“I have seen Indians killed for sport, tied up to trees and shot at by Fonseca and the others. After they were drinking they would sometimes do this. They would take a man out of the cepo and tie him to a tree, and shoot him for a target. I have often seen Indians killed thus, and also shot after they had been flogged and their flesh was rotten through maggots.”
This man also described terrible barbarities committed on and murder of two Indian girls by Fonseca. James Chase, another Barbados man, gave a long account of Indians being flogged to death, starved, or shot, and describes the terrible occurrence connected with the murdering of the family of Katerene as follows:—
“They were also to hunt for a Boras Indian named Katenere, a former rubber-worker of the district of Abisinia, who had escaped, and, having captured some rifles, had raised a band of his fellow-Indians, and had successfully resisted all attempts at his recapture. Katenere had shot Bartolemé Zupaeta, the brother-in-law of Julio C. Arana, and was counted a brave man and a terror to the Peruvian rubber-workers. The expedition set out from Morelia, and at the first Indian ‘house’ they reached in the forest they caught eight Indians, five men and three women. They were all tied up with ropes, their hands tied behind their backs, and marched on farther. At the next house they reached they caught four Indians, one woman and three men. Vasquez, who was in charge, ordered one of the muchachos to cut this woman’s head off. He ordered this for no apparent reason that James Chase knows of, simply because ‘he was in command, and could do what he liked.’ The muchacho cut the woman’s head off; he held her by the hair of her head, and, flinging her down, hacked her head off with a machete. It took more than one blow to sever the head—three or four blows. The remains were left there on the path, and the expedition went on with the three fresh male prisoners tied up with the others. The date would be about May, 1910.
“They were then approaching the house where they believed Katenere to be living. He was the chief of the Indians in whose direction they were going—the fugitives from the rubber-work. At a point about half an hour’s walk from this Indian house Vasquez ordered him, Ocampo, and two of the muchachos to remain there to guard the prisoners, while he himself (Vasquez) went on with the rest of the expedition. This party, so Vasquez told them when he had returned, reached the house of Katenere about six in the evening. Katenere and his wife, or one of his wives, were in the house—only these two persons. Vasquez caught the woman, but Katenere got away. Vasquez stayed there and sent four of the muchachos into the forest to find and capture the rifles that Katenere had got. When the muchachos got to this other house in the forest they found several Indians in it, whom they captured, and four rifles. The Indians were tied up with their hands behind them, but after a time the head muchacho, a Boras Indian, nicknamed Henrique, ordered them to be released. He then sent on his three muchachos to another house to bring in some Indians whilst he stayed with the men whom he had just released. These Indians, it should be noted, were all Boras Indians, Henrique as well as the rest of the muchachos. Whilst Henrique was with these men he found amongst them an Indian girl of whom he was very fond and who had probably joined them in their flight. He endeavoured to seize this girl, and in a quarrel that followed he was killed. The three muchachos, on their return with two prisoners, found their leader killed and his rifle in the hands of the released Indians, with the four guns they already had belonging to Katenere. Each party fired at the other, the forest Indians without effect. The three muchachos killed two of the Boras Indians and then returned to the house where Vasquez was spending the night and where he held the wife of Katenere prisoner. In the morning Vasquez returned to Ocampo and Chase, bringing only this woman with them. It was then that Chase learned from Vasquez’ own lips what had happened. They had then, Chase states, twelve Indians as prisoners, who included Katenere’s wife, and also of the original party that left Abisinia two Indians, who were in chains, who had been brought as guides to point out where Katenere and his fugitive people were living. These were some of Katenere’s men who had not succeeded in escaping when he got away. The whole party set out to return to Morelia through the forest, having lost Henrique and his rifle. Soon after they began their march in the morning they met in the path a child—a little girl—who was said to be a daughter of Katenere by another wife he had once had, not the woman they now held as prisoner. This child, Chase states, was quite a young girl, some six or eight years of age. She was frightened at the sight of the armed men, the Indians in chains and tied up, and began to cry as they approached. Vasquez at once ordered her head to be cut off. He knew it was Katenere’s child because Katenere’s wife, in their hands, told them so. There was no reason that Chase knew for their crime, save that the child was crying. Her head was cut off by a muchacho named Cherey, a Recigiro Indian boy. He was quite a young boy. They came on about half an hour’s march past that, leaving the decapitated body in the path, and as one of the women prisoners they had was not walking as fast as the rest Vasquez ordered a muchacho to cut her head off. This was done by the same boy Cherey in the same way, he flinging the woman on the ground and chopping her head off with several blows of his machete. They left this body and severed head right in the path and went on again towards Morelia. They were walking very fast because they were a bit frightened, thinking the Indians were pursuing them. One of the male Indian prisoners, a boy, about fifteen or sixteen [Chase indicated the boy’s height with his hand], a lad who could work rubber, was lagging behind and could not keep up with them as they were going very fast. The Indian was hungry and probably weak. Vasquez ordered his head to be cut off. This execution took place there and then in the same way and was performed by the same boy Cherey. The Indian’s hands were tied behind him. Cherey took hold of the lad’s long hair, threw him on the ground, and cut his head off. They came on after this towards Morelia, walking as fast as they could, and when they were getting near it in the evening-time and perhaps three-quarters of an hour’s distance Vasquez was in a great hurry to reach the station. Three of the Indian men who were weak through hunger and not able to walk fast could not keep up with them, so Vasquez himself shot one and he ordered Cherey, the muchacho, to shoot the other two. These were all grown-up men, Boras Indians, and belonging to Gavilanes, and were part of Katenere’s people. The three bodies were left lying there on the path, and the place where they were killed was so near Morelia that when they reached it they learned that the station hands had heard the shots of the rifles that had killed the men.
“They reached Morelia in the evening, and of their five prisoners three were put with their feet in the cepo, while the fourth was hung up by his neck with a chain round it. The chain was pulled taut over a beam in the roof of the house, so that the man’s toes rested on the ground, but he could not budge or even move his head. He had to stand like this with his head and neck stretched up all night. Those in the cepo, two men and a woman, also had chains round their necks. They got no food.”
Evidence confirmatory of James Chase’s statement with regard to this expedition of Vasquez was subsequently obtained by the Consul-General from other quarters. The Report continues:—
“Allan Davis, a Barbados man who was in Abisinia when Vasquez arrived there, stated in his examination that Vasquez declared on arrival ‘he had left the road pretty.’ Davis saw him arrive with the emaciated prisoners, who were put in stocks, and all of whom subsequently met their deaths in Abisinia, as averred by Davis and Evelyn Baston, another Barbados man, whose testimony was subsequently taken. One of them was murdered by being shot, and the others were deliberately starved to death while confined in the stocks.
“Asked if he had seen women thus killed, he replied, ‘Yes. They were shot and died from blows’ (from floggings). They were cut to pieces sometimes and smelt dreadfully. Once he himself was put in cepo alongside some of these rotting human beings who had been inhumanly flogged, and the smell was so bad he begged and implored to be taken out—he could not stand it—but Fonseca kept him in all night. He saw these people die from these floggings; their bodies would sometimes be dragged away and thrown in the bush around the station or burned. He has seen the muchachos shoot Indians under the order of Fonseca. Continual floggings went on at that time among women and children.
“Further statements were from time to time received from James Chase in the course of the journey made by Mr. Casement in the company of the commission, and finally on the 5th of November at La Chorrera he gave still further testimony in the presence of several of his countrymen. He states that amongst other things he saw Fonseca do was to kill an Indian man who was at the time confined in the stocks, or cepo, at Ultimo Retiro. The Indian in question had run away from working rubber, but had been caught and brought in a prisoner. Fonseca said to him, ‘I am going to kill you.’ The man protested, and said he had done no harm. He had not killed a white man, he had not injured any one or killed any one, and could not be killed for running away. Fonseca laughed at him, and had him hung up by the neck first with a chain drawn tight, and then when let down from this torture he had him put in the cepo with one foot only, the other leg being free. Fonseca came up to the cepo with a stick with a club head much bigger than the handle of the stick. He put one of his legs against the Indian’s free leg and stretched it apart from the confined leg. He then pulled off the man’s fono, or loin-cloth made of beaten bark, so that he was quite naked, and then struck the man many times with the club-end of the stick on his exposed parts. These were ‘smashed,’ and the man died in a short time. Deponent described the occurrence fully, declaring that he was an eye-witness.
“This statement was confirmed by the Barbados man, Stanley S. Lewis, who stated he also saw Fonseca commit this deed.