Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/216

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184
BARBAROUS MEXICO

ported that both of them will be sent for long terms to the penal colony on the Tres Marias Islands in the Pacific.

During the months following the attempt to place a candidate in the field against Vice-President Corral the Democrats tried to strengthen their position by contesting some state and local "elections." As a result there were many arrests and several massacres by troops or local authorities.

At Petape, Oaxaca, the Twenty-fifth battalion of regulars fired on a crowd of the opposition, killing several. Seventy were jailed.

At Tepames, Colima, there were many shootings. After the jail was full, the authorities are reported as having taken out some of the prisoners, compelled them to dig their own graves, then shot them so that they fell into the trenches.

At Tehuitzingo, Puebla, in April, it was reported that sixteen citizens were executed without trial, and that many others had been condemned to twenty years' confinement in the fortress of San Juan de Ulua.

In Merida, Yucatan, federal troops were placed in the polling booths and large numbers of Democrats were arrested.

In the state of Morelos, in February, 1909, the Democrats attempted to elect Patricio Leyva in opposition to Pablo Escandon, a slave-holding Spaniard whom Diaz had selected for the place. For accepting the Democratic candidacy Leyva was dismissed from his government position as Inspector of Irrigation in the Department of Fomento. The president and vice-president of the Free Suffrage Club at Jojutia and the officers of a similar club at Tiaquiltenango, as well as many others, were jailed on charges of sedition, while the authorities