No. 301.
Mr. Schuchardt to Mr. Hunter.
Piedras Negras, Mexico, July 15, 1872. (Rec’d Aug. 11.)
Sir: The following report relative to the condition of affairs in this district is respectfully submitted to the Department. The resources of this district are:
Agriculture, mining, stock-raising, and, up to the outbreak of the present revolution, the traffic in cattle and horses stolen from Texas, partly by Indians, but mostly by professional Mexican cattle-thieves.
The crops principally consist of Indian corn, wheat, sugar-cane, and cotton; besides, onions, red pepper, and beans are cultivated for export to Texas. Most of the corn is exported to Texas, for consumption in the United States military posts. Wheat also is exported, to some extent, to Texas and to the more populated places in the States of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Cotton is a well-paying crop, although the area planted is comparatively small. One manufactory making unbleached domestic, established in Mocmova, consumes all that is raised in this district, and, besides, imports Texas cotton. The wheat-crop of this year is already harvested and very abundant, and a cargo of three hundred and fifty pounds can be bought, at present, at the place where it is raised, at $2.50. The area planted in corn is not equal to that planted in former years, for the want of hands and for the depressed spirit of the farmers on account of the revolution. They say, “We plant the corn, but we do not know if we will harvest it.” Sugar-cane is cultivated where [Page 702] water to irrigate is plentiful, and is worked up by a very primitive machinery in piloncillo, (a small loaf not weighing over one pound.) The juice of the cane is boiled down to the crystallization point, then stirred for some time with a stick to produce granulation, and then it is emptied into small earthen moulds. Molasses not being separated by this process, is rather an inferior substitute for sugar, but generally used as such by the poorer class here, and partly exported to Texas for consumption by the Mexican population of that State. Mescal, an alcoholic liquor, peculiar to Mexico is also manufactured in this district. The material for this liquor, the Agave Americana, (maguey,) grows wild in the tablelands, and is found in some places abundantly. When the plant attains the age of eight years, it is ripe for manufacture into mescal; then the plant is cut above the root and the leaves separated from the trunk. Stones are heated then, and interred, interspersed with the trunks until these are well cooked, through the heat of the stones, and when taken out of the ground the juice is pressed from them and put for fermentation in raw hides, hanged in a frame so as to form a vessel, and after the fermentation is terminated the wine is distilled in a very primitive apparatus, consisting generally in a big kettle covered with another, from which the vapor is conducted by a reed to the receiving-vessel. These distilleries are mostly established in deserts where the plants grow near by. Physicians attribute to mescal officinal qualities, and recommend the use of it in many diseases. In a few places grape-vines are cultivated extensively. Raisins, wine, and brandy are made of the grapes. The wine is manufactured the same way as in Spain or Portugal, and resembles very much the wines of those countries. Very few people know how or take the trouble to make the wine so as to keep good for any length of time, and this may be the reason why none is exported.
Cattle-raising is not carried on extensively, since beeves for consumers are procured very cheap from Texas. Fifty years ago this district was supplying some parts of the interior with young horses and mules, but since the continual revolutions commenced to desolate the country, and in consequence of that the Indians could invade it without resistance, the results of horse-raising are of little importance, and the horses raised now are hardly enough to supply the home market, and very few are exported. In the mountainous districts goats and sheep are raised. The castratos are separated at a certain time in the year from the herds, fattened, and driven slowly to the large cities of the interior, where they sell at good prices, the hides and tallow entered into commerce, and the meat consumed there. Most of the large fortunes in this district, I am informed, were accumulated in this traffic.
In minerals this district is very rich; for a long distance along the Rio Grande are abundant outcroppings of coal, indicating very extensive layers of this valuable mineral. About one hundred and thirty miles from here are several hot mineral-springs, but, no accommodations being provided there for the invalid visitors, they are rarely frequented; but the few persons who have used them, against rheumatism and similar sicknesses, left them restored to health, and recommend these springs very much to the public attention, and in particular to their fellow-sufferers. About one hundred and twenty miles from here, right at some of the eastern outrunners of the Sierra Madre, is the town of Santa Rosa situated. It was founded in 1737, by miners who worked the admirably rich silver-mines in the vicinity. According to the old town records, the production of silver of the Santa Rosa mines was enormous, but since Mexico accomplished its independence from Spain the mines fell in decadency, and were not worked in a noteworthy manner until lately, when [Page 703] several American companies engaged in preparing to work them on a scale that attracts attention and promises success, but at present they are kept back very much in their operations. On account of the political situation of the country most of their laborers are forced into military service. There are many rich mines waiting to be worked again, but which can be done with success only by Americans. Mexicans will not do it, and not many American capitalists will risk their money in this country while the long-desired protectorate of or the annexation to the United States is a fact which is considered as the only means to afford protection to people coming here to develop the resources of this country by investing their capital. Honest-working and industrious Mexicans, which are the unprejudiced of the country, express themselves as having arrived at the conclusion that a protectorate by the United States is the only remedy to pacify their unhappy country, affording them the guarantee which they never can expect from any of their own governments.
The Kickapoo Indians, who emigrated to this district in 1864 from Kansas, are living on an old plantation called El Nacimiento, thirty miles from Santa Rosa, and are under the direct supervision and protection of the authorities of that place. They make their living partly by cultivating the soil, and making mats, baskets, &c., and dressing deer-skins, and partly by engaging in the traffic of horse-stealing from Texas, very profitable for them and their Mexican protectors. Several years ago, a Mexican Congress voted $10,000 to subsidize these Indians in buying agricultural implements and cattle, but these funds were retained by the State government until a year ago, when it became known that a delegation composed of United States Indian agents and Kickapoos from Kansas was on its way to Santa Rosa to induce the Kickapoos to return to their reservation in Kansas. Then the government of this State (Coahuila) sent a commissioner to Santa Rosa with $3,000 to divide among the Indians, but at the time the delegation arrived in Santa Rosa said commissioner had only given them a little corn and a few beeves, worth about three hundred dollars. The Indians, having knowledge of the whole amount sent for them, became dissatisfied, listened to the propositions of the Kansas delegation, and most of them agreed to leave Mexico. When the Mexican agent saw this he commenced to bribe several of the influential chiefs, and by that he obtained his object, which was to frustrate that of the mission of the American delegation. So soon as the Americans had left Santa Rosa, the Mexican agent being convinced of the failure of that mission, not one more dollar was given to the Indians by him.
The benefit the Mexicans derive from the staying of these Indians in Mexico, besides the supply of cheap horses, is the protection they afford against the invasion of their district by other savage tribes. The Mexican government, which cannot any longer misapprehend the good faith of the United States Government in its exertions made to stop the hostile incursions of these Indians in its own territory by inducing them to leave Mexico, expending thousands of dollars for that purpose, and the Mexican government having done its best to counteract these sincere exertions of the United States Government by its underhand dealing, it should be held directly responsible for all the depredations committed by the Kickapoos on our Texas frontier.
The Lipans and Mescaleros are also Indians of Mexico, and continually invade Texas, committing depredations there. They do not live in a certain locality of Mexico, but whenever they have made a successful raid into Texas they return to this district and ask for peace, which always is conceded to them by the Mexican authorities. Then the Mexicans buy [Page 704] their Texas plunder, supplying them in exchange with powder and lead, lance-blades, and arrow-points, &c.; in fact they fit them out for a new campaign against the citizens of their sister republic, for which they always profess a great friendship in public. Two years ago even the collector of the Piedras Negras custom-house sent his commandante of inspectors, Pedro A. Valdes, to the camp of the Lipan Indians to trade off for stolen horses some cart-covers he had confiscated from the carts of some poor freighters, the covers being apparently new and bought in Texas. Among the horses so obtained appeared one of Mr. Adams’s, who was murdered, with two other men, a very short time before, near the Careza, about sixty miles below Eagle Pass, Texas.
In the same spirit these Indian depredations in Texas were considered by the Mexican government; the cattle-stealing by Mexicans was (that is to say) protected by it, it seems, as the government thought to benefit by it its own people; it did not concern it if so many innocent Texan families were sacrificed by its winking at these crimes.
Although the cattle-stealing from Texas has ceased since the government bands evacuated this frontier and became refugees on the Texas side, it had reached before the outbreak of the present revolution such extension that it has nearly ruined many of our frontier stock-raisers in Texas. To show that the cattle-stealing could be carried on so extensively as it was only by being, so to speak, officially protected, I mention one of many cases reported to me, as an illustration. Senor Don José Maria Ramirez contracted with Juan Manuel Ramos to deliver him (Ramirez) a drove of beeves, promising Ramos for all he could bring eight dollars per head. Ramos crossed over to Texas, stole the beeves, and on offering to turn them over to Ramirez the latter refused to pay him the price as per contract, offering him only $5 per head, which Ramos declined to accept, declaring that he would take the beeves to the market in the interior himself. Ramirez said this was all very well, but he should get the documents from the Piedras Negras customhouse necessary for his trip to the interior, if he could obtain them, and without which he would see the beeves confiscated by the Mexican inspectors, and he (Ramos) would lose all. Ramos seeing the truth of this well enough, and knowing his inability to procure the documents, agreed to sell the beeves to Ramirez for $8 per head, payable on the return of Ramirez from Saltillo with the money for the beeves sold. When Ramirez returned from the trip, and Ramos asked him for the money for the beeves, he was told by Ramirez that he did not owe him anything, and if he was not satisfied he could sue him, which Ramos knew he could not do without accusing himself as a cattle-thief. In the association which carried on this contemptible traffic, Ramos belonged to the class of the agents who did the stealing, while Ramirez was one of the respectables of the ring, who procured from his associates in the custom-house the necessary documents for the transit of the stolen cattle to the interior, and, in case thieves were captured, he went to have them released from prison by his influence. Ramirez is a man of a low education, but partly by his activity, and partly by transactions similar to those mentioned, realized some capital, and by giving occupation to some people, and having others obliged to him through his knowledge of their crimes, he created for himself a great influence over them, which he exercised in elections to his own and the advantage of those who in recompense protected him against the laws he violated at all times, and which he knew he could defy with impunity, and so he became one of the prominent men of his district, who could dictate to the local authorities what he thought proper they should do. In the election just before the outbreak of the present revolution, Ramirez was elected a member of the [Page 705] legislature of the State of Coahuila, it is said, by the instructions to the local authorities of this district by Governor Cepeda.
There are many good and honest men living in this district, who, mortified and ashamed to witness such things carried on nearly public, were opposed to such management of public justice, and who attempted for the sake of the honor of their country to put a stop to these outrages; but they very soon found out that by this they were fighting the State government, and all they earned for their good-will was persecution by the higher authorities of the State through those of their residence, and being called unnatural sons of their country (hijos inatural de su patria) who to the benefit of foreigners would disclose the misdeeds of their own countrymen.
The military of the United States forts along the line are indefatigable in their exertions to persecute the depredating Indians and Mexican cattle-thieves, and deserve justly the thanks of the people of the frontier; but their efforts will never be crowned by success of any importance so long as the Rio Grande, constituting the line between the United States and Mexico, serves as a safeguard for these marauders of Mexico. It is an undeniable fact, that the best and most intelligent men in the present political movement belong to the revolutionary party, for which, however, they did not declare until they were beaten by the government party in the late election for State officers through the forcible means and machinations of the federal and municipal authorities. Although considering rebellion a great wrong in itself, any man who honestly and impartially observed the progression of affairs can excuse these people in some respect, who strive that their nation’s honor shall not be stained any longer by the disgraceful conduct of the worst men of their district and the protection offered to them by the authorities.
However good the disposition of the federal government of Mexico relative to the affairs on this frontier might have been, it seems it had not the power to enforce its decrees in these remote States. This clearly appears, for instance, in the irregularity of the custom-house laws, which are the same all over Mexico, as executed on this line, where the duties are collected in three different ways; on the lower Rio Grande up to Laredo the so-called “zona libre” exists, because it is the will of the people of Tamaulipas that it should exist, being to their benefit, and they at all times have threatened rebellion, should this privilege be taken away from them. In the custom-house of this State (Coahuila) the duties according to the tariff are collected, while in the custom-house in the State of Chihuahua only the third part of these duties are collected, and by this a great deal of traffic being attracted to that State, the governor of it therefore sustains the custom-house officials of the federal government to discharge their duties in this way.
Although the merchants of this district complained at different times in Mexico against the privileges Tamaulipas and Chihuahua enjoyed to the detriment of their own trade, it never could be remedied by the federal government.
I have related so circumstantially matters contained in this report with the intention to impart knowledge of the same as exact as possible to the Department.
My insight in these affairs I have acquired through close observation by myself during a long time, and through statements made to me by reliable persons of the district.
I am, sir, &c.,
United States Commercial Agent.