As a State Recognized tribe, we the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians are descendants of the Yaqui (Yoeme) Indian Nation known throughout the Southwest who inhabited the original territory of the Sonora and Chihuahua Desert linking from the State of Sonora into the Southern United States before there was a borderline dividing the aboriginal lands. We are descendants of a Band of Mountain Yaqui Indians who entered the State of Texas in the years of 1870-1875 under the leadership of Ya'ut (leader) Lino Domingues Urquides during and before the Yaqui Indian campaigns in Mexico to terminate the Yaquis,. Chased out of Chihuahua Mexico wanted for killing Mexican Soldiers, Lino's Indians numbering around 50 fled from the State of Chihuahua in 1870 to the border of Ojinaga into Texas to the Township of Presidio and Ft. Davis. Yoeme changed their names and identities in order to avoid the genocides and executions in Mexico. They did not want to go to the Texas Apache Yaqui Reservation arranged by the Bureau of Indian Affairs that Texas set aside land for in 1864 documented in the "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo" that ended the Wars in Mexico. The Texas Reservation was never used due to lack of Indian Agents to oversee the Agency. The family descendants of Chief Lino were told never to tell anyone that they were Hiaki (Yaqui) and hid their Indian identities within the families until recent decades. ​The descendants of Chief Lino carried down oral stories handed down to them, along with confidential information, in which contributed them to the State of Texas, the Presidio Texas Historical Society and the Overland Trails Museum in Ft. Davis Texas for it's own Yaqui Indian Exhibit. The Texas Band of Yaqui Indians is not a heritage group nor a cultural association, our documentations of proof of Native American ancestry consists of Federal Census and Federal Indian Census records before 1934, Birth and Death Records dating back to the early 1700's to the Indian Missions in Chihuahua and Yaqui Villages in Sonora and Southern Arizona. These documentations took many many years to obtain, file and archive. All enrolled members reference these records and documentations. The Yaqui Indians were never conquered and most of them scattered throughout the southwest unidentified and uncounted, most who left reference their homelands as their source of ancestry and to begin a new life away from the cultural genocides of Mexico. Our Yaqui Indian Ancestors were Mountain Yaqui Warriors at war with the "yorim" (Mexicans) and were ruthless fighters and protectors of the "Hiakim" the Yaqui Homelands. The Texas Band of Yaqui Indians continue to exist as a Group "Openly" by preserving our culture by means of Language preservation and Traditions with the founded "Texas Yaqui Bow Leaders Coyote Society" and the "Sage Clan Society" based now out of Lubbock Texas.  ​    Yaqui Individuals, Groups or Families who fled the Atrocities and Genocides of the Mexican Government all have oral knowledge of their Yaqui Ancestry but no other way of proving they were Yaqui to U.S. officials other than Social Relations to other Yaqui Communities far away in another state with little or no Recognition by the U.S. Government. Thousands of the Yaqui population in the U.S. are not federally recognized by the Government due to forced exiles to other states in the U.S. who did not register themselves in Arizona where a large population sought refuge in the early 1900's.  ​​    All Yaqui peoples in the U.S. all come from the traditional homelands in Sonora, some have held on to their heritage and many were conquered and faded into other cultures. It is difficult for a Tribe of people who so widely scattered throughout the southwest to keep ties with a people who were set to be exterminated by the Mexican Government equivalent to the Jewish Holocaust, So individual families who sought refuge in the U.S. in other states were not to speak of their Indian identity due to harsh prosecutions that awaited them upon identification, They faced bounties on their head and there were many pesos for them that cowboys or soldiers would be glad to collect on. Thousands of Yaqui's who ended up in Texas were involved in the wars with Pancho Villa and Maderos armies and lived in the States of Chihuahua and Coahuila and Texas and others who came to Texas were yucatan escapees who found refuge as individuals or families. Thousands of Yaqui's who went to California were workers from Yuma Arizona who branched away from other Yaqui's who resided in Ehrenberg which is now a ghost town. 30 years ago it was impossible for other Yaqui People in the U.S. to obtain documentations that they were indeed Yaqui, but with today's technology, Records and Documentations from online Genealogical Databases can now be obtained eliminating any question that an Individual and or family is indeed Yaqui Indian or is of Yaqui Indian Ancestry. ​    There has been a long argument that the Yaqui (Yoeme) people are mexican, or mexican indian. The Yoeme fought hard battles against non-indians to seperate themselves from the yorim (non-indians) and eventually became divided by borders. Yaqui Indians in Mexico are considered Indigenous Yaqui Indians of Mexico, and the Yaqui Indians in the U.S. are considered Yaqui Native Americans or Native Americans. Apache (N'de) were once indigenous to Mexico, Pimas and other groups who originated what is now the Sonoran border were and are indigenous to Mexico as well. The Comanche Peoples migrated for trading and executed raids back and forth from the southern plains into Coahuila, Chihuahua Sonora and Durango Mexico. The Kickapoo Indians seperated with one group going into Mexico and the Texas border. Indigenous Tribes who originate from what is now the Sonoran border, do not recognize the border and were caught between wars of encroaching peoples. Indigenous indian people are the same no matter what side of the border they may be on. They have their own languages and maintain to keep their traditions alive, It is their homeland long before there was a Mexico or the U.S,. Other Cultures take ideas and ways of Indigenous peoples and corrupt it into their own and give it a different name, whether it's in Mexico or the U.S., The Agenda of the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians is to continue as a historic Tribal Group under State and Federal Laws and under the Bylaws and Constitution set forth by our Band. ​