Are We Not Foreigners Here? This page intentionally left blank Are We Not Foreigners Here? Indigenous Nationalism in the U.S.- Mexico Borderlands JEFFREY M. SCHULZE University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill © 2018 The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved Set in Charis and Lato by Westchester Publishing Services Manufactured in the United States of Amer i ca The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Schulze, Jeffrey M., author. Title: Are we not foreigners here? : Indigenous nationalism in the U.S.- Mexico borderlands / Jeffrey M. Schulze. Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017044579| ISBN 9781469637105 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469637112 (pbk.: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469637129 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Yaqui Indians— Mexican- American Border Region— History. | Kickapoo Indians— Mexican- American Border Region— History. | Tohono O’odham Indians— Mexican- American Border Region— History. | Transborder ethnic groups— Politics and government. | Nationalism. Classification: LCC F1221.Y3 S38 2018 | DDC 972/.1— dc23 LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2017044579 Cover illustration: Photo graph by John Malmin, originally captioned “Easy Crossing— Two Papago Indians ride through one of the scores of openings in the fence that marks the border between Sonora and Arizona. There are no customs officials here.” Copyright © 1977, Los Angeles Times. Used with Permission. Portions of chapter 3 were previously published in a dif fer ent form as “ ‘The Year of the Yaqui’: Texas Tech’s Sonoran Expeditions, 1934–1984,” Journal of the West 48:3 (2009). Copyright © 2009 by Journal of the West, an imprint of ABC- CLIO, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission of ABC- CLIO, LLC, Santa Barbara, California. For my mom, Deborah Anita Pierce, in loving memory This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction, 1 1 The White Man Came and Pretty Soon They Were All around Us, 19 Yaqui, Kickapoo, and Tohono O’odham Migrations 2 The Indigenous Race Is Abandoned, 58 Indian Policies 3 God Gave the Land to the Yaquis, 79 The Beleaguered Yaqui Nation 4 Almost Immune to Change, 110 The Mexican Kickapoo 5 We Are Lost between Two Worlds, 132 The Tohono O’odham Nation 6 All the Doors Are Closing and Now It’s Economic Survival, 163 Federal Recognition Epilogue, 198 Acknowl edgments, 209 Notes, 211 Bibliography, 235 Index, 247 This page intentionally left blank Illustrations and Map Illustrations Portrait of José María Leyva (Cajeme), xii Three young Kickapoos, 1962, 128 Kickapoo basket weavers, circa 1965–67, 129 Tohono O’odham man posing in front of home, 136 Two Tohono O’odham crossing fallen border fence, 156 Kickapoo woman hanging laundry near Ea gle Pass, Texas, 191 Map Traditional lands and con temporary communities of the Yaqui, Kickapoo, and Tohono O’odham, 21 This page intentionally left blank Are We Not Foreigners Here? Portrait of José María Leyva (Cajeme), taken while he was under arrest. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution NAA: 81-7675. Introduction While traveling through Sonora in April 1887, a reporter from the Tucson Daily Citizen witnessed the public execution of Cajeme, one of Mexican his- tory’s great enigmas.1 José María Leyva, as he was less commonly known, had been born to Yaqui Indian parents and raised in the Yaqui village of Ráum in southern Sonora, but lived much of his life in another world en- tirely. Shortly after the young Leyva and his father returned from Gold Rush– era California having failed to strike it rich, his parents made the no doubt difficult decision to entrust their son to Prefect Cayetano Navarro of nearby Guaymas. It was at this moment that Leyva left his Yaqui home for what appears to have been the last time. In Guaymas he began his educa- tion, supplementing the smattering of En glish he had learned in California by learning to read, write, and speak Spanish. He completed his studies at the age of eigh teen and left Guaymas literate, trilingual, and well traveled— in other words, a very aty pi cal Yaqui. At some point during his residence in Guaymas, however, he had evidently ceased to identify himself as such. Rather than return to his village, Leyva entered into a period of aimless- ness, joining, then abandoning, the military repeatedly, briefly apprentic- ing with a blacksmith, and working in a mine for a short period of time until drifting back to Sonora around 1861. Upon his return, he learned that the Mexican government was in the pro cess of putting down the latest in a string of Yaqui uprisings. He immediately, and inexplicably, enlisted in the expe- ditionary force sent to quell the rebellion. They succeeded and then dis- banded. From there, Leyva drifted around Sonora with no stable occupation until 1867, when he again enlisted in the military following reports of yet another Yaqui uprising. This latest campaign was especially violent, culmi- nating in the so- called Bácum Massacre, in which 120 Yaquis lost their lives when a church Mexican soldiers were using as a makeshift prison for some 450 captives mysteriously went up in flames. It is remembered, to this day, as one of the darkest chapters in Yaqui history.2 Why Leyva took up arms against his own people during this period is an intriguing unknown, though it has been the subject of speculation. It has been argued, for example, that since he had had virtually no contact with the Yaquis since departing for Guaymas he prob ably no longer felt rooted in his Yaqui heritage, if he ever had in the first place.3 Opportunism also cannot be discounted as a possibility. His acquaintance with the Yaqui language placed Leyva on the fast track within the Sonoran military estab- lishment, providing opportunities available to few enlistees, opportunities that must have seemed attractive given his perpetual lack of occupational stability. What ever his motivations may have been, Leyva quickly distin- guished himself as a respected Indian fighter and a dependable member of the local militia. In 1874, Sonoran governor Ignacio Pesqueira handpicked Leyva for the post of alcalde mayor of the Yaqui River valley, charging him with the governorship of the lands encompassing the Yaquis’ eight pueblos with the expectation that Leyva would help pacify his people. 4 Leyva ap- parently made quite a bit of pro gress in his new post, with the creation of a regional tax system, a commercial market that connected the Yaquis with outsiders, and a more refined system of local government on his list of ac- complishments. But for reasons that are not entirely clear, Leyva ultimately vacated his government post and traded his Spanish name for Cajeme, which in the Yaqui language translates as “he who does not drink,” a name attrib- utable to his habit of drinking water only once a day, at four in the after- noon, as a form of self- discipline. He then seized control, through infamously violent means, of the eight Yaqui pueblos, and, from there, directed one of the largest indigenous uprisings in North American history. Cajeme’s objec- tive, put simply, was to win Yaqui in de pen dence from Mexico, and he had what the Mexican military estimated to be between 4,000 and 5,000 Yaqui soldiers— organized into cavalry, artillery, and infantry units and possess- ing some 12,000 firearms— backing him up as he attempted to establish control of the Yaqui River valley.5 Mexican soldiers sent to quell the rebellion found Cajeme to be surpris- ingly elusive. In fact, some Mexican authorities began to question whether he existed at all. As one Mexican soldier put it, “He seemed to be an imagi- nary being, invisible, a myth created by the fantasy of his people.” 6 More pragmatic military officials, meanwhile, were predicting that the cunning and crafty Yaqui leader would most likely try to disguise himself and head for the U.S.- Mexico border.7 Cajeme managed to remain at large until 1887, when an Indian spotted him just outside of Guaymas and notified the mili- tary. When fi nally ferreted out of hiding, he reportedly put up no strug gle and, at least according to one account, appeared relieved. The Mexican mil- itary transported Cajeme by ship to the Yaqui River valley and paraded him through the streets of the tribe’s vari ous pueblos to erase any doubt that 2 Introduction he had been apprehended and would be executed. His “tour” ended in Cócorit. Sonora’s governor at the time, Ramón Corral, allowed Cajeme to visit with friends, family, and even the general public while awaiting exe- cution. Corral was apparently so taken with Cajeme that he went on to become the Yaqui leader’s first biographer. He would characterize him as not the stuff of myth, but “a man of medium height, slim but not skinny, with an astute smile on his wide mouth, friendly and good- natured and com- municative as few Indians are.” 8 After Cajeme’s execution, the aforementioned reporter from the Tucson Daily Citizen watched as a grieving Yaqui approached the tree against which Cajeme was felled and affixed to it a small cross containing the inscription “INR, aque [sic] fallecio General Cajeme, Abril 23, 1887, a los 11 y 5 la ma- ñana.” The abbreviation INR is Latin for Jesus of Nazareth, King. Among at least some of the Yaqui people, Cajeme was akin to a deity.9 Among his en- emies, however, he personified a disturbing conviction, one deeply held by indigenous peoples across the Amer i cas: that only Indians should govern Indians.