Читать книгу Ringside Seat to a Revolution - David Dorado Romo - Страница 44

been written about her in the past. Teresita may have been a pacifist during her Mexican period, but by the time she

reached El Paso she was no longer the same woman. It appears that the massacre of Tomóchic radicalized her, like

it did many other fronterizos. There are just too many firsthand accounts—from many different sources—about her

underground activities in support of the revolution. It could be that they’re mostly just rumors, puro chisme. But those

historians who completely excise this chisme—this underground vox popoli—from their accounts of the past leave

out an important part of the picture. Sometimes the made-up, the imagined and the exaggerated, impact historical

developments just as much as the facts do. Sometimes even more.

With Teresita Urrea, fact and rumor often blend into one. I’ve explored the zones where Teresita left her mark

behind as carefully as I could, but I must admit that I can’t always distinguish clearly between the two. At the risk of

life, limb and incurring the wrath of the Yaquis, I’ve given it my best shot.

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✯ ✯ ✯

ON AUGUST 12, 1896, 40 rebels attacked the cus-

tomshouse in Nogales, Sonora shouting “¡Viva la

Santa de Cabora!”⁸⁰

The Teresista rebels killed two Mexican federal

soldiers and briefly took over the customhouse.

About 150 American militiamen from Arizona crossed

the border into Mexico. Together with a band of

rurales—the mounted Mexican rural police force—

they dislodged the Teresistas from the customhouse

after engaging them for several hours. Many of the

revolutionists fled to the mountains or back to the

United States where the raid had been organized.⁸¹

As a deterrent for future revolutionaries, the bul-

let-ridden bodies of seven rebels (most of them

Yaquis) killed in the firefight were laid down on the

sidewalk for all to see. Some of them carried letters

signed by Teresita or photographs of her hung

around their neck. Others carried copies of El

Independiente, which listed Teresita and Lauro

Aguirre as coeditors.

Five days after the Nogales raid, Demetrio Cortez

led an attack on Ojinaga with 19 Teresista rebels. It

was repulsed by a civilian militia from nearby.

Rumors had it that a woman claiming to be Teresita

had been in Ojinaga, months before, preparing the

uprising. Supposedly, she collected between $2,000

to $3,000 for the revolution from her followers.⁸²

A month after the Ojinaga raid, 50 armed men

under the leadership of Pomposo Ramos Rojo and

Prisciliano Silva attacked Palomas—the Mexican town

opposite Columbus, New Mexico—with similarly

unsuccessful results. (A decade later, Prisciliano Silva

would become one of the major military leaders of

the anarchists in El Paso.)

Throughout September, government troops in

Juárez were in a state of heightened alert, if not near

panic, fearing that they would soon be attacked by

200 Teresistas. On the night of September 10th, 100

Mexican rurales patrolled the river. The 19th infantry

slept on their arms at the Juárez garrison. Employees

of the Ketelsen & Degetau store kept watch all night

on the rooftop armed with rifles. (The hardware and

ammunition store, owned by Jewish-German immi-

grants, would be blown up by Pancho Villa during

the 1911 Battle of Juárez.) The nervous Juárez troops

shot and mortally wounded a Mexican man walking

near the Rio Grande who didn’t stop when the sol-

diers ordered him to halt.

The Teresista attack on Juárez never took place.

But a few days after the false alarm, Las Cruces

Sheriff Pat Garrett—who was famous for gunning

down Billy the Kid—sent reports to the El Paso

authorities that a “well-armed and mounted” group

of about 75 men had been seen near Rincon, New

Mexico, heading toward the border. The authorities

arrested Demetrio Cortez and two other men riding

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They were led by a Manuel González, whom the press claimed was a survivor of the Tomóchic uprising, and the Mexican American Benigno

Arvizu, who had collaborated with Victor L. Ochoa during a series of uprisings in 1893.

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El Paso Times, August 14, 1896. The Arizona militiamen later argued that they had been misled by the Mexican Consul to believe that the attack-

ers were armed robbers and not revolutionaries. The American officials had helped the Mexican officials ward off bandits in the past. But the

U.S. officials were concerned that helping to fight off political revolutionaries could be considered meddling in the internal affairs of Mexico.

Despite this disclaimer, American participation on this occasion would be just one of many incidents in which Americans would violate Mexico’s

territorial integrity to subdue political rebels.

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Vanderwood, The Power of God, p. 296.