Battle of Mazocoba

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Battle of Mazocoba
Part of the
Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico
Result Mexican victory, Yaquis retreat.
Belligerents  Mexico
Yaqui
Commanders and leaders Mexico Lorenzo Torres Tetabiate
Teresa UrreaStrength 1,000–3,000[1][2] 2,000[2]Casualties and losses 89 killed
210 wounded[2]
54 killed
125 wounded[1] ~90 killed or wounded
66 captured[2]
~397 killed
~1,000 captured[1][3][4]
~1,000 killed[5]

The Battle of Mazocoba,

Guaymas. During the battle that followed, several hundred people were killed or wounded and over 1,000 Yaquis were taken prisoner.[2][6]

Battle

By the turn of the 19th century, the Yaqui people and the Mexicans had been fighting each other for years though there were occasional periods of peace. In 1897, the Mexican Army officer

Rio Yaqui. During the ensuing battle, the Yaquis suffered many casualties and had to retreat. After that, Tetabiate led in between 2,000 and 3,000 people onto, a rocky desert plateau roughly twenty-five square miles in size and about twenty-five miles east of Guaymas. General Torres responded by fielding the largest army ever sent against the Yaqui, over 5,000 men, both federal and state soldiers. According to conflicting accounts, on January 18, 1900, General Torres was leading a force of 1,000 to as many as 3,000 soldiers when he encountered Tetabiate and about 2,000 of his warriors in the Mazocoba.[2][6]

The New York Times issued a newspaper story on February 3, 1900, that said Tetabiate and Santa Teresa were heading to Guaymas, with their band, to capture the port, and they had only gone eight miles before the Mexicans caught up. It also said that there were other Yaquis "still hold[ing] the mouth of the [Rio] Yaqui" and that they had stopped all steamships from entering or exiting the river. According to the same New York Times article, which incorrectly stated that the battle occurred on January 25, fighting began at 8:00 am and lasted for three hours, by which time General Torres and eighty-nine of his men were killed. Another 210 were captured and fifty-nine men were missing. General Torres was not actually killed though and he continued fighting the Yaquis for months afterwards. One other account puts the Mexicans' losses at fifty-four killed and 125 wounded but this is likely false as it makes no mention of the several dozen men who went missing during the fight. The battle was mostly fought on foot, both sides used big boulders for cover, and it ended when the Yaquis retreated back to the Sierra del Bacatete. They were not pursued and instead the Mexicans withdrew. Yaqui casualties also differ widely though it is generally recognized that at least 397 men, women and children were killed while about 1,000 more were captured. Several of the natives committed suicide rather than surrender. Other accounts put the Yaqui death toll at over 1,000 while the New York Times said that only ninety were killed or wounded and sixty-six were captured.[1][2][4][6]

Aftermath

Main article: Yaqui genocide

After the battle,

Yucatan or to the sugarcane plantations in Oaxaca. Many died in captivity, either by killing themselves or by foul treatment. Those who escaped deportation were dispersed across northern Mexico and some even settled across the international border in southern Arizona. Evelyn Hu-DeHart, a history professor at Brown University, says that the Yaquis "had become the most widely scattered native people of North America. ... Not even the Cherokee, whose deportation in 1835 from Georgia to Oklahoma had initiated a scattering over the United States, were so widely dispersed." Though the army ceased their campaign in August 1901, it wasn't until January 1909 that the majority of the Yaquis in the Sierra del Bacatete surrendered. The Mexican government allowed some to settle on vacant land in the Rio Yaqui valley but the rest were apparently deported. Between 1902 and 1908, between 8,000 and 15,000 Yaquis, out of an estimated population of 30,000, were deported.[4][6][7]

The Yaquis who surrendered in 1909 were led by Luis Buli, who agreed to help the Mexicans track down the remaining renegades under Luis Espinosa. Their efforts were largely ineffective though and when the Mexican Revolution began in 1910 Espinosa and his band were still fighting their own war.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d LatinoLA | Comunidad :: Watching the Yaquis from Los Angeles (1894-1937)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "MEXICAN GENERAL IS KILLED.; In Addition, 358 Men Are Killed, Wounded, or Missing in a Battle with Yaqui Indians" (PDF). The New York Times. February 4, 1900.
  3. ^ Battle of Mazocoba – SpeedyLook encyclopedia[usurped]
  4. ^ a b c d Vandervort, pg. 237-239
  5. ^ a b Yaqui history: A Short History Archived 2012-01-06 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ a b c d e History of Mexico – The State of Sonora
  7. ^ History Department at Brown University Archived January 6, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  • Vandervort, Bruce (2006). Indian wars of Mexico, Canada and the United States, 1812-1900. Taylor & Francis.
    ISBN 0-415-22471-3
    .

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