A sociological approach to bureaucratic perspectives on deportation in the Yaqui War

INTRODUCTION

The objective of this text is to reflect on the consolidation of the justification for the deportation of the Yaqui people during the Yaqui War. To this end, we revisit some texts and speeches by various bureaucratic agents that allow us to recognize at least two distinct positions. The first is in favor of deportation as the appropriate way to solve the “Yaqui problem,” using rhetoric about the need to civilize the Yaqui people in “good manners” (Guerrero, 2014).

The second position does not support deportation, considering that it would harm the landowners and the economy of Sonora.

This work is part of a research project currently being carried out on the Yaqui Memory in San Juan Bautista Valle Nacional to obtain a master’s degree in Sociology at the Institute of Sociological Research of the Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca (IIS-UABJO). The aim of this work is to recover from documentary and oral sources everything related to what happened in the municipality of San Juan Bautista Valle Nacional, Oaxaca, regarding the deportation process within what is known as the Yaqui War.

The text is structured as follows: The first section provides a general overview of the subject under study. The next section presents a theoretical approach for understanding the bureaucratic perspectives on deportation during the Yaqui War. The points of view of various individuals directly and indirectly involved in the events are subsequently highlighted. Finally, the possibility of characterizing a vision from the state of Oaxaca is discussed.

DEVELOPMENT

The Yaqui War and the policy of deportation

The Yaqui War is a process in which historians such as Padilla Ramos (2018) trace back to the uprising led by Juan Ignacio Jusacamea, known as Juan Banderas, in 1825, ending with the official granting of property titles during the administration of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940). It was a struggle that lasted more than a century. Deportation became a systematic policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, reaching its peak between 1903 and 1908 (García, 2023; Padilla Ramos, 1996). Although there had already been a deportation in 1897 to Valle Nacional (Padilla Ramos, 2018).

Research into the war and the deportation process has focused mainly on Sonora and Yucatán. This is not arbitrary, as the former is the primary, historical, and ancestral homeland of these people. The latter was the state to which the greatest number of people were deported, with the total number of deportations to the south generally estimated to be between 6,000 and 15,000 Yaquis (González Gómez, 2025).

This represents between a quarter and a half of the total Yaqui population estimated at that time, i.e., 30,000 years (Hu-DeHart, 2003).

Notably, the high number in Yucatán, understood in contemporary terms as genocide, was because they were transported for henequén cultivation on that peninsula. This is no coincidence, as Olegario Molina was, on the one hand, in charge of the Ministry of Development, Colonization, and Industry, but on the other hand, he was one of the largest landowners of this crop in Yucatán (Hu-DeHart, 2003; Padilla Ramos, 2018).

In contrast, in Valle Nacional, the Yaqui people were used for tobacco cultivation. Notably, there are no scientific studies in the literature that focus on the specificity of this geography and its relationship to this event. Rather, it becomes a simple line within these works, as is also the case for the deportation that took place to Veracruz, Campeche, Tlaxcala, Guanajuato, Querétaro (González Gómez, 2022), and even the Islas Marías in Nayarit (Holden, 1982).

However, both Valle Nacional and Yucatán, with tobacco and henequén, respectively, respond to exports for the international market. Within the context of the Porfiriato, this corresponds to what Chassen (2010) referred to in the case of Oaxaca as areas of Porfirian development. However, this process did not take place in a progressive and linear manner, and the bureaucratic perspectives were never the same diachronically as they were synchronous.

Theoretical approach to bureaucratic perspectives from field theory

The theoretical approach comes mainly from Pierre Bourdieu's field theory (2000, 2014, 2019, 2020). It emphasizes his approach to the nation-state, which is based on an understanding of it as a bureaucratic field. Its fundamental thesis comes from adding to the idea that the state holds the legitimate monopoly on physical violence, the symbolic sphere. This allows for the complexity of the state's attitude as a space of struggle for discourses and practices (Serrano Maíllo, 2011).

The latter should not lead us to consider a homogeneous group of state agents. Within the same field, they will have different ways of approaching their own practices. This is due to the set of positions that make up that space. This leads to positions at different levels (municipality, state, national, etc.) and in different areas (health, education, politics, etc.). In other words, and in more current terms, this conceptualization, just as it refers to a municipal president, can also refer to the president of the republic; just as one can speak of the Ministry of Health, one can also speak of the Ministry of Education.

Thus, the bureaucratic field is configured by this entire possible set of agents and their relationships at a given moment, in accordance with its historical structure, using its monopoly and its own mechanisms. This gives us an approximation that does not portray the nation-state as a monolithic entity with coherent and homogeneous perspectives but as mentioned previously, shows that there are conflicting positions and struggles within the state itself, each seeking to impose its own vision.

Various bureaucratic voices: Troncoso, Díaz, Martínez, García, the Sonoran triumvirate...

I would like to begin this section with one of the most quoted excerpts from Las Guerras con las tribus Yaqui y Mayo (The Wars with the Yaqui and Mayo Tribes) by General Francisco P. Troncoso (1977), which he wrote in April 1903 at the request of the Secretary of War:

Only three resolutions that have already been considered have not been implemented to end the Yaqui War:

The war of extermination for all those who rose up again.

The entire tribe was relocated, removed from the state and dispersed throughout the national territory, far from Sonora.

The colonization of Yaqui.

None of the three resolutions have been implemented for the following reasons: the first, because it is inhumane; the second, also because it is inhumane, difficult and perhaps impossible, and because of the enormous damage it would cause to a large part of the State [and the third because] at the moment and even for a long time to come there would be no one to replace them, and the disruption and losses would be immense... (p. 342).

This excerpt is often cited because of its implications. It states that none of the resolutions had been implemented for various reasons and, ironically, that this year would mark the beginning of a period of most intense deportation would begin, and at a certain point, all three measures would be implemented at the same time. In any case, what is interesting is that Troncoso represents a military point of view that, while considering certain solutions, describes them as inhumane.

With respect to the Yaqui War and the deportation, it is common to mention President Porfirio Díaz and how he was part of this process of intensive relocation of the Yaqui people. However, he did not always agree with this view. General, Martínez proposed this measure to him, to which he replied that “The Indians prefer death to exile” (Hu-DeHart, 2016, p. 113). Nevertheless, Díaz later issued the official order to deport them and even established that “for every crime committed by a Yaqui from now on, 500 Yaquis will be captured and deported to Yucatán” (in Munguía, 2023, p. 29).

Notably, the rhetoric used to justify this policy focuses on the government's need and willingness to civilize the Yaqui people. Guerrero's study (2014) characterizes this particularly well, but we believe that this excerpt from Luis Emeterio Torres, part of the Sonoran Triumvirate, encapsulates the spirit of this perspective:

The farmers of Yucatán are the most intelligent and refined citizens in the republic [...] The only people in all of Mexico who can be accused of barbarism are the Indians of Sonora and Yucatán, whose resistance to all civilizing influence seems to have won them the sympathy of certain writers. These Indians have delayed progress. After all peaceful means failed, the government had no choice but to impose itself by force [...] Instead of exterminating them, as the United States government did with the Apaches and other murderous tribes, we sent them to Yucatán. From there, they will return to their former homes as soon as they have reformed. (p. 176).

Now, we recognize that although this may be a first perspective, the various characters clearly give it different nuances. However, Bourdieu's field theory allows us to understand that this perspective is reproduced by proximity within the social space.

A different perspective would be that of Colonel García, who would consider that a measure such as deportation would cause serious economic problems for the region. Even the politician, governor of Sonora and vice president of Mexico, Ramón Corral, a despite congratulating Torres and Izábal for their work, he disagreed with their “indelicate nature”. Moreover, Rafaél Izábal mentioned that if not exterminated, they would have to be eliminated as a crucial factor for the state's territory (Padilla, 2018, pp. 169-170). We emphasize that although these figures held different positions within the bureaucratic framework, their perceptions and actions, which were considered relevant, were far from coinciding, they collluded to form what was characterized as the “Sonoran triumvirate”.

These latter positions, like those of the Colonel, were framed by the defense of Sonora's landowners and the economic well-being of Sonora. It was not unusual for many of the landowners of the time to issue statements to various authorities to stop these measures or to protect some of their yaoquis, such as M. Gaxiola, Alfredo Peñúnuri, and Carlos Johnson (Hu-DeHart, 2003). In this sense, we can distinguish at least two different positions regarding deportation: the first, which is in favor of ending the “Yaqui problem,” which is particularly beneficial to figures such as Olegario Molina, who at the same time satisfied the demand for cheap labor for henequered plantations; and the second, which opposes it to defend the economic interests of the landowners and the Sonora region.

A bureaucratic perspective in Oaxaca?

How would Oaxaca's perspective be shaped, if it exists, on this issue? We believe that, at least within the research still in progress, there is not much input to characterize the discourse. Some of the documents that refer directly to the issue were from the brief period when Heliodoro Díaz Quintas was an interim governor. He was an anti-Pimentelist and anti-scientific Juarista but not an anti-Porfirista (Chassen, 2010). The general treasurer of the state of Sonora attached some articles from El Correo de Sonora related to the Yaqui pacification1.

However, this isolated reference may not mean much. It would be necessary to paint a broader picture. Díaz Quintas was the founder and editor of a newspaper called El Bien

The public within which the deplorable conditions occurred in Valle Nacional was denounced. He was also closely linked to liberalism in Oaxaca, and although he is usually considered to have been more moderate, he coexisted in this sphere with Sebastián Ortiz, who carried out a series of uprisings alongside the Benito Juárez Liberation Army, beginning on January 21, 1911, in Ojitlán. Later, on May 11, they occupied the Hacienda de Málzaga in Soyaltepec, where a Yaqui family was freed and given 350 pesos so that they could return to Sonora.

Although Ortiz's uprising took place in early to mid-1911, Díaz Quintas' document dates from late that year to early the following year. One might wonder whether, at least at that time, there was a possibility of repatriation or whether the intention was simply to determine what was happening in Sonora regarding the Yaqui people. The relationship between Ortiz and Díaz Quintas is not very clear, except that both were liberals in Oaxaca, one radical and the other moderate. Nor are the reasons for the interim governor's interest in the matter known for certain: was he informed, or did he want to be informed? If the former, to which other states would the Treasurer General send the note? If the latter, did Díaz Quintas want to give continuity and publicity to the issue in the Oaxacan press?

Would a bureaucratic stance in Oaxaca be in favor of or against the interests of tobacco farmers in the Tuxtepec district? Would the perspective of the bureaucratic vallistocracy be the same as that of the Tuxtepecans? More information would be needed to characterize this style. It is necessary to delve into the existing archives and documents to do so. However, it is still not possible to say much with certainty.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, this paper has allowed us to reflect on the justification for the deportation of the Yaqui people from Sonora during the Yaqui War. Texts and speeches by bureaucratic agents were recovered, revealing two different perspectives. One express support for deportation and justifies it with rhetoric about civilizing these people through work in other states. The other does not consider it favorable, as it would affect the landowners and the economy of Sonora.

However, our current research focuses on Yaqui memory in San Juan Bautista Valle Nacional. With the information and progress available at this time, it is not possible to make a definitive characterization of the positions of different bureaucrats regarding the situation in Oaxaca. At most, we can say that there could be a third position, one that is more moderate and liberal, which deplores the situation to which they are subjected. However, it is also likely that there is another position that supports the interests of the tobacco farmers in the Tuxtepec district. However, we have not had sufficient information to verify this; in contrast, it still belongs to the realm of speculation.

In any case, this text allows us to recognize that the position of the nation-state, or bureaucratic camp, regarding the Yaqui War and the policy of deportation was not homogeneous. Rather, it varied depending on the moment and the context from which it was expressed.

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