Total Pageviews

Friday, August 28, 2009

Uncovering the Long History of Blacks in Mexico - Part I
Alva Moore Stevenson

My Afro-Mexican roots can be traced back to my grandfather Daniel Thornton. Born in Texas, he migrated to Mexico to escape the racism of the United States around the dawn of the 20st century. There he married my grandmother, Tráncito Pérez de Ruíz, in 1914.
Lots of Afro-Mexicans have similar family histories. But many Black people arrived in Mexico centuries before my grandfather.

Scholars such as Ivan Van Sertima, author of “They Came Before Columbus,” tell us that Egyptians and Nubians came to Mexico in the Pre-Columbian period, around1200 B.C. The Olmec civilization may be descended from or have had contact with Africans. He cites as evidence the African facial features of the Olmec heads in La Venta, Tabasco, and San Lorenzo, Veracruz. Van Sertima’s research is controversial and not widely accepted by mainstream historians.

It is generally believed that Blacks who accompanied the conquistadors were the first Africans in Mexico. One of the earliest was Juan Garrido, who accompanied Spanish colonizer Hernán Cortes around 1510 and participated in the fall of Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztecs. Garrido was the first person to sow wheat and manufacture flour in the Western Hemisphere.
A native of West Africa, he went to Lisbon, Portugal, to become Christian and educated. It is speculated that Garrido may have been a member of a royal family in his native land—thus his free status. Before reaching Mexico, he was a member of the expeditions of Nicolás De Ovando, Ponce de León and Diego Velásquez. Garrido journeyed to Hispañola (the island comprised of Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guadeloupe, Dominica and Florida. Later in life, Garrído still searched for fame and fortune in such places as Michoacán and Baja California. He died poor and forgotten, but his contribution of a common foodstuff forever changed our eating habits.

Afro-Mexicans in the 16th century fell into three categories: slaves, unarmed auxiliaries and armed auxiliaries, both of which were comprised of men who were enslaved and others who were free. According to “Black Conquistadors” author Matthew Restall, “…it is primarily after this date [1510] that armed Black servants and slaves begin to play significant military roles in Spanish conquest enterprises.”

Other early Africans brought to Mexico as slaves came with the party of Pánfilo Narváez in 1519. In the early 1500s, they replaced indigenous laborers who had been decimated by European-imported diseases. Between the mid-16th and mid-17th centuries, the numbers of Africans at times exceeded the indigenous population. For a very short period, more Africans were imported into Mexico than any other part of the Americas.

As in other parts of Latin America, slaves resisted their oppression. These maroons or cimarrones were reported to have fled and settled in such places as Coyula, Cuaxinecuilapan and Orizaba. One of the most famous was Gaspar Yanga. He was reputedly descended from a royal family in the African nation of Gabon and brought to Mexico as a slave. He led an uprising and escape from a sugar plantation in Veracruz in 1570. The enormous mountain peaks behind the Veracruz lowlands became the home of both African and indigenous maroons during that time period. Established in Cofre de Perote in the mountains near Orizaba, Yanga’s maroon settlement or palenque, called San Lorenzo de los Negros, had 60 dwellings where 80 men and more than 24 African and indigenous women and several children lived. This settlement was renamed Yanga in 1932. The Yanguicos survived by raiding provisions from passing Spanish caravans. They also farmed and raised livestock. They practiced a form of self-government based on several Central African models. It was hierarchical and oriented towards the needs of self-defense and retaliation. Yanga’s colony had grown to some 500 people and the Yanguicos continued to elude capture until the Spaniards decided to negotiate in 1608. It was the intention of the Spanish crown to crush Yanga and his followers. Before this could happen, Yanga and the Spanish colonizers signed a treaty, unique for that time, in September of that year. There was no surrender.

The points of the treaty were:

1) All Yanguicos who fled prior to September 1608 were freed and those who fled after this date were returned to their masters.
2) The palenque was chartered as a free town with Yanga as governor.
3) Only the Franciscan friar would minister to them.
4) The Yanguicos would return fugitive slaves and aid the Spanish in case of external attack.
5) The Spaniards could only visit on market days.
6) The Yanguicos received farmable land.

In addition, Yanga stipulated that he would be governor and the line of succession would accede to his descendants. The Spaniards ceded to the Yanguicos demands and the maroon community was officially settled on Mount Totutla in 1630. Yanga’s maroon movement is a notable event in the history of African-descended Mexicans. It is the only known example of a fully successful attempt by slaves to secure their freedom en masse by revolt and negotiation and to have it sanctioned and guaranteed by law.

No comments:

Post a Comment