At last we arrived at Progreso. As we entered the train for Merida we saw our friends being herded into the second class coaches. They left us at the little station of San Ignacio, on their way to a plantation belonging to Governor Olegario Molina, and we saw them no more.
In Yucatan I soon learned what becomes of the Yaqui exiles. They are sent to the henequen plantations as slaves, slaves on almost exactly the same basis as are the 100,000 Mayas whom I found on the plantations. They are held as chattels, they are bought and sold, they receive no wages, but are fed on beans, tortillas and putrid fish. They are beaten, sometimes beaten to death. They are worked from dawn until night in the hot sun beside the Mayas. The men are locked up at night. The women are required to marry Chinamen or Mayas. They are hunted when they run away, and are brought back by the police if they reach a settlement. Families, broken up in Sonora or on the way, are never permitted to reunite. After they once pass into the hands of the planter the government cares no more for them, takes no more account of them. The government has received its money, and the fate of the Yaquis is in the hands of the planter.
I saw many Yaquis in Yucatan. I talked with them. I saw them beaten. One of the first things that I saw on a Yucatan plantation was the beating of a Yaqui. His name was Rosanta Bajeca.
The act, though not intentionally so, perhaps, was theatrically staged. It was at 3:45 o'clock in the morning, just after roll-call of the slaves. The slave gang was drawn up in front of the plantation store, the fitful rays of the lanterns sputtering high on the store front playing uncertainly over their dusky faces and dirty white
