[223] San Francisco Chronicle, October 16, 1898, p. 3. The details of the episode, including the correspondence of Consular Agent Crocker, were printed in the newspapers of San Diego (the place of residence of Porter and Johnson), as well as in those of San Francisco and other cities; and there was considerable correspondence concerning the matter with the State Department at Washington. Some reports recount that the bodies of Porter and Johnson were rent to fragments and devoured, but these details naturally lack confirmation. El Mudo’s portrait appears in plate XIX.
[224] The quotations are from the account of T. H. Silsbee, of San Diego, prepared on his return from a visit to Costa Rica.
Both before and after the Porter-Johnson episode schemes were devised by various parties, chiefly Californians, for obtaining concessions covering Tiburon and its resources, most of these schemes involving plans for the extermination of the Seri; and press accounts indicate that a concession covering the islands of the gulf above the latitude of 29° (i. e., including about half of Isla Tiburon) was granted to an American company of much distinction. It would appear from numerous news items that representatives of the company sought to land on Tiburon, where they were first cajoled with offerings of food, afterward found to be poisonous, and later driven off by an enlarged force of naked archers. A recent publication bearing some official sanction announces that “Mr W. J. Lyons, of Hermosillo, Sonora, has secured a concession for the exploration of the island and in November of this year will fit out an expedition for that purpose.”[225] The various movements are significant as indices of current opinion and official policy with respect to the tribe.
[225] El Estado de Sonora, Mexico. Sus Industrias, Comerciales, Mineras y Manufacturas. Obra Publicada bajo los Auspicios del Gobierno del Estado. Obra Ilustrada, Octubre de 1897. By J. R. Southworth, Nogales; p. 73.
On the whole, the later episodes are natural sequels of the eventful and striking earlier history of the Seri; and they can only be interpreted as pointing to early extinction of one of the most strongly marked and distinctive of aboriginal tribes.