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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 12, 1909
Manuel Sarabia Tells Story of Illegal Arrest and Deportation, Part II
During the month of July 1907, Mexican Patriot Manuel Sarabia was arrested without warrant from off the streets of Douglas, Arizona, driven across the border, and handed over to Mexican rurales. We offered Part I of his telling of that event in Tuesday’s Hellraisers, and complete the story of his ordeal below.
From the International Socialist Review of May 1909:
[Manuel Sarabia Turned Over to Mexican Rurales]
It was a short, quick ride—not more than five minutes in time—when the brakes of the machine brought us to a stop. I was lifted from my seat and helped out upon the ground. A familiar jingle struck my ear. Yes, there they were—bridles and spurs—the rurales!
They pulled the handkerchief from my eyes, and my fate was before me. Armed with carbines whose barrels glinted in the moonlight, ten big-hatted rurales sat upon their ponies, in a half circle, facing me. Two of them were busy with a riderless mule. I quickly guessed what was to be his burden—my poor, unwilling body.
Quick orders passed to the men from their officer, and I was lifted to the mule’s saddle. With a piece of rawhide they bound my feet together under the mule’s belly, jerked it tight until the thongs cut into my flesh, and then mounting their horses waited the command to commence the night’s ride.
THE MAN IN THE CARRIAGE.
I had been delivered to the rurales at a small border town of a hundred adobe houses called Agua Prieta, governed by one Laguna, the jefe de policia. Standing a short distance down the street, close to the custom house, I noticed a carriage. As soon as the officer saw me securely tied on the mule, he loped his horse to the side of this vehicle and, after saluting those in the interior, received instructions which set our cavalcade in motion, the carriage leading the way.
My mule was a stubborn beast and could only be jerked into a racking trot with the aid of a stout riata which the rurale in front had bound to the pommel of the saddle. Tied as I was, not able to sit easily to the gait of the galling brute, I was soon worn to the point of agony. My pleadings with the rurales to either go at a lope or slow down to a walk, brought no response but curses, and I closed my mouth and gritted my teeth to deaden the pain.
