Sonora, México: Indios Yaquis Hacia 1900

By this time, the Yaqui people had suffered greatly. Many Yaquis left the Rio Yaqui area to fight in the Vakatetteve Mountains; others relocated to Yaqui communities in Arizona. Many more died in battles or were executed. In 1868, 600 Yaqui men, women, and children were captured near Vahkom Pueblo by Mexican state and federal troops. Their arms (bows and arrows and rifles) were taken, and 450 were locked in a church. During the night, the church was shelled. 120 of the people inside were massacr

Many Yaquis died during the long, brutal march from San Blas, Nayarit to San Marcos, Jalisco in the early 1900s.Photo from Barbarous Mexico by K. Turner

Slave mother with child and henequen plant. The Yaqui people were famed for being hard-working and strong. Between 1904 and 1909, around 15,000 of them were rounded up, forced along the tortuous route to Yucatan and enslaved.Photo from Barbarous Mexico by K. Turner © K. Turner, 1910

Scene in a Yaqui "bullpen" on the exile road from San Blas to San Marcos, Jalisco. to be sold

An old railway station at the western end of the train tracks in Jalisco, Mexico, bears witness to unspeakable cruelties perpetrated upon thousands of Yaqui Indians in the early 1900s. According to the Jalisco Secretariat of Culture's Guachimontones Guide Book, Yaquis were sold as slaves at the station "for 25 centavos a head" and "around the station were located concentration camps where hundreds of native people died of hunger and disease." This building, now abandoned.

Yaqui Deer dancer near Guaymas Sonora.

10th Cavalry soldiers holding Yaqui prisoners at their camp in Bear Valley, January 9, 1918.