No. 306.
Mr. Schuchardt to Mr. Hunter.
Piedras Negras, Mexico, May 17, 1873. (Rec’d May 28.)
Sir: In my No. 103, dated May 8, 1873, I communicated to the Department that, besides that boy which was redeemed from the Indians, another one was with them, but that he could not be gotten because his present master was absent from the camp on a raid into Texas.
A few days ago I had sent an agent again to the Lipan and Mescalero camp with instructions to penetrate, if possible, through all the different camps in order to ascertain if there are any more white captives among the Indians, and if possible to ransom them. Yesterday my agent returned from there, and brings me the following information: That from the Remolino, up along the river San Rodrigo, on which Remolino is situated, are at short distances various Indian camps of Lipans, Mescaleros, and Kickapoos; the latter have been supplied with water for irrigating land they have planted in corn; that all the Lipans and Mescaleros, except the old men and women, had started on a raid into Texas; that in one of the Mescalero camps, which is seven leagues distant from the Remolino, there is a white woman and child, who were captured by one of the chiefs, Azate, in Texas, some time last winter, after he had killed her husband. This was related by Azate himself, who had made a present of the pistol of his victim to a Mexican friend; that he (my agent) did not succeed in redeeming any captives, because all the male Indians were absent on a raid in Texas. The facts in regard to these Indians in their relation to Mexico are: they are Indians hostile to the United States, depredating continually in Texas, capturing children and murdering their parents, and stealing the stock of the Texans, and whenever they have accumulated sufficient plunder, and see it convenient to come to the Mexican towns, peace is granted to them without exacting from them any conditions whatever—such as to give up to the authorities their captives, or horses and mules stolen, and they are supplied, with the knowledge of the authorities, by Mexicans with ammunition of war and arms, who receive in payment the horses and mules stolen from Texas; and from their temporary camps, close to the Mexican towns, parties start daily, with the knowledge of the Mexican authorities, on forays into Texas, and no measures are taken, neither by the federal [Page 710] government of Mexico nor by the State government of (Mexico) Coahuila, to prevent these outrages committed by these savages on the citizens of the United States.
I am, &c.,
United States Commercial Agent.