Yaqui Uprising

Background

The Yaqui Uprising, also known as the Nogales Uprising, was a brief armed conflict in August 1896 along the Arizona-Sonora border. It grew out of resistance to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, whose policies were seen as anti-agrarian and anti-indigenous. The Mexican Army and the Yaqui had been fighting for decades, forcing many Yaqui to flee into Arizona, where they settled near Tucson and Phoenix and sometimes crossed back to fight. In February 1896, journalist Lauro Aguirre and Flores Chapa, based in Solomonville, Arizona, published a plan to overthrow Díaz, accusing him of violating the 1857 Constitution and deporting natives to Yucatán.

The plan called for free elections and armed revolt. Aguirre easily recruited Yaqui and Pima, longtime enemies of Mexico, to his cause. The uprising itself involved a rebel band called the Teresitas, who attacked the customs house in Nogales, Sonora, on August 12.

American militia and Buffalo Soldiers, Mexican infantry, and local police all took part in the fighting and pursuit. Several people were killed or wounded. The rebels retreated, and both American and Mexican forces failed to catch them. The conflict ended after this single encounter, marking one of the final episodes of the American Indian Wars.

Uprising

In March 1896, the United States government arrested Aguirre and Chapa because the Mexican consul accused them of conspiring to re-enter Mexico and engage in revolutionary actions, but both of the men were acquitted in federal court after the American consul's investigation concluded that they were innocent of any wrongdoing. The plan was signed by twenty-three people, including Aguirre, and one other man believed to be Tomas Urrea, the father of the revolutionary Teresa Urrea. Because Tomas Urrea had close relations with many of the people involved in the uprising, Teresa Urrea was suspected of being the mastermind. Sixty to seventy Yaqui, Pima and Mexican revolutionaries, many of them employees of the Southern Pacific Railroad, united in a rebel band calling themselves 'Teresitas' to participate in a raid, with the goal being to 'capture the arms, ammunition, and money in the Mexican custom-house at Nogales.' On August 12, when the Teresitas attacked, the Mexican consulate, Manuel Mascarena, requested aid from the Americans in or around the American Nogales.

A militia was hastily assembled on the Arizona side of the border and sent in to help rout the rebels during the battle. On the next day Brigadier General Frank Wheaton dispatched elements of the 24th Infantry. At least three men were killed in the fighting and several others were wounded, but other sources claim that seven Mexicans died while the Teresitas lost about the same amount. When the rebels retreated they were pursued by a posse of Sonoran policemen.

The police eventually caught up with the Teresitas later that day and fought another skirmish which left the Mexican commander dead. On the day after that, a large force of Mexican Army troops, under the command of Colonel Emilio Kosterlitzky, joined in the pursuit while two companies of the 24th Infantry conducted their own separate operations. Both of the pursuing parties failed to catch up with the rebels, a portion of whom dispersed to their homes in southern Arizona. After that there was no further conflict, and the successful defense of Nogales was effective in suppressing the uprising.

Aftermath

Aguirre continued to print and circulate news critical of the Díaz regime but in 1902 he was forced to leave his home in Mexico out of fear that Díaz was trying to kidnap him. Aguirre continued writing in the United States and later attempted to take over the city of Ciudad Juárez, but this plot was foiled. On September 11, 1896, Teresa Urrea publicly denied having had anything to do with the uprising, but Porfirio Díaz held her responsible so he pressured the American government into moving Urrea from El Paso, Texas to Clifton, Arizona, away from the volatile border region.