention was to steal and to return to the United States after accomplishing their object.

The criminal cases confirm the deductions made from these documents. In many of these there are allusions to larcenies perpetrated on the Mexican frontier by persons residing in Texas, and as these are not isolated cases, but on the contrary, are of frequent recurrence, and to be found in all the docu- „njent8 in criminal cases of this nature, and as they do not refer

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to a certain period of time, but simply to that transpired since 1848, it is to be concluded that the majority of criminals who for years have pillaged our frontier, reside on the Texan line.

Conclusive as all these facts appear, the Commission considers the question to have a still more important aspect, and that apart from the nationality or place of residence of the thieves, tlie point to be determined is the responsibility attaching to the Texan frontier, where the criminal bands are organized, and where the benefit is derived from the depredations of tlie robbers.

The associations formed in Texas for the purpose of stealing in Mexico have taken various forms. Sometimes the organizations were temporary for a special object or for a stipulated period, and at others the organization of thieves took a permanent form. A great number of documents ascribe the constant, threatening attitude of the population on the shore of the Bravo to be owing to the bands of thieves organized in Texas.

One of the most scandalous occurrences of the period was the alliance of a band of nine thieves in United States territory, who, in April, 1865, went to Burgos, forty miles south of Rio Bravo, and assaulted Manuel and Esteban de la Garza, robbing them of two thousand dollars, and murdering the former; after this they fled across to the left bank of the river for safety and protection. The secret investigations instituted by the Judge of Camargo, in Davis (Rio Grande City), showed the gang to be composed of Jose Maria Cortes and eight others, whose names also appear in the official documents. The communications which passed between the Judge of Reynosa and the chief of police of the district indicate the complaints made upon this subject, and the decisions arrived at in regard to it, i. e., that the invaders had been organized on the left bank of tlie Bravo, whither they had immediately returned after the attack.

In former years there had also been transitory organizations, some composed of notorious criminals, whose advent on the Mexican shore was always marked by pillage, although they pretended to have political principles to defend, and wiio always returned after a short time to the United States with the products of their depredations. To this class belonged the

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bands organized tliree times by Jose Maria Sanclicz IT rest!, in Texas, in the last three years, and whom he led into Mexico. These gangs were composed of thieves famous in the history of plunder and distinguished fur kidnapping and other crimes.

They entered Mexico as regularly organized bands, tlieir coming was expected and announced, and was known by every one on the Texan shore. They selected a j)oint on the Bravo river from whence they could most easily and suddenly attack the inoffensive proprietors or secure liorses. Some of the stolen animals were recognized in Brownsville. Amongst tlie companions of Uresti in these expeditions the witnesses recollect Santiago Nunez, Julian Rocha, Zeferino Garcia, Macario Trevino, Santiago Sanchez, Pedro Cortes, Geronimo Perez, and the two Lugos, Pedro and Longinos. as criminals and accomplices in the robberies of cattle and liorses on either shore.

The last time that Sanchez Uresti passed to the Mexican line, he did so with a gang of thieves whom the Lugos had had in reserve in a place called “ Trasquilas,” Texas, about two leagues east of Brownsville. This will be a subject for examination by the Commission when they come to investigate the question of cattle robberies in Texas ; but for the present, they will limit themselves to saying that the Lugos were notorious robbers, designated as such by the newspapers of Brownsville, which accused them of stealing cattle in Texas. Mention is made of this circumstance so as to give to the Lugos and their accomplices their true jiosition, and to show that because they chose to give to their robberies the semblance of a revolution, it did not alter the fact of theft nor change the actual character of the men.

These temporary confederations of thieves on the Texan shore were doubtless great evils, but although serious enough, they were but fleeting. The crime once committe l for which the band had been organized, or a certain period having passed, the}' disbanded. The gravest question of all, however, and the state of things which has been ruining the Mexican frontier, is not the existence of these fleeting bands, but the organized system developed since 18l8, for the protection of horse stealing in Mexico.

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The greatest culprits have assuredly not been those who served as instruments, but those who availed themselves of the spoils by purchasing the animals at reduced prices. These dealers may be divided into three classes.