The secret that lies at the roots of the whole Yaqui affair was revealed to me and the whole matter summed up in a few words by Colonel Francisco B. Cruz of the Mexican army, in one of the most remarkable interviews which I obtained during my entire trip to Mexico.
For the past four years this officer has been in immediate charge of transporting all the Yaqui exiles to Yucatan. I was fortunate enough to take passage on the same steamer with him returning from Progreso to Veracruz. He is a stout, comfortable, talkative old campaigner of about sixty years. The steamship people put us in the same stateroom, and, as the colonel had some government passes which he hoped to sell me, we were soon on the most confidential terms.
"In the past three and one-half years," he told me, "I have delivered just fifteen thousand seven hundred Yaquis in Yucatan—delivered, mind you, for you must remember that the government never allows me enough expense money to feed them properly, and from ten to twenty per cent die on the journey.
"These Yaquis," he said, "sell in Yucatan for $65 apiece—men, women and children. Who gets the money? Well, $10 goes to me for my services. The rest is turned over to the Secretary of War. This, however, is only a drop in the bucket, for I know this to be a fact, that every foot of land, every building, every cow, every burro, everything left behind by the Yaquis when they are carried away by the soldiers, is appropriated for the private use of authorities of the state of Sonora."
So according to this man, who has himself made at least $157,000 out of the business, the Yaquis are deported for the money there is in it—first, the money from the appropriation of their property, second, the money from the sale of their bodies. He declared to me
