No. 438.] No. 334. Mr. Evarts to Mr. Foster. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: Referring to several dispatches addressed by you to the Department relative to the expedition of Colonel Shafter across the Mexican frontier, I have to inform you that Mr. de Cuellar has addressed a note to this Department, under date of the 14th ultimo, complaining against the course pursued by that officer. It is desired that you should state unofficially to Mr. Vallarta that the facts relative to this matter, as presented by Mr. de Cuellar, differ somewhat from the information received from officers of the United States Army, from which it has not appeared that Colonel Shafter has been guilty of any violation of his orders, or that any injury has been done to Mexico by his expedition. You are requested at the same time to assure Mr. Vallarta that the inquiry into the matter will be renewed; and should it appear that, from an excess of zeal, any wrong has been committed, steps will be taken to prevent a recurrence of the acts complained of. SIR: I inclose herewith a copy of a dispatch transmitted by General Ord to the Secretary of War, relative to the recent expedition of Lieutenant Ward into Mexican territory, and the co-operation of Mexican troops with his command. You may express casually to Mr. Vallarta the gratification afforded by the friendly spirit manifested by Mexican officers towards the officers of the United States upon the occasion referred to, as well as the hope and belief that such a spirit, if continued, will tend not only to repress the depredations on the Rio Grande, but will be an important step towards renewing official intercourse between the two countries. The following telegram from General Ord is forwarded for the information of the General of the Army. P. H. SHERIDAN, Lieut. General. "Lieutenant Ward was sent to Rio Grande to find trail of horses stolen and driven into Mexico on 15th instant. Has just come in. The Mexican troops got to the river on morning of 20th. Ward showed the Mexican lieutenant the trail, and at his invitation crossed the river and joined the Mexican troops. They followed the trail together all day, going about 25 miles. As it had rained heavily the trail was hard to follow, and another hard rain setting in they found it impossible to follow it farther. The trail was left about three miles from Newtown, and only six or eight miles below where it crossed the river. Ward says there was perfect good feeling among Mexican soldiers and our own, and that the lieutenant offered to go with him anywhere he thought the horses could be found. No. 336. "ORD, Brigadier-General." No. 657.] Mr. Foster to Mr. Evarts. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Mexico, January 3, 1878. (Received February 1.) SIR: In November last I received a letter from Professor John B. Dunbar, of Washburn College, Topeka, Kansas, asking me to ascertain from the Mexican foreign office whether the Pawnee tribe of Indians ever had a treaty or official relations with the government of Spain or Mexico. I left with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs a copy of Professor Dunbar's letter, with a request that he would favor me with any information in the government archives which would throw light upon the inquiries made. Under date of the first instant Mr. Vallarta has sent me notes of such information as was attainable in answer to the inquiries of Professor Dunbar. The notes also embrace historical data in reference to the various Indian tribes which formerly inhabited the old frontiers of Texas and New Mexico, and they may be found of interest to the Indian Bureau of our government. I therefore inclose a translation to enable you to send a copy thereof to the Department of the Interior should you think proper to do so. I am, &c., JOHN W. FOSTER. [Inclosure 1 in No. 657.] Professor Dunbar to Mr. Foster. TOPEKA, KANSAS, October 2, 1877. DEAR SIR: Would it be possible for you to ascertain from the State Department of the Mexican Government whether that government has ever had a treaty or official relations of any kind with the Pawnee Indians who formerly occupied this State and Nebraska The Pawnees claim to have had some transactions with Mexico in the early part of this century and perhaps earlier. I am preparing a vocabulary and grammar of their language for publication by the government, and wish also to prepare a short historical sketch of them to accompany it. If you could furnish me with any reliable data in the way indicated you will confer a great favor. I am, &c., JOHN B. DUNBAR, Professor of Greek, Washburn College. [Inclosure 2 in No. 657.-Translation.] Mr. Vallarta to Mr. Foster. DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, MY DEAR SIR: Complying with the desire which you were pleased to express to me in reference to the question contained in a letter of Prof. John B. Dunbar, concerning the relations of Mexico with the Pawnee tribes, I have the honor to transmit to you certain data prepared from an examination of the best authorities. I improve with pleasure this new opportunity to reiterate to you the sentiments of just appreciation with which I am, &c., J. L. VALLARTA. [Inclosure to inclosure 2 in No. 657.] Historical sketch of Indians. The Indian tribes which are found at present established in the territory of the United States, or which originally inhabited our old frontiers, with those with which the Government of Mexico has had direct relations, are the following: I. The Cados, who inhabited the northeast of Nacogdoches in the State of Texas. In February of the year 1822 two chiefs of this tribe came to Mexico, commissioned to congratulate the government and General Iturbide upon the independence of the Mexican nation. II. The Comanches of Texas. In January, 1823, a chief named Guonigne presented himself in Mexico, in company with others of his nation, and negotiated an alliance with the Mexican empire. III. The Cherokees (Chiroquis) of Louisiana. In January, 1823, certain chiefs of this nation, named Richard Fielding, or Fields (half-breed), and X. Bowles came to Mexico, to whom the Mexican José Antonio Mexia served as interpreter, asking for lands upon which to establish themselves. IV. The Sahuanos, Creeks (Criques), Kickapoos, Quicapus, and Corhates, established to the north of Nacogdoches, had friendly relations with Mexico from 1827 to 1834. In 1827 certain chiefs made a contract with General Bustamante. V. The Seminoles, Kickapoos, and Muscogees (Muscogos), headed by Mountain Cat (Gato del Monte), Sun Set (Bajodel Sol), and other chiefs, made an agreement with the government of General Arista in the year 1850. VI. The Kickapoos sent a mission to Mexico in 1865 to congratulate Maximilian. They afterwards solicited from the government of Mr. Juarez, and were assigned, lands upon which to establish themselves in Santa Rosa, Coahuila. The tribes of the United States which formerly had direct relations with the Government of New Spain, were: I. The Olibas or Olipas, "who inhabited the country between Florida and Tampico." They were brought under the government of Panuco about the middle of the sixteenth century by the priest Andres de Olmos. They established themselves at a place situated close to the sea, at 23° 12′ north latitude and 276° 20' west longitude from the meridian of Teneriffe. These Indians, who have disappeared completely, gave their name to the State of Tamaulipas (Tam), place (olipas), of the Olibas. II. The Apalaches of Eastern Florida, who, after the cession of that province to the United States by the treaty of the 22d of February, 1819, were transported to the plains of the river Chachalacos, eight leagues to the north of the present city of Vera Cruz, where they founded the town of San Carlos, and their descendants still exist. The most ancient residence of the Pawnee tribes is in the region situated on the banks of the Missouri River, between 43° and 45° north latitude. They are located there by the designers of the charts made in the seventeenth century, corroborated by information furnished by the French of Illinois and Louisiana. The great distance which separates these territories from the town of San Gerónimo, of the Tahos, which was the most northern establishment of the Kingdom of New Mexico, and from the settlement of Nacogdoches, which was the most eastern of the province of Texas, as well as the intermediate location, on one side, of the Yuta and the Apache herdsmen, and on the other side, of the Arkansas (Arcansacs) and other tribes of Old Louisiana, are motives for believing that if, at any time, relations existed with the Pawnees (Pawnis), they were of very little importance, and were probably confined to the contact which certain cattle-herders of New Mexico, drawn in that direction by the spirit of adventure, or favored by the friendship of the Yuta and Apache herdsmen, may have had with them. Nevertheless, it may have been that certain Pawnees have separately traded or bartered with Mexicans of Tahos, since Gregg, who surely had reasons for knowing, says, in reference to the Pawnees, that in his time they had their principal seat on the tributary of the river Nebraska or Platte, called Loup Fork or Wolf River, and that certain chiefs of that tribe wandered on foot over the whole plain, frequently as far as the (what then was) frontier of Mexico. It might have been also that the Pawnees maintained good relations with the Spanish emigrants from Louisiana, who founded the town of Nacogdoches about the year 1778, but of this there is no evidence. The ancient chronicles referring to New Mexico indicate something that might be translated in the meaning of the traditions to which the letter of Mr. Dunbar alludes; but those chronicles refer to events which took place at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, notably referring to the entrance of the conqueror Juan de Oñate, in the year 1599, and it would be very strange if the Pawnees should remember events of a time so remote. Notwithstanding this opinion, the following is what the priest Geronimo de Zárate Salmeron states is his "relation of all things which have been seen and known in New Mexico, as well by sea as by land, from the year 1538 to 1626": 676. "In a glance which our men cast to the east they saw in a band 5,000 Indians all ready for war in march toward the north. These Indians are of the nation of Arkansaws (Ercansaque), who live a hundred leagues from New Mexico towards the northeast, and are mortal enemies of the Xindanes (Tintong and Great-Tans) of the hunters or Quiviras." 6 108. "the Arkansaws (Ercansaques) inhabit that section of country which, at forty-six degrees of north latitude and one hundred and sixty-two of longitude, extends obliquely to the shelter formed by certain mountain ridges to a river, the Nebraska or Platte River, which flows northeast-southeast, and incorporates with another (the Missouri?), which runs into the Mississippi. They form a part of the Pawnees (Pauanas?) (Pawnees?), and are subject to the French of Louisiana." This is the information which, for the present, can be communicated to Mr. Dunbar, of whose request note has been taken, in order that in the future other facts may be found which may interest the object of his investigations. No. 660.] No. 337. Mr. Foster to Mr. Evarts. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Mexico, January 10, 1878. (Received February 1.) SIR Referring to your dispatch No. 432, of the 7th ultimo, making inquiry whether any of the assailants of the Rio Grande City jail had been arrested, tried, or punished in Mexico in accordance with the penal code, I have to report that, in a call which I made at the foreign office on the 26th ultimo, I directed Mr. Vallarta's attention to the inquiry, and left with him a copy of your dispatch. Under date of the 7th instant I received from Mr. Vallarta to-day a "verbal note," of which I inclose a translation, in reply. The greater portion of the note is occupied with the demand made by Governor Hubbard, of Texas, for the extradition of the parties referred to; but in its conclusion Mr. Vallarta states that he has no information of the arrest, trial, or conviction of the criminals under the penal code, but that he has asked for reports from the authorities of Tamaulipas on the subject. I also inclose a copy of my note acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Vallarta's of the 7th instant. The Secretary of Foreign Affairs has the honor to inform Mr. John W. Foster, Minis ter Plenipotentiary of the United States, that he has examined the note which the Department of State, under date of December 7 last, addresses to him, instructing him to make inquiries as to whether all or any of the assailants of Rio Grande City have been apprehended, tried, and punished in conformity with the penal code, of which note Mr. Foster informally delivered a copy to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the conference of the 26th of December last. The Secretary of Foreign Affairs, complying with the desires expressed by Mr. Foster, can inform him that the Government of Mexico, for very special reasons, already placed, through the medium of its legation, within the knowledge of the Government of the United States, ordered the extradition of the criminals of Rio Grande City and their delivery to the American authorities; that this act, entirely voluntary on the part of Mexico, as the criminals were Mexicans, and wrongly interpreted by the Governor of Texas, R. B. Hubbard, gave occasion not only for this official to ask the delivery by Mexico of other criminals, also Mexicans, as a duty imposed upon it by the treaty of extradition, which Mr. Foster knows to be inexact, but for him to pretend to demand it in the most improper terms, going so far as to intimate that the Mexican authorities were either unable to comply with the treaty or were animated by a spirit of hostility towards American citizens, or perhaps both; finally, that this conduct of Governor Hubbard, concerning which instructions have already been given to the Mexican legation in Washington, obliged the government not to insist upon the orders which it had issued for effecting the extradition of the criminals, very justly fearing that a concession in every respect gratuitous would be considered in the future as a duty, as was done at that time, notwithstanding the clear aud explicit text of the treaty of extradition which binds the two neighboring republics. Concerning the judicial proceeding which may have taken place subsequently in respect to the criminals, as the latter, according to the laws of the country, were consigned to the local authorities, which latter have not communicated their decision to the government, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs finds himself for the present unable to transmit to Mr. Foster the reports which are asked of him by the Department of State; but as they have already been asked of the authorities of Tamaulipas, they will be brought to the knowledge of Mr. Foster as soon as they are received in this depart ment. [Inclosure 2 in No. 660.] Mr. Foster to Mr. Vallarta. [Unofficial.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt to-day of your excellency's verbal note of the 7th instant, relating to the Rio Grande City jail assailants, and to state that I will forward a copy thereof to my government for its information. I improve this opportunity to reiterate to your excellency the assurances of my distinguished esteem. JOHN W. FOSTER. No. 662.] No. 338. Mr. Foster to Mr. Evarts. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Mexico, January 17, 1878. (Received February 1.) SIR: I have to acknowledge receipt this morning of your dispatch No. 439, of the 2d instant, with which you inclose a communication from the Secretary of War, containing copy of General Ord's report of Lieutenant Ward's expedition and as to the co-operation of Mexican troops in the pursuit of raiders on the Rio Grande frontier. This report of General Ord had already appeared in the Mexican newspapers and had been very bitterly commented upon. The occurrence as reported was denounced as a new invasion of Mexican territory, and the exemplary punishment of the Mexican officer who invited the crossing of the American troops was demanded at the hands of the Diaz government. On yesterday the Diario Official published officially the correspendence between the Secretaries of Foreign Affairs and of War on the subject, of |