BLACK MEXICO: NINETEENTH-CENTURY DISCOURSES OF RACE AND NATION
BY
MARISELA JIMÉNEZ RAMOS
A.B. BROWN UNIVERSITY, 1999
M.A. UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT, 2001
M.A. BROWN UNIVERSITY, 2003
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AT BROWN UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND
MAY 2009
© Copyright 2009 by Marisela Jiménez Ramos
iii This dissertation by Marisela Jiménez Ramos is accepted in its present form by the department of History as satisfying the dissertation requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Date______Robert Cope, Advisor
Recommended to the Graduate Council
Date______Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Reader
Date______Matt Garcia, Reader
Approved by the Graduate Council
Date______Sheila Bonde, Dean of the Graduate School
iv
CURRICULUM VITAE
Marisela Ramos was born in East Los Angeles in 1976. She left home at the age of fifteen when she received a scholarship to attend Northfield Mount Hermon, a New England boarding school in Massachusetts. This was the beginning of her education.
As the daughter of immigrant parents, a college degree was never part of a life plan for her, simply wishful thinking. In spite of this, she attended Brown University and received a B.A. degree in Women’s Studies and American Civilization. After Brown, she attended the University of Connecticut where she earned a Master’s degree in History, which was followed by another tour at Brown University where she has earned a Ph.D, also in History.
To date, the most revolutionary thing Marisela Ramos has done is get an education.
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the many people who supported me through this process. Corrie Martin, whose love helps make this world a beautiful place and whose editing helped make sense of the ideas in my head.
Mis padres, Eva y Moisés, y mis hermanos, Ricardo y Sebastián, quienes me han apoyado ciegamente en mi búsqueda hacia el conocimiento.
Drs. Robert Cope, Evelyn Hu-DeHart and Matt Garcia, who have guided me through my graduate work with a gentle but firm hand.
Kathy Drohan, who has brought stability to my life through her enduring friendship—my connection to the world.
Drs. Lydia English and Joyce Foster, and the Mellon Fellows, all of whom have served as mentors and continue to inspire me.
The Andrew Mellon Foundation, Social Science Research Council, the Northeast Consortium for Faculty Diversity at Middlebury College, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation-Mellon Mays, and all of the programs at Brown University (History, Latin American Studies, the Graduate School), who provided me with much needed financial support.
Of course, this work would not be possible without the help of the staff of the many archives I visited: Archivo General de la Nación, Archivo Municipal de Córdoba; Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, John Carter Brown Library, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Archivo General del Estado de Veracruz, Archivo Municipal de Yanga.
It was in my many years in school that I was able to learn about people like Gloria Anzaldúa, Sandra Cisneros, Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr., people who have done extraordinary things. They too, have served as mentors and a source of inspiration.
To my nieces Astrid, Alexis, and Analiah, whom I hope, will grow up with the courage and strength to follow their own path. They inspire me to help make this a better world.
I have had much help along the way and I will forever be grateful for the wonderful people who came into my life.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Signature Page…………………………………………………………………………....iii
Curriculum Vitae………………………………………………………………………....iv
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..v
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….1
Chapter 1: The Blackness of Slavery: Race in Colonial Mexico, 1519-1821…………..23
Chapter 2: Inventing Mexico: Race and the Discourse of Independence……………….42
Chapter 3: Mexico Mestizo: Nation and the Discourse of Race……………………...... 77
Chapter 4: Freedom Across the Border: U.S. Fugitive Slave Migration and the Discourse of Mexican Racial Equality, 1821-1866……………………………..113
Chapter 5: The Cultural Meaning of Blackness: The Strange But True Adventures of “La Mulata de Córdoba” and “El Negrito Poeta”………………...... 157
Chapter 6: Yanga: Mexico’s First Revolutionary……………………………………..204
Conclusion: “Where Did The Blacks Go?”……………………………………………258
INTRODUCTION
On January 31, 2006, the Associated Press reported that while remodeling the central
plaza in Campeche, a Mexican port city on the Yucatan peninsula, construction workers
stumbled upon a sixteenth-century cemetery containing what seemed to be the oldest
archeological evidence of African slavery in the Americas.1 The cemetery had been in
use as early as the mid-sixteenth century and into the seventeenth. That same day, the
New York Times published an article about the discovery that focused on the teeth that
had been unearthed by archeologists. At least four of the 180 bodies that were recovered
showed evidence of having come from West Africa, including the most telling fact that
“some of their teeth were filed and chipped to sharp edges in a decorative practice
characteristic of Africa.”2 In January of 2006 the evidence of early African slavery in
New Spain (now Mexico) was finally making “big news” in the modern world. But, for
the historians, archeologists, anthropologists, or cultural investigators who have dug
through dusty colonial documents in many of Mexico’s archives or have mined the world
histories and local memories of Mexico’s “third root,” the news that there had been
Africans in Mexico was hardly news. Scholars have always known that Mexico, along
with all of the other Spanish colonies, had a comprehensive fully actualized system of
1 “African slaves were in New World in 1500s Graves found near ruins of a colonial church in Mexico,” in The Associated Press (Jan. 31, 2006), via http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11111366/ (accessed July 31, 2008). 2 Wilford, John Noble. “At Burial Site, Teeth Tell Tale of Slavery” in New York Times: Science Times (January 31, 2006): D1, D4. 2 African slavery. Two days after the initial AP news release, Mexico City’s El Universal and La Reforma carried the story. 3 What these and subsequent news articles reveal is the prevalent and dominant discourse of mestizaje—defined as the mixture of Spanish and
Indian elements—and the obscurity of Mexico’s African history.
In El Universal, the director of the project, Vera Tiesler from the Universidad
Autonoma de Yucatan, reported that “the most important thing is to create a
consciousness that we [Mexicans] not only originate from Indians and Europeans, but that there is also a third root." Tiesler also commented that the discovery was especially
important for Blacks in the United States because it provides further evidence of their
arrival to the New World. 4 Underlying the language of the “rediscovery” of Mexico’s
ancient Black population is the dominant discourse of mestizaje—Mexico’s ideology of racial mixture and national identity. 5 A major feature of this ideology is that “the
African, under no circumstance persevered as pure black, either biologically or
culturally.”6 Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, a mid-twentieth-century pioneer of Black
Mexican studies, expressed the common attitude of Mexicans who believed that “the
slaves who contributed to Mexico’s genetic make-up became so completely integrated
into the process of mestizaje that it is now very difficult for the layman to distinguish the
3 Mexico City’s newspapers reported the news on February 2, 2006, “Hallan primeros restos de esclavos” in La Reforma. 4 Solis, Juan. “Campeche, puerta de entrada de africanos a América” in El Universal (February 2, 2006). 5 Essentially all racial terms pose a problem when dealing with people of African descent in Mexico since there is no one term that adequately encompasses this group, nor is it clear who belongs to this group. For the purposes of this work I will use the term “Black” to refer to people of African descent, and “Blackness” to refer to discourses relating to the latter. For a broader discussion on terminology see Laura A. Lewis. “Blacks, Black Indians, Afromexicans: The Dynamics of Race, Nation, and Identity in a Mexican Moreno Community (Guerrero)” in American Ethnologist, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2000). 6 Herrera Casasús, Ma. Luisa. Piezas de Indias; la esclavitud negra en México. Mexico: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1991, pp. 28.
3 Negroid features of the present population as a whole.”7 Our current understanding of
racial mixture in Mexico does not negate the fact that Blacks were present in that country.
If the African presence and influence is not obvious, it is not any less important
historically.8 Blacks in Mexico have “disappeared” as a separate racial/ethnic group, to
the point that nothing Black or African is considered Mexican. Yet, what is lacking is a
clear explanation for the “disappearance” of the contributions that Blacks have made to
our current understanding of Mexican identity.
The story of those bones in Campeche can be brought to life with a better
understanding of the development of Mexican national identity. In this work I focus on
nineteenth-century discourses of race and their intersection with nation-building and the
exclusion of Blackness from what would eventually be termed, “mestizaje.” Since my
purpose is not so much to understand what Mexico’s national identity is (or was), as to
understand how and why it came to exclude all things Black and African, I focus my
research on the period between Independence in 1821 and the the Porfiriato (1876-1911)
when nationalism and national identity became a state-sponsored project. Historians like
Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo have claimed that the modern nationalist project in Mexico
began with the period of the Porfiriato and culminated with the Mexican Revolution
(1911-1917)—an essentially twentieth-century phenomenon. Yet, even before the
beginning of the Porfiriato, I argue, “Mexican” identity had already been defined to a
large degree. The nineteenth century period marks the beginning of Mexico’s political
7 Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. “The Integration of the Negro into the National Society of Mexico” in Race and Class in Latin America, ed., Magnus Morner. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970., pp. 12 8 Reyes G., Juan Carlos. “Negros Afromestizos en Colima, siglos XVI-XIX” in Presencia Africana en Mexico, ed. Luz Maria Martinez Montiel (Mexico: Consejo Nacional para la cultura y las artes, 1997), pp. 332.
4 and social liberation from Spanish rule, as well as the beginning of a self-conscious process of nation-building.
Today, it is much too easy to dismiss the topic of a Mexican Black history by noting that there were relatively few full Blacks in Mexico at the point of Independence.
Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán reports that during the entire eighteenth- and the beginning of the nineteenth-centuries, no more than 20,000 slaves entered New Spain.9 He further
estimates that approximately 200,000 slaves entered the colony in the entire colonial
period. One limitation of these estimates is that they refer only to “pure” Blacks, thus
excluding the reality of racial mixture in colonial Mexico. Numbers alone do not reflect
the complex racial structure that developed over three hundred years. To ignore the
impact of race and racial ideologies on Mexico’s national identity is to ignore the history
of one of Mexico’s most important political and socioeconomic issues.
Still, the problem remains of locating Blacks in nineteenth-century Mexico. To
read any history of that era today is to believe that Blacks simply disappeared the
moment that Mexico finally dismantled the system of slavery, as if Blacks, and the
African presence, simply vanished into history the way the institution of slavery did. But
the abolition of slavery did not necessarily have to lead to the abolition of Mexico’s
African past.
The end of slavery certainly initiated a break with the ability to label Mexicans of
African descent, since slavery was habitually equated with an African ancestry. The
abolition of racial categories, under the impetus of liberation from colonial institutions
and oppression, also impaired the ability to label or designate cultural practices, beliefs,
9 Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. “The Slave Trade in Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 24, No. 3. (Aug., 1944): 427.
5 or artifacts, as having a Black/African origin. All peoples became Mexican by default.
But, under this comprehensive umbrella of national identity, we can analyze the political and cultural roles of Black Mexicans and of African elements in “Mexican” culture during the nineteenth century. While racial discourse served as a unifying force in post- independence Mexico, the ideology of racial mixture, in general, and of mestizaje, specifically, led to the erasure of all things Black. Even though the discourse of mestizaje is attributed to the twentieth century, I argue that in fact discourses of mestizaje and notions of racial equality were taking place as early as the nineteenth century. The definition of mestizaje as racial mixture was one that existed in the first half of the nineteenth century. Consequently, the erasure of Mexico’s Black history was a process that took place throughout the nineteenth century. Like Marco Polo Hernández Cueva’s book, African Mexicans and the Discourse of Modern Nation, my work looks at the relationship between the ideology and discourse of racial mixture and the omission of
“the Africaness of Mexican mestizaje.”10
My goal is to make clear the role of Blacks and Blackness in nineteenth-century
Mexican discourses of nation and to document their contributions to the makeup of
mestizaje. I focus on what Florencia Mallón calls “discursive transformation.”11
Prasenjit Duara explains, “the meanings of the nation are produced mainly through linguistic mechanisms.”12 In reality, Blacks “disappeared” through omission from
nineteenth-century discourses of race and nation, a process I call the Black exception, a
10 Hernández Cuevas, Marco Polo. African Mexicans and the Discourse of Modern Nation (NY-Oxford: University Press of America, 2004), pp. XVIII. 11 Mallón, Florencia. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 12. 12 Duara, Prasenjit. “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When” in Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 165.
6 term that highlights how Blacks were exempt from Mexico’s understanding of its own racial makeup.
By looking into the role of Blackness, or negritud, in nineteenth-century discourses of nation I seek to formulate a new understanding of Mexico’s national identity, but primarily a new theoretical understanding of ethnic relations in the period after independence. I investigate the social and political processes that contributed to the eventual—but by no means inevitable—‘disappearance’ of Blacks and all things African from the national self-consciousness of modern Mexico. To be more precise, I provide answers to the following questions. In the absence of racial categories in post- independence Mexico how did the understanding of what it meant to be Black change for former Blacks and for non-Blacks? More importantly, how did these definitions fit within the evolving concept of “lo Mejicano”?
I argue that Mexico’s twentieth-century struggles for social and political development cannot be understood without examining the role that nineteenth-century racial ideologies played in the institutionalization of official and unofficial conceptions of citizenship and nation-building. I hope to show how the historical record may be mined for evidence of the conflicting ideologies determining the context of the roles that Blacks would play—or would not be allowed to play—in the new nation. In addition to a reconceptualization of the discourse of mestizaje, this research will open avenues to a rethinking of the contemporary identity of Mexicans, including a recovery of the
(obscured) Black presence.
Through this project I seek to show how the nineteenth-century architects of national identity were able to erase the Black historical presence from the national
7 consciousness of modern Mexicans. I will examine—not only what type of nation was being proposed or imagined in the immediate post-independence era—but also the underlying vision of racial relations and cultural identity that non-whites envisioned and sought to create. Accordingly, as George Reid Andrews has argued in his study of Afro-
Argentines, understanding how Blackness “disappeared” will shed light on our understanding of present-day patterns of race relations and of race relations in other post- slavery modern societies.13
Scholarship on the post-independence period generally neglects examination of
the specific ways that the African historical presence began to be erased from the cultural
consciousness, a process I argue, occurred through the creation and manipulation of
various forms of discourse. Ernest Gellner explains, “nationalism…sometimes takes pre-
existing cultures and turns them into nations, sometimes invents them, and often
obliterates pre-existing cultures.”14 Magnus Morner has argued persuasively that post- abolition conditions are more crucial in molding the existing patterns of race relations
than slavery had been in its various forms.15 Until now, no scholar has taken up his
challenge to pull out and bring sharper focus to the complexities of creating a nation that,
for all its multicultural rhetoric, was essentially rooted in a “mestizo” ideology exclusive
of Blacks.
Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán explains that even when they live in “Black”
communities, Black Mexicans are not recognized as Black. Even those groups which
today could be considered Black, those who because of their isolation and conservatism
13Andrews, George Reid, The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800-1900 (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980) pp. 7. 14 Gellner, 49. 15 Morner, Magnus. “Recent Research on Negro Slavery and Abolition in Latin America,” Latin American Research Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1978), pp. 274.
8 have retained predominantly negroid somatic characteristics and African cultural traits, are actually mestizos, the end product of a biological mixing and the final result of the dynamics of acculturation.”16 In the nineteenth century those who were seen as “Black”
are not recognized as Mexican. As such, the specific contributions and struggles of
Blacks to the nation have been obscured. This “disappearance” is largely due not to a
biological mixing that was accomplished in the twentieth century but to an ideological
battle that was raged throughout the nineteenth century. I have named this battle and the
consequent discourses it created: the Black exception. I seek to shed light on how those
discourses began to erase Mexico’s Black history.
LOCATING BLACK MEXICANS IN THE SCHOLARSHIP
There are a few challenges in uncovering the history of Blackness in nineteenth-century
Mexico. First, it is difficult to analyze racial uses in the century after independence,
primarily because the Mexican government abolished all discourse of racial distinctions
and categories. The discursive absence of broad categories such as “Black,” “White” and
specific categories such as “African,” or “criollo” make the study of race in this time
period particularly challenging for the historian. In addition, scholars have made great
contributions to our current understanding of Black Mexican history but have largely left
the nineteenth century unexplored.17 Most of the recent scholarship focuses either on the
16 Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. “Ethnohistory in the Study of the Black in the Population in Mexico” LAAG contributions to the Afro-American Ethnohistory in Latin America and the Caribbean. Illinois: Latin American Anthropology Group, 1976, pp. 3. 17 Other contemporary scholars include Joan Bristol, Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches: Afro-Mexican Ritual Practice in the Seventeenth Century (2007); Nicole Von Germeten, Black Blood Brothers: Confraternities and Social Mobility for Afro-Mexicans (2006); Maria Elisa Velázquez, Mujeres de origen africano en la capital novohispana, siglos XVII y XVIII (2006); Ben Vinson III with Bobby Vaughn, (with Bobby Vaughn) Afroméxico: El pulso de la población negra en México (2005); Juan Manuel de la Serna,
9 colonial period or on coastal towns of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Contemporary scholars are limited into studying colonial histories and cultural expressions that can be linked to Africa and/or Blacks who self-identify as such.
Hernández Cuevas states that “the term ‘Afro-Mexican’ seems to have become a synonym for the ‘visibly Black’ Mexican population. The problem with this perception is that it creates an artificial division of Mexican mestizos based on the way people look.”18 Even as I assert that identifying “Black” Mexicans based on physical traits poses
a problem, the erasure of Blackness has become so strong that to a great degree those are
the only Mexicans we can say are Black, with some certainty, and who, consequently, are
more likely to identify as such. At the same time, the dearth of scholarly study of
nineteenth-century Mexico is hardly surprising given the chaos of that century, when
Mexico was plagued with political conflict, foreign and civil wars, and a byzantine
struggle to build a nation-state. In addition, aside from the rudimentary details of wars
and battles, the archival collections of nineteenth-century materials, when they exist, tend
to be considerably disorganized. Not withstanding, the fact that scholars have located
Black Mexicans in the colonial period and in the twentieth- and twenty-first-centuries
suggests that these groups did not altogether disappear.
The study of Blacks in Mexico has grown in interest in the twentieth-century.
Historian Ben Vinson, III and anthropologist Bobby Vaughn point out that more than half
Pautas de convivencia Etnica en la america latina Colonial/ Convenience Ethnic Guidelines of Colonial Latin America (2005); Laura Lewis, Hall of Mirrors: Power, Witchcraft and Caste in Colonial Mexico (2003); Herman Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico (2003); Ben Vinson III, Bearing Arms For His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico (2001); Arturo Motta, Frank Proctor III, Matthew Restall, David M. Davidson, Edgar J. Love; Irene Diggs, Oriol Pi-Sunyer. 18 Hernández Cuevas, Marco Polo. African Mexicans and the Discourse of Modern Nation (University Press of America, Inc, 2004), pp. xiv.
10 of the works written on Black Mexico were produced after 1969.19 These works were
facilitated by Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán’s La Población Negra de México. First published
in 1946, this book has earned Aguirre Beltrán the reputation of forefather of the study of
the “third root” of Mexican mestizaje. This fundamental work was the first to attempt to
trace the history of Blacks in Mexico. Even though La Población broadly focuses on the
colonial period, it has provided scholars with valuable insight into the lives of Blacks in
Mexico throughout the three-hundred years of colonialism. Consequently, no study on
that topic is complete without referencing Beltrán’s work and his legacy. Twelve years
after the publication of La Población, Aguirre Beltrán published a case study of Cuijla, a
contemporary Black Mexican town in the state of Oaxaca.20 Scholars have since added
to the ever-growing literature on slavery in colonial Mexico as well as contemporary
notions of Blackness. 21
In Slaves of the White God, Colin Palmer provides a more comprehensive
understanding of slavery in sixteenth and seventeenth century Mexico, where until 1640,
the slave trade brought the largest number of slaves in all of the Americas. Palmer makes
an important contribution to the study of Black Mexico by demonstrating that there is no
evidence that Africans internalized stereotypes of themselves and that it was the creation
of alternative lives that contributed to their survival.22 He argues that “in order to affirm
19 Vinson, Ben III and Bobby Vaughn. Afroméxico: El pulso de la población negra en méxico: una historia recordada, olvidada y vuelta a recordar (Mexico: Centro de investigación y docencia economicas, Fondo de cultura economica, 2004), pp. 19-20). 20 Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. Cuijla: embozo etnogafico de un pueblo negro. (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1958). In recent years, many historians and especially anthropologists Duch as Bobby Vaughn have focused their studies on the Cuijla population. 21 For a comprehensive bibliography of works on Black Mexico see Vinson, Ben III and Bobby Vaughn. Afroméxico: El pulso de la población negra en méxico: una historia recordada, olvidada y vuelta a recordar (2004). 22 Palmer, Colin A. Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico 1570-1650 (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964) pp. 190.
11 their survival as autonomous beings, slaves resorted to their own folk practices, sometimes at great risk to themselves. By doing so, Afromexicans demonstrated that they were able to preserve a sense of their own history and culture.”23 The question remains, to what extent practices persisted even after Blacks’ “survival” was no longer in question, with the abolition of slavery. Palmer’s argument leads to the conclusion that once free of the onus of slavery, the distinctively “Black” or “African” presence in
Mexico lost its force in shaping Mexican history. Equally, the persistence of such
practices was more likely since they had survived colonialism and slavery. I believe the
answer lies in a closer study of the nineteenth century. The problem is not that Blacks
have made fewer contributions to Mexican history, but rather that the development of
nineteenth-century discourses of race made it difficult to recognize them as such.
In addition, Palmer argues that because few documents survive to reveal the daily
lives of seventeenth-century slaves, historians have relied on documents from the
eighteenth century to explain the first one hundred years of the conquest. These later
documents, however, are limiting in what they can tell about the changing circumstances
and ensuing state of the lives of slaves and other Blacks living in Mexico one hundred
years earlier. By the end of the eighteenth century there were relatively few African
slaves. Historians have traditionally ignored Blacks’ lives in post-independent Mexico
because of an apparent lack of material. With the abolition of racial categories it
becomes difficult to locate them. Yet, a reliance on eighteenth- and twentieth-century
documents, in this case, would provide limited insight into the lives of Blacks and racial
discourses in Mexico’s nineteenth century. These documents do not accurately reflect
23 Ibid., 189.
12 the changing political and social climate of that era, especially when we consider that the nineteenth century was a fundamental period of transition from colonialism to nationhood. Still, Palmer’s work should be seen as an essential piece in Mexico’s Black history. For that reason, I seek to do for our current understanding of Blackness in the nineteenth century what Palmer has done for our understanding of the lives of slaves and
Blacks in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Patrick Carroll adds to Black Mexican studies with his work, Blacks in Colonial
Veracruz, where he argues that while restrictive laws forced Blacks to form their own separate culture, they also forced Blacks to be more socially outgoing. Blacks
“intermarried with, and on other ways socially bonded with, Indians and non-Afro-castas more often than other segments of the population did.”24 Consequently, Carroll argues,
“blacks contributed much more heavily to the racial and ethnic integration of Veracruz
than one would have expected them to, given their slave status.”25 Carroll’s argument
suggests that as a result of interracial mixture Blacks disappeared from the public consciousness and the public arena. My work both seeks to expand on this research and show that rather than a natural process of disappearance, the contributions by slaves and
Blacks were obscured in the process of nineteenth-century Mexican nation-building.
THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF MESTIZAJE
Today, Scholars and Mexicans alike consider Mexico to be a mestizo—a mixture of
Spanish and Indian—nation. Mestizaje is at the basis of Mexican nationalism. The
24 Carroll, Patrick J. Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity and Regional Development (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991) pp.147. 25 Ibid., xi.
13 discourse of this specific racial mixture, and subsequently, of racial equality, was decisive in the formation of a national community. Taunya Lovell Banks states that “it is essential to determine not only what mestizaje moves toward, but more importantly from what mestizaje moves away.”26 Mexican cultural nationalism was a process that
culminated with the articulation of a discourse of mestizaje, defined as the mixture of
Indian and Spanish, and is the result of a shifting definition of a variety of nineteenth- century terms that stood for “racial mixture.”
As Tenorio-Trillo shows, a move towards a discourse of mestizaje and a supposed acceptance of an indigenous past, in the Porfirian era (1876-1911), signified that Blacks had already been fully excluded from national discourses of race. Consequently, the
“dynamic,” to borrow Frederick C. Turner’s term, of Mexican cultural nationalism, is the erasure of negritud.27 Mestizaje, therefore, is “fictitiously homogenous” since it does not embrace a population that is biologically mestizo, but rather one that is ideologically so.28
Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo’s Mexico at the World’s Fairs shows that during the late
nineteenth century and into the twentieth, Indians were exalted as part of a state-
sponsored national identity. Large monuments depicting the Indian presence were
constructed and transported to the fairs. Tenorio-Trillo’s work is important in the study
of Black Mexico because it shows that by the late nineteenth century Blacks had already
been relegated to something of the past and dealing with the “Indian problem” became a
state-sponsored project.
26 Lovell Banks, Taunya. “Mestizaje and the Mexican Mestizo Self: No Hay Sangre Negra, So There is No Blackness. University of Maryland School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2005-48 (Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection), pp. 43, via http://ssrn.com/abstract=790625. 27 Frederick C. Turner, The Dynamic of Mexican Nationalism (1968), refers to the Mexican Revolution of the twentieth century as the “dynamic” of Mexican nationalism. 28 Martinez-Echabazal, Lourdes. “Mestizaje and the discourse of national/cultural identity in Latin America, 1845-1959” in Latin American Perspectives, vol. 25, no. 3, (May 1998), pp. 38.
14 By the twentieth century Blacks had indeed “disappeared” from the discourse of mestizaje. Currently, studies of Mexico are constrained by the concept and discourse of mestizaje—a legacy of one of Mexico’s most influential twentieth-century intellectuals,
José Vasconcelos—which has influenced historians to focus almost exclusively on the contributions of the Spanish and Indigenous aspects of Mexico’s idealized “multiracial”
(but essentially bi-racial) national identity. Vasconcelos’s “The Cosmic Race,” published in the first quarter of the twentieth century, articulated for the public consciousness a process that had been taking place for many years. Nineteenth-century discourses of race/ethnicity attempted to articulate what was “Mexican” but did not name it.
Vasconcelos should be given credit for putting theory into practice, as the minister of Education (1921-24), but we must understand that mestizaje is an ideology that was developing in the nineteenth century, though it was not given a formal label.
Hernández Cuevas, whose work relies on a analysis of the “Cosmic Race,” defines the
“cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution (1920-1968)” as the period when the mestizo was presented as the exclusive mix of Amerindians and Spaniards who made up the majority of the population.29 Because Vasconcelos is a product of the social, economic,
and political factors that shaped nineteenth-century Mexico, his writings represent the
culmination of the development of mestizaje as an official ideology and the culmination of the Black exception.
Vasconcelos theorizes that “the lower types of the species will be absorbed by the superior type. In this manner, for example, the Black could be redeemed, and step by
29 Hernández Cuevas, Marco Polo. African Mexicans and the Discourse of Modern Nation (University Press of America, Inc, 2004), pp. xiii.
15 step, by voluntary extinction, the uglier stocks will give way to the more handsome.”30
Leslie B. Rout has argued that while the mythic Indian past was exalted by Latin
American nations in the twentieth century as a symbol of colonial and neo-colonial
aggression, they have “no desire to add another group to this category, or to delve into the issue of African cultural contributions.”31 Like his contemporaries, the only role that
Vasconcelos could conceive of for Blacks in Mexico was to disappear quietly. Yet, he did not predict this so much as name it. I seek to understand how it could be that
Vasconcelos could take this process for granted. Rather than the visionary thinker he is credited with being, Vasconcelos can be seen as the likely outcome of nineteenth-century racial politics and processes.
THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF NATION-BUILDING
One way to better understand the “disappearance” of Blackness from Mexican identity is through an analysis of discourse. Benedict Anderson proposes that the definition of a nation is: “an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.”32 He further adds that “from the start the nation was conceived in
language, not blood…”33 Therefore, both, nationalism and discourse can be seen as
spaces of negotiation, contested territories. As contested territories, they are both shaped
and challenged by groups at various levels of the social strata.
30 Vasconcelos, José. The Cosmic Race. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) pp. 32. 31 Rout, Leslie B. Jr. The African Experience in Spanish America 1502 to the Present Day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, pp. 212, 244, 254, 282. 32 Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communitites: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London; New York: Verso, 1991), pp. 6. 33 Anderson, pp.145.
16 Much of the earlier literature of nation-building and nationalism argues that it is a top-down process in which the elite impose a set of ideologies on the lower classes, the pueblo. However, recent scholarship demonstrates that the pueblo by no means simply absorbed the dictates that came from above. Florencia Mallón shows in Peasant and
Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru, that local and regional communities were imagined alongside the national community. She states, “the people who led the process of discursive transformation were local intellectuals. In the villages, local intellectuals were those who labored to reproduce and rearticulate local history and memory, to connect community discourses about local identity to constantly shifting patters of power, solidarity, and consensus.”34 According to Mallón, before peasants
could imagine themselves as part of the nation, they must have what she calls “communal
hegemony.” 35 In other words, a local identity precedes a national one. As such, local
governments played an instrumental role in fostering and disseminating a local identity
that either correlated with the national one or challenged it. Timothy E. Anna argues that
regional governments did not turn away from the national government’s attempt to
centralize so long as they were allowed to maintain a degree of autonomy.36 In her analysis of Oaxacan villagers, Jennie Purnell adds that peasants “actively employed national identities, discourses and institutions in order to defend and legitimate them.”37
Purnell’s work shows that peasants play an instrumental part in the development of a
34 Mallón, Florencia. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 12. 35 Mallón, Florencia. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 11. 36Anna, Timothy E. “Inventing Mexico: Provincehood and Nationhood after Independence” in Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 15, No. 1. Special Issue: Mexican Politics in the Nineteenth Century, (1996), pp. 10. 37 Purnell, Jennie, “Citizens and Sons of the Pueblo: National and Local Identities in the Making of the Mexican Nation” in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2 (March 2002): 215.
17 national identity since “communal identities” have a historical basis and are constantly changing and challenged within the context of a larger national identity.38 In other
words, the formulation of a local identity informs the national one and vise versa. Anna
points out that the provinces wanted to be a part of the central government and many
political leaders came from areas outside of Mexico City.39 Furthermore, local peasant
communities did not necessarily seek to challenge elite discourses of nation, especially
those that came from the capital. A look at the Veracruz region reveals variations of
racial/ethnic discourse, as it relates to race, and more specifically, Blacks. There is also
no indication that the logic of regional discourse “was decentralizing and autonomist.”40
My research reveals that in the case of racial discourse different regions adopted the
national discourses of racial mixture while not altogether ignoring their own reality.
In his influential book, The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in
Colonial Mexico City, 1660-1720, R. Douglas Cope postulates that in the colonial period
“plebeian” society comprised a amorphous category of individuals whose racial understanding differed from that of the elite. 41 We can assume that racial discourses by
intellectuals of the nineteenth century would likewise be reinterpreted and negotiated
among different groups. Even though it is difficult to assess nineteenth-century peasant
“sentiments of patriotism” and more so that of Black Mexicans, analysis of the process of
nation-building reveals tangible results, primarily that mestizaje as an ideology that
38 Purnell, Jennie, “Citizens and Sons of the Pueblo: National and Local Identities in the Making of the Mexican Nation” in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2 (March 2002): 229, 231. 39 Anna, Timothy E “Inventing Mexico: Provincehood and Nationhood after Independence” in Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 15, No. 1. Special Issue: Mexican Politics in the Nineteenth Century, (1996), pp. 11. 40 Knight, Alan, “Peasants into Patriots: Thoughts on the Making of the Mexican Nation” in Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Winter, 1994): 148. 41 Cope, Douglas R. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660- 1720. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
18 excluded Blacks was being developed at the local and national level.42 At the same time,
discourses of Blackness were declining and a distinct sense of Mexicanness was
evolving. Yet, when we consider the development of regional racial discourses we can
see that the erasure of Blackness at the local level was much slower. Today, part of what
is driving the development of a current Black Mexican identity is the survival of regional
and local histories, that like Black Mexicans, did not altogether vanish43
BREAKDOWN OF CHAPTERS
In focusing my study on the nineteenth century it has become apparent that given the
scarce knowledge of race relations in this era, it is not possible at this point to produce a chronological narrative. While George Reid Andrews was able to make use of nineteenth-century newspapers produced by Afro-Argentines, I have not come across similar sources for Mexico. Therefore, I have chosen an episodic approach which I hope can serve as a point of departure for the creation of a more thorough history of Black
Mexico in the nineteenth century. Chapter 1, “The Blackness of Slavery: Race in
Colonial Mexico, 1519-1821,” takes as its topic the history of slavery in Mexico and the race structure of the colonial period; Chapter 2, “Inventing Mexico: Race and the
Discourse of Independence,” focuses on the problematic discourse of freedom and liberty used by both insurgents and royalists throughout the independence movement to recruit free Blacks and slaves and also to contain them; Chapter 3, “Mexico Mestizo: Nation
42 Knight, Alan, “Peasants into Patriots: Thoughts on the Making of the Mexican Nation” in Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Winter, 1994): 138-139. 43 Laurence Iliff, “Black Mexicans See Pride in Lost History,” The Dallas Morning News, April 3, 2002, via http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/mexico/black-mexicans.htm (accessed July 23, 2008); John L. Mitchell, “Mexico’s Black History is Often Ignored,” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2008, via http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/13/local/me-afromexside13 (accessed July 23, 2008)
19 and the Discourse of Race,” traces the development, after independence, of nineteenth- century discourses of nationalism and state formation and the challenges raised by the attempt to construct a ‘mestizo’ nation, exclusive of Blacks; Chapter 4, “Freedom Across the Border: U.S. Fugitive Slave Migration and the Discourse of Mexican Racial Equality,
1821-1866” examines Mexico’s response to the problems presented by the presence of
U.S. Blacks, escaped slaves and free Black immigrants, as well as slaves ‘owned’ by US colonizers in Texas and other contested territories; Chapter 5, “The Cultural Meaning of
Blackness: The Strange but True Adventures of ‘La Mulata de Córdoba’ and ‘El Negrito
Poeta’,” analyzes popular nineteenth-century Mexican literature that touches on themes of race, and more specifically, of Blacks in Mexico; Chapter 6, “Yanga: Mexico’s First
Revolutionary,” attempts to tell the history of the founding of the town of Yanga, and its founder, in the state of Veracruz, arguably Mexico’s first independence movement, from its founding by rebellious slaves in the seventeenth century, and its continued symbolic and political significance through, and beyond, the nineteenth century.
20
BIBLIOGRAPHY—INTRODUCTION
Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. “El factor negro en la independencia de Mexico” in Futuro, #91 (Sept. 1943).
Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. Cuijla: embozo etnogafico de un pueblo negro. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1958.
Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. “The Integration of the Negro into the National Society of Mexico” in Race and Class in Latin America, ed., Magnus Morner. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. “Ethnohistory in the Study of the Black in the Population in Mexico” LAAG contributions to the Afro-American Ethnohistory in Latin America and the Caribbean. Illinois: Latin American Anthropology Group, 1976.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communitites: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London; New York: Verso, 1991.
Andrews, George Reid. The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800-1900. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980.
Anna, Timothy E. “Inventing Mexico: Provincehood and Nationhood after Independence” in Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 15, No. 1, Special Issue: Mexican Politics in the Nineteenth Century (1996), pp. 7-17.
Carroll, Patrick J. Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity and Regional Development. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.
Duara, Prasenjit. “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When” in Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Eastwood, Jonathan. “Positivism and Nationalism in 19th Century France and Mexico” in Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 17, No. 4 (December 2004): 331-357.
Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1983.
21 Hernandez Cuevas, Marco Polo. African Mexicans and the Discourse of Modern Nation. NY-Oxford: University Press of America, 2004.
Herrera Casasús, Ma. Luisa. Piezas de Indias; la esclavitud negra en Mexico. Mexico: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1991.
Iliff, Laurence. “Black Mexicans See Pride in Lost History” in The Dallas Morning News (April 3, 2002) http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/mexico/black-mexicans.htm (accessed July 23, 2008).
Jiménez Román, Miriam. “What is a Mexican?” in Africa’s Legacy in Mexico. Ed., Tony Gleaton. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Service, 1993.
Knight, Alan. “Peasants into Patriots: Thoughts on the Making of the Mexican Nation” in Mexican Studies/ Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Winter, 1994): 135-161.
Laura A. Lewis. “Blacks, Black Indians, Afromexicans: The Dynamics of Race, Nation, and Identity in a Mexican Moreno Community (Guerrero)” in American Ethnologist, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2000).
Lovell Banks, Taunya. “Mestizaje and the Mexican Mestizo Self: No Hay Sangre Negra, So There is No Blackness. University of Maryland School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2005-48 (Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection): http://ssrn.com/abstract=790625
Mallón, Florencia. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Martinez-Echabazal, Lourdes. “Mestizaje and the discourse of national/cultural identity in Latin America, 1845-1959” in Latin American Perspectives, vol. 25, no. 3, (May 1998).
Menchaca, Martha. Recovering History, Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans. Texas: University of Texas Press, 2001.
Mitchell, John L. “Mexico’s Black History is Little-Known” in Los Angeles Times (April 13, 2008), via http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/13/local/me-afromexside13 (accessed July 23, 2008).
Morner, Magnus. “Recent Research on Negro Slavery and Abolition in Latin America,” Latin American Research Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1978), pp. 265-289.
Palmer, Colin A. Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico 1570-1650. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964.
22 Purnell, Jennie. “Citizens and Sons of the Pueblo: National and Local Identities in the Making of the Mexican Nation” in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2 (March 2002): 213-237.
Reyes G., Juan Carlos. “Negros Afromestizos en Colima, siglos XVI-XIX” in Presencia Africana en Mexico, ed. Luz Maria Martinez Montiel. Mexico: Consejo Nacional para la cultura y las artes, 1997.
Rout, Leslie B. Jr. The African Experience in Spanish America 1502 to the Present Day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Saavedra, Diana. “Hallan primeros restos de esclavos” in Reforma (February 2, 2006). Solis, Juan. “Campeche, puerta de entrada de africanos a América” in El Universal (February 2, 2006).
Solís, Juan. “Campeche, puerta de entrada de africanos a América” in El Universal (February 2, 2006).
Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio. Mexico at the World’s Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Vasconcelos, Jose. The Cosmic Race. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Vinson, Ben III and Bobby Vaughn. Afromexico: El pulso de la poblacion negra en mexico: una historia recordada, olvidada y vuelta a recordar. Mexico: Centro de investigación y docencia economicas, Fondo de cultura economica, 2004.
Wilford, John Noble. “At Burial Site, Teeth Tell Tale of Slavery” in New York Times: Science Times (January 31, 2006).
CHAPTER 1
THE BLACKNESS OF SLAVERY: RACE IN COLONIAL MEXICO, 1519-1821
The process by which Blacks were first excluded from the national consciousness and
from the nation’s social and political landscape can be understood historically, that is,
rather than as simply the logical or natural result of the ‘physical’ or ‘biological’
disappearance of Blacks from the population. Examining this process not only teaches us
a great deal about attitudes towards race but, more importantly, about the development of
Mexico’s nationalist project. In addition, understanding the role that the Black exception,
the exclusion of Blacks and Blackness has had in the self-fashioning of the Mexican
nation is important because it leads to the insight that this project is far from complete and far from as monolithic as the original architects and wielders of state power might
have hoped.
Since the “re-discovery” in the last few decades of Blacks’ contributions to New
Spain’s and Mexico’s history, economy, culture and mestizaje, Mexicanidad (to some
degree) has acknowledged Blackness as its “third-root.” Following the path of
anthropological inquiry opened by Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran, scholars have re-discovered
“AfroMexicanidad” in music, culture, food and much more, including in the production 24 of national identity.44 And yet, I would caution that, because every attempt to define an
identity is simultaneously an attempt to contain, that is, to manage, what or who is
different, this current trend must also be considered from a critical point of view. In fact,
if the ‘disappearance’ of Blacks, like the so-called ‘disappearance’ of Indians in the
United States, has served as a powerful trope for political or nationalist interests, all too
often uncritically underwritten by scholars and intellectuals, then the contemporary “re-
discovery” of Mexico’s African roots should be examined equally carefully for its
implications. The aim of this chapter, though, is to start at the beginning so that we may
understand what was behind the Black exception and how this exclusion was achieved so
thoroughly. The beginning of this process is in the colonial period; more specifically, it
can be traced to the profound impact on New Spanish society of three related but distinct
historical phenomena: the development of distinct communities of Blacks, the
development of Blackness as a discourse and social identity, and the legacy of slavery as
a social, economic and political institution.
The size, distribution and level of cohesion of the Black, as well as the mulatto
population over time is not entirely irrelevant to the question of what happened to the
national consciousness of Blackness in Mexico or to the question of why Blacks did not
develop into a strong ethnic minority in that country. One point of view is that at the
time of Independence the Black or mulatto population was simply not strong enough in
numbers or already cohesive enough to continue developing as a distinct social identity.
44 The Museo de Palmillas is located in the Yanga district in the Mexican gulf coast state of Veracruz, and was inaugurated in December of 2004. Even though it has a archeological focus, it features a history of the founding of the town of Yanga and slavery in the region. For more on Yanga see chapter 6 of this work.
25 While there are Indian populations who still speak their language and have maintained their customs, that is not considered to be the case for Blacks in Mexico.
If one part of the population is to remain separate from the national society as an ethnic minority, two types of complementary conditions must develop simultaneously: one, the minority must acquire a set of differentiating characteristics that give it cohesion: and two, it must conduct a set of obstacles which compels it to remain separate. At the end of the colonial era, these conditions prevailed among the Indians but not among the Negroes or mixed bloods.45
Was the Black population simply too weak and disorganized to “remain separate”—that
is, to survive as a distinct social group within a new, modern Mexico?
Certainly, it is true that the African slave trade peaked relatively early in the colony, reaching it’s zenith before the mid-seventeenth century when a confluence of factors finally forced its decline, including the independence of Portugal from Spain in
1640, which abruptly cut off Spain’s supply of slaves from Portuguese-controlled Angola
and Congo. For the next century and a half, until the beginning of the nineteenth century,
no more than 20,000 new slaves were introduced into New Spain.46 As the number of
imported slaves of African or Caribbean origin declined, a growing “casta” population of
free laborers with a mixed African and Indian racial background was simultaneously
entering the labor force in larger numbers, further weakening the institution of slavery.47
The mid-seventeenth century also marks the beginning of a resurgence of the Indian
45 Jiménez Román, Miriam. “What is a Mexican?” in Africa’s Legacy in Mexico. Ed., Tony Gleaton. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Service, 1993, pp. 22. 46 Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. “The Slave Trade in Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 24, No. 3. (Aug., 1944): 427. 47 Bennett, Herman L. Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640. (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003), pp. 22-23; Valdés, Dennis N. “The Decline of Slavery in Mexico” in The Americas, vol. XLIV, no. 2 (Oct. 1987), pp. 169.
26 population, which, even at its lowest point, dwarfed the numbers of slaves, free Blacks and mixed-race Blacks, or mulattos, combined in most regions of the colony as well as that of Spaniards. And, as we shall see racial mixture, or mestizaje as we refer to it today, proved to be a much more common as well as more effective form and strategy of survival and social mobility for Blacks than other strategies that were also employed, such as cimarronaje, which was both the result and cause of a collective rebellious consciousness that would be difficult to develop into a sustainable social identity.48 In some regions, Blacks in Mexico clearly did not survive as culturally or ethnically Black because, through racial mixing, they lost their original distinctiveness from the rest of the population.49 As Beltran—the original “re-discoverer” of African cultural remnants
within Mexico—himself points out, there is little historical evidence that slaves or free
Blacks, even at the height of their numbers, necessarily saw themselves as a single distinct ethnic group.50
Unlike indigenous groups in New Spain who “were able to hold onto pre-
conquest identities that were connected to where they lived,” notes historian Nicole von
Germeten, “only one group of Africans, Zapes, tried to maintain its cultural identity in seventeenth-century Mexico City by forming a confraternity.”51 Von Germeten found
that early “Afromexican” confraternities “were informed by African sensibilities” and
were organized in ways that reflected distinctly African rituals and cultural values, such
48 Cruz Contreras, Alejandra and Norma Elizabeth Esquivel Martinez. “Sobrevivir o asimilarse:” El espacio afromestizo en Mexico y sus transformaciones, el caso de Chacalapa, Veracruz, Thesis (Mexico, D.F.: Escuela Nacional de Antropología e historia, 2000) pp21. 49 Ibid., 104. 50 Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. El Negro Esclavo en Nueva España: La formación colonial, la medicina popular y otros ensayos (Mexico: Universidad Veracruzana, 1994) pp. 112. 51 Von Germeten, Nicole. Black Blood Brothers: Confraternities and Social Mobility for Afro-Mexicans (University of Florida, 2006), pp. 6.
27 as the participation of women as founding members vested with authority.52 These
elements, she emphasizes, fell far short of a full and fully conscious expression of a specific African ethnic identity, even during the apex of “Afromexican” cultural
expression through confraternal organizations in the sixteenth century. Her research
makes the paradoxical point that Black confraternities, which served important social and
political functions throughout the colony, “increased racial distinctions and even
furthered a sense of racial identity in New Spain, especially at a local level,” while at the
same time, provided a means by which people of African descent could establish and lead
legitimate social institutions and participate actively in the religious, social and economic
spheres, “ultimately increasing their own status in and integration into the Hispanic
world.”53 Interestingly, even in the case of the Zapes who were the only African ethnic group known to establish their own confraternity, von Germeten speculates:
Perhaps they felt motivated to [establish their own confraternity] because many of them, who would have been elderly in the early 1600s, felt superior to the newly arrived Angolans and wanted to make sure that they retained a distinct identity among Africans in the capital. Ironically, Zapes’ strong sense of identity was inter-twined with their long-term residence and relative success in the Hispanic world of Mexico City.54
The tension between the desire for “Hispanicization” and integration into New Spanish society and the pull of maintaining an African or even more distinct ethnic identity has marked the experience of Black Mexicans since the seventeenth century.
Efforts to maintain a sense of African identity into the eighteenth century would have been difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is the totality with which
52 Ibid., pp. 11. 53 Ibid., pp. 10. 54 Ibid., pp. 87.
28 New Spanish slavelords severed their subjects’ ties to Africa, their original communities, languages and cultures. Through most of the seventeenth century, New Spanish authorities were terrified by perceived plots and by any demonstration of social cohesion or political organization by the colony’s enslaved or free Blacks. In addition to severe punishments, executions of actual or putative rebels, and gruesome public displays of mutilated Black bodies, authorities employed other tactics and imposed restrictions meant to impede Blacks from meeting with one another, developing common goals, or growing in cooperative strength. Von Germeten maintains that a “sense of connection to a specific African cultural identity was no longer possible by the eighteenth century, after the slave trade into New Spain ended.”55 This fact is reflected in the language of racial
categorization: “’Mulatto’ was a more widely used racial label in the eighteenth century,
replacing ‘Black or ‘negro’ and references to African origins such as ‘Congo’ and
‘Angola’” von Germeten observes.56 But, as she also points out, building on the work of
Douglas Cope’s The Limits of Racial Domination, “Socioeconomic factors had become
more important than race in determining rank by the end of the eighteenth-century” and
“marriage choices did not always indicate a desire to ascend to a higher racial
designation. Other kinds of social connections may have had more value.”57 In other
words, as the colony moved closer towards Independence, racial labels and racialized
collective identities in general tended to become less important to the growing middling
sectors of society, including urban tradesmen, artisans and craftsmen for whom some
form of social mobility was not completely out of reach in spite of their official racial
55 Ibid., pp. 7. 56 Ibid. 57 Cope, Douglas R. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660- 1720. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994, pp. 125 and 153.
29 heritage. Moreover, notaries and officials tended to apply racial labels with less frequency and consistency into the late eighteenth century. Even before that, New
Spain’s complex system of racial labeling had already been made more Byzantine because these labels had always expressed much more than a simple “biological” or descriptive category of the physical traits or lineage that an individual carried. Thus, with
Independence, the abolition of the colonial, centuries-old system of racial categories would not be so unthinkable or radical a project. Not only did doing away with the vestiges of the racial caste system seem expressive of the ideals of a modern and progressive state, but these labels had already come to signify extra-racial markers of social and economic status. As the nation developed, socioeconomic status seemed to grow more and more independent of racial labels and restrictions and would supersede them in cultural importance to the identity formation of the upwardly mobile, urban classes. Still, racial distinctions, ideologies and discourses did not disappear along with the official abolition of the racial caste system and the colony’s Blacks and consciousness of Blackness did not simply disappear in the passage between the colonial and national eras.
Recent research has shown that the Black population, including slaves and free- colored people of mixed heritage, was in fact not insignificant in size or social and economic activity at the end of the colonial and beginning of the national period. The population of free Blacks, by one estimate put at over 380,000 people, comprised as much as 6% of the total population of the colony.58 As historian Ben Vinson III shows, while there is debate over the estimated number of pardos, morenos and mulattos in
58 Vinson III, Ben. “The Racial Profile of a Rural Mexican Province in the ‘Costa Chica’: Igualapa in 1791” in The Americas, Vol. 57, No. 2 (October 2000), see footnote 1, pp. 269.
30 existence at the end of the colonial period, the fact that free Blacks “were highly dispersed, being found throughout the major urban centers, coastal zones, rural areas, and in selected portions of the northern frontier” is beyond dispute.59 In the Costa Chica
province of Igualapa, Vinson’s analysis of the military census of 1791 proves that in that
area, “free-coloreds had grown into one of the most important population groups” by the
late eighteenth century.60 Vinson concludes that “Igualapa’s estancias (rural, relatively
isolated and widespread settlements) appear to have evolved into free mulatto townships” that “served as a mechanism for preserving an Afro-Mexican heritage.”61 Vinson shows
that these heavily populated estancias were characterized by economic and social stability
due to high rates of locally-born mulattos, low immigration rates, self-sufficient
economies and geographic isolation that “most likely created a climate that favored the
creation of a relatively uninterrupted Afro-Mexican cultural heritage.”62 Many towns, as
Vinson shows, remained uninterrupted, at least until Independence.
At the point of this critical juncture of the identity formation of Mexicans, the
abolition of racial categories and the ideological ascendance of mestizaje, intellectuals
and politicians were quick to announce the disappearance of Blacks and Blackness from
the Mexican identity and from the Mexican consciousness. But again, it is much too
simplistic to attribute the post-Independence Black exception to the fact of a presumably
“natural” process of racial mixing, as if racial mixing necessarily leads to assimilation in
the form of complete annihilation of one race or ethnicity and the domination of another.
If we approach the colonial and pre-independence period from the perspective of the
59 Ibid., pp. 269. 60 Ibid., 271-272. 61 Ibid., pp. 282. 62 Ibid., pp. 278.
31 Black Mexican we can see that the process of its eventual erasure from the historical scene and national identity of Mexico was much more complex, and by all means, hardly inevitable. This history is instructive precisely because it shows us that the important question to ask is not the degree to which Black Mexicans contributed a distinct
“Africanness” to the racial mixture or to the national culture, or even how many Black
Mexicans may still exist today. As Laura Lewis so compellingly demonstrates, this approach reinforces the ideology of African as a signifier of difference, a practice in both scholarship and in cultural production that continues to “fashion blackness as difference while developing its consequent value to the nation.”63 Her ethnographic analysis of the
process of identity formation from the point of view of the residents of a historically
Black village on the Costa Chica shows that while scholars debate the disappearance and reemergence of Blacks, the people of the village of San Nicolas Tolentino have all the while engaged their own quite effective strategies for national identity construction and belonging that do not fit neatly into the scholar’s paradigms of race, ethnicity and citizenship.
The history of slavery and the caste system in the period of Spanish rule (1519-
1821) is more than a prelude to nineteenth-century negotiations over national identity, race, ethnicity, gender and the social order. It seems to me that the colonial racial system
that not only interchanged the category of “slave” with “Black” but also placed the two
categories at the bottom of the social system, laid the initial social and political
foundations that would make possible, and make so complete, the modern state’s efforts
63 Lewis, Laura A. “Blacks, Black Indians, Afromexicans: The Dynamics of Race, Nation, and Identity in a Mexican Moreno Community (Guerrero)” in American Ethnologist, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2000), pp. 902.
32 to marginalize Blacks as much as possible within the social landscape in order to control a dangerous new subject in the full bloom of its development: the Mexican citizen.
The trade in African slaves, their subjugation, liberation and eventual integration are among the most important of factors in Mexican history. The extent to which New
Spain was involved in slave-trading and the exploitation of Black slave labor is also not popularly known in Mexico today. It is surprising for many to learn that of the 689 slave ships that sailed to the Spanish colonies, between 1595 and 1622, approximately 47% went to Mexico.64 Cope points out that prior to that, between the first year of conquest in
1521 and 1594, 36,500 slaves arrived in Mexico.65 Mexico saw its peak years for slave
imports from 1607-1611 and 1619 with 6400 and 6500 slaves imported in those years,
respectively.66 So many slaves were imported within the first one hundred years after
colonization that “in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Mexico employed
more enslaved Africans than any other country in the Americas.”67
Disease and genocide had led to the deaths of millions of the native peoples,
wiping out of the indigenous supply of slave labor for the economy of the Kingdom of
New Spain, which soon came to rely extensively on Black slave labor.68 The Indian
population was decimated, dropping from eleven million in 1519 to about one and a
quarter million in 1646.69 Between 1550 and 1570, the population continued to be
64 Palmer, Colin A. Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico 1570-1650. (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 14-15. 65 Cope, Douglas R. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660- 1720. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994, pp. 13. 66 Palmer, 16-17 67 Muhammad, Jameelah S. “Mexico and Central America” in No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today. ed. Minority Rights Group (United Kingdom: Minority Rights Group, 1995), pp. 164. 68 Pi-Sunyer, Oriol. “Historical Background to the Negro in Mexico” The Journal of Negro History, 42 (October, 1957), pp. 242. 69 Ibid., 239.
33 diminished by 2 to 4 percent per year.70 As early as June 26, 1523, the King had to instruct Hernan Cortés to segregate Indians in their own villages to prevent mistreatment
and stem further genocide.71 In the racial economy of New Spain, Blacks and Indians
were negative values to be calculated, measured and traded, often against each other.
To justify the enslavement of Blacks, proponents claimed that one Black was worth four Indians. Blacks, it was said, were able to survive harsh weather and work conditions that neither Indians nor whites could. Thus it was, perhaps ironically, believed that Blacks were physically superior to Indians and whites.72 That myth dominated the
colonial period in spite of the fact that in the sixteenth-century Blacks were as vulnerable as any group to the common diseases such as yellow fever, tuberculosis and syphilis.73
After slavery was abolished, the discourse about physical superiority quickly changed and Blacks were seen as physically inferior, attesting to how easily these once firmly held beliefs could be changed to fit a particular agenda.74 Still, one thing did not change throughout the entire colonial period and into the development of the Mexican state: the idea that Blacks were seen as mala raza, an inferior race. Colonists had already erased and to an extent forgotten their own history with respect to the active role of Blacks in their New World “enterprise.”
70 Cook, Sherburne F. and Woodrow Borah. “The Rate of Population Change in Central Mexico, 1550- 1570,” Hispanic American Historical Review. 37:4 November, 1957, pp. 467. 71 Love, Edgar F. “Legal Restrictions on Afro-Indian Relations In Colonial Mexico,” The Journal of Negro History. 55:2 (April, 1970), pp. 131. 72 Diggs, Irene. “Color in Colonial Spanish America” in Journal of Negro History, 28:4 (October, 1953), 403-427. pp. 409. 73 Muhammad, 165. 74 Diggs, Irene. “Color in Colonial Spanish America” in Journal of Negro History, 28:4 (October, 1953), pp. 410.
34 The first Blacks to set foot in what was then New Spain arrived with the conquistadors. Hernan Cortes himself brought six “negro slaves” with him on his first arrival.75 He [Cortés] “carried with him from Cuba not only Indian servants but Negro
slaves who helped to drag along the artillery which he used to strike mortal terror into the
Indians of Mexico.”76 The first Blacks to arrive in New Spain thus actively participated
in the exploration of nearly every important region from New Mexico to Chile.77 These slaves would be among the first to explore the new world and leave a lasting impact on its history and future. A slave, Juan Garrido, for example, was the first to plant wheat in
Mexico.78 “Esteban el Negro (‘Steven the Black’), better known as Estebanico, explored
northern Mexico, including Texas and New Mexico, and later helped found the legendary
city of Cibola, a voyage that would precipitate his death.79 But the history of Blacks in
Mexico rarely recounts the stories of its explorers and adventurers, the participants and makers of history. In the popular imagination, the two dominant tropes are Blacks as slaves and chattel—the objects of the human trade and exploitation of people of African origin—and Blacks as rebels and troublemakers, the outsiders of the colonial period
(1519-1821). These two broad narratives are believed to be comprehensive of the Black experience in the New World, and both mark Blacks as marginal or even dangerous to the development of Mexican society in general. However, as von Germeten points out, “In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, Africans and their descendants were
75 Pi-Sunyer, Oriol. “Historical Background to the Negro in Mexico” The Journal of Negro History, 42 (October, 1957), pp. 238-239. 76 Rippy, J. Fred. “The Negro and the Spanish Pioneer in the New World,” Journal of Negro History. 6 (April, 1921), pp. 184. 77 Ibid., 183. 78 Rippy, 184; Marques Rodiles, Ignacio. “The Slave Trade With America, Negroes in Mexico” Freedomways. (Winter 1962), pp. 39. 79 Muhammad, Jameelah S. “Mexico and Central America” in No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today. ed. Minority Rights Group. United Kingdom: Minority Rights Group, 1995, pp. 163.
35 more likely to organize confraternities than to rebel against viceregal authorities.”80
Moreover, through these confraternities and other social organizations and forms of
community, Blacks were able to achieve a measure of prosperity and even social mobility
and integration in the colonial period. This progress, however, would remain limited as
long as the racial caste system continued to “regulate” access to economic sectors, certain trades and positions and influenced the formation of individual and group identities.
This caste system was dictated and rationalized by religious laws and meant to be an expression of the superiority of certain groups. Cope argues that from the start of colonialism develop the “gente dencete-plebe” model which made distinction between
“noble” and “common” people, even amongst Spaniards. By the mid-seventeenth century, however, there is strong evidence that suggests that systema de castas “had achieved institutionalized form in Mexico City.” In this system, in which individuals were assigned rank based on lineage, all forms of Spaniards were contrasted with the numerous castas.81 The system was employed in the record-keeping of the churches.
Marriages, births and baptisms were recorded in two separate parochial books, one for
Spaniards and one for the castas, in which priests were required to record the race of the
individual(s). Race was defined through variations of mixture between two of the three main races—White, Indian and Black. One can see how, as more and more African slaves earned their freedom, and as the population of free-colored and mixed race persons grew and became more and more “Hispanicized” in culture and religion, that racial distinctions would become more and more purely a matter of “color” (both skin color and
80 Von Germeten, pp. 103. 81 Cope, Douglas R. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660- 1720. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994, pp. 22-24.
36 supposed racial heritage). The caste system’s degree of complexity in its categories and definitions reflects colonial society’s growing obsession with race, including with the colony’s diversifying Black population. The following is a sampling of the casta categories used in baptism, marriage, and death registers that were used throughout the three hundred years of Spanish colonial rule:
♦ ESPANOL (Habitually entered in special books along with “indios nobles”)Φ ♦ INDIO ♦ NEGRO ♦ Mestizo (Spanish and Indian) ♦ Castizo (Spanish and Mestizo) ♦ Mulato (Spanish and Negro) ♦ Morisco (Spanish and mulatto) ♦ Pardo or Lobo (Indian and Negro) ♦ Coyote (Indian and mulatto) ♦ Chino (Indian and lobo)
Naming specific racial mixtures grew in complexity with each generation.82 In addition,
labels were created to describe dizzyingly specific variations within each “caste.” Blacks who were of a particular shade of dark were called “atezados” while those who were considered of extremely dark skin tone were labeled “negros retintos” (double-dyed).83
Other labels such as “Cafres de Pasa” or “Raisin Kaffirs” defined particular variations on hair texture.84 These categories also changed according to region, parish priest, or
record-keeper. In other words, there was no standard system of labeling.
As unwieldy as the system was, its persistence throughout the colonial period had
real consequences for colonial subjects. Racial designations stipulated social and legal
Φ Indians who came from noble families were given the status and rights of Spaniards. 82 Pagden, Anthony. “Identity Formation in Spanish America” in Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800. Ed. Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagden. New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987. Pp. 80. 83 Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. “Races in 17th Century Mexico,” in Phylon, 6:3 (1945), pp. 213. 84 Roncal, Joaquin. “The Negro Race in Mexico” Hispanic America Historical Review. 24 (August, 1944), pp. 533.
37 status and crossing caste borders sometimes opened the door to a higher socioeconomic level. The majority of subjects would never have that opportunity and would have to live their lives within the limits set largely by and through the caste system. Everyone, with the exception of Spaniards, was forced to pay tribute. Among the highest paying tributes were those of mulatos and free Blacks.85 In addition, castas were not allowed to own land, carry weapons, or hold clerical and ecclesiastical positions.86 Even though
authorities also tried to impose marriage restrictions, these often failed.
In his seminal book, The Limits of Racial Domination, Robert Cope points out
that maintaining a “purity of blood” through endogamous marriage norms were important
for the Spaniards alone. Spaniards could trace their ancestors all the way to Spain
whereas the lower classes (or plebeians, as Cope refers to them) would rarely refer to the
race of their parents. Castas often de-emphasized racial lineage in favor of their regional
associations or origins, fashioning positive social identities on a sense of place that transcended racial categories. Whites, on the other hand, “continued to hold out racial and ethnic identification as important criteria for entrance into their ranks.”87 When
racial identity was important to castas, it “…provoked an obsessive search for the
‘Spanish’ in their lineage.”88 The casta system paradoxically was more effective for
controlling and regulating the behavior and racial identity of the Spaniards at the top than
the majority of society who found ways to inter-marry, cross racial boundaries or evade
85 Cope, Douglas R. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660- 1720. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994, pp. 21; Sierra, Catalina. El Nacimiento de Mexico. Mexico: Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, 1960, pp. 83. 86 Cope, pp. 16. 87 Carroll, Patrick J. Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity and Regional Development. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. Pp., 148. 88 Castillo Palma, Norma Angélica. “Los Estatutos de ‘pureza de sangre’ como medio de acceso a las elites: el caso de la región de Puebla” in Círculos de Poder en la Nueva España, ed., Carmen Castañeda (Mexico: Miguel Angel Parrua, 1998), pp. 112-113.
38 racial labels. Integration into the economy and social realm is seen as a process of
“Hispanicization” that comes at the price of losing their own specific cultural identities:
“Hispanicization, the partly coerced, partly voluntary adoption of the colonial version of
Spanish culture by the indigenous and African population blurred the lines between the castas and made for considerable upward mobility.”89 But, as we can see from von
Germeten’s and Vinson’s work, free Blacks and mixed race Blacks were prevalent and active across the colony and in many sectors of society right up until the late colonial
period.
The consciousness of racial difference as embodied and practiced in the casta
system was alive and well, even as social identities not marked by race grew in
importance and as racial mixing continued to blur the significance of these boundaries.
Revisiting the experience of Blacks in the colonial period is important as a caution
against the tendency to blame Blacks themselves for their eventual exclusion from
Mexico’s national identity. If Blacks did not seek themselves to maintain a separate
cultural identity in the face of massive political and ideological systems of exploitation of
Black slave labor and continual devaluation of Blackness, does this also mean they were
responsible for their systematic erasure from the political, social and cultural construction
of the new nation they clearly helped to pave the way for? The following chapters seek
to answer this question in a definitive manner.
89 van den, Berghe. Pierre L. Race and Racism A Comparative Perspective. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1967. 45.
39
BIBLIOGRAPHY—CHAPTER 1
ARCHIVES
Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City—AGN
Archivo Municipal de Cordona, Cordoba, Veracruz, Mexico—AMC
BOOKS & ARTICLES
Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. “The Slave Trade in Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 24, No. 3. (Aug., 1944).
Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. “Races in 17th Century Mexico,” in Phylon, 6:3 (1945).
Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. “The Integration of the Negro into the National Society of Mexico” in Race and Class in Latin America, ed., Magnus Morner (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970).
Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. La Población Negra de México. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1972.
Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. El Negro Esclavo en Nueva España: La formación colonial, la medicina popular y otros ensayos. México: Universidad Veracruzana, 1994.
Andrews, George Reid. Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Bartra, Armando. “Los grandes caciques de la independencia” in Guerrero Bronco. Tepepan, Mexico, D.F.: Ediciones Sinfiltro, 1996.
Bennett, Herman L. Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro- Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003.
Carroll, Patrick J. Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity and Regional Development. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.
Castillo Palma, Norma Angélica. “Los Estatutos de ‘pureza de sangre’ como medio de acceso a las elites: el caso de la región de Puebla” in Círculos de Poder en la Nueva España, ed., Carmen Castañeda. México: Miguel Ángel Parrua, 1998.
40
Cook, Sherburne F. and Woodrow Borah. “The Rate of Population Change in Central Mexico, 1550-1570,” Hispanic American Historical Review. 37 (November 4, 1957).
Cope, Douglas R. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660-1720. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
Cruz Contreras, Alejandra and Norma Elizabeth Esquivel Martinez. “Sobrevivir o asimilarse:” El espacio afromestizo en Mexico y sus transformaciones, el caso de Chacalapa, Veracruz, Master’s Thesis. Mexico, D.F.: Escuela Nacional de Antropología e historia, 2000.
Davidson, David M. “Negro Slave Control and Resistance in Colonial Mexico, 1519- 1650” in Hispanic American Historical Review, no. 46 (August, 1966).
Diggs, Irene. “Color in Colonial Spanish America” in Journal of Negro History, 28:4 (October, 1953).
Historia General de España y America: emancipacion y nacionalidades americanas, Tomo XIII. Madrid, Spain: Ediciones Rialp, S. A.
Lanning, John Tate. “The Case of Jose Ponseano de Ayarza: A Document on the Negro in Higher Education” in Hispanic American Historical Review (August, 1944).
Lewis, Laura A. “Blacks, Black Indians, Afromexicans: The Dynamics of Race, Nation, and Identity in a Mexican Moreno Community (Guerrero)” in American Ethnologist, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2000): 898-926.
Love, Edgar F. “Legal Restrictions on Afro-Indian Relations In Colonial Mexico.” The Journal of Negro History. 55:2 (April, 1970).
Love, Edgar F. “Marriage Patterns of Persons of African Descent in a Colonial Mexico City Parish” in Hispanic American Historical Review, 51:4 (February 1971). Marques Rodiles, Ignacio. “The Slave Trade With America, Negroes in Mexico” Freedomways. (Winter 1962).
McLaughlin, Colin and Jaime Rodriguez O.. The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
Muhammad, Jameelah S. “Mexico and Central America” in No Longer Invisible: Afro- Latin Americans Today. Ed., Minority Rights Group. United Kingdom: Minority Rights Group, 1995.
Pagden, Anthony. “Identity Formation in Spanish America” in Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800. Ed. Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagden. New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987.
41
Palmer, Colin A. Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico 1570-1650. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964.
Pérez Munguía, Patricia. “De libertad y legislación para negros siglo XVIII” in El rostro colectivo de la nación Mexicana. Ed., Maria Guadalupe Chavez Carbaja. México: Instituto de investigaciones históricas de la universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1997.
Pi-Sunyer, Oriol. “Historical Background to the Negro in Mexico” The Journal of Negro History, 42 (October, 1957).
Reales Asientos y licencia para introducción de esclavos negros a la América Española, 1676-1789. Windsor, Ontario, Canada: Rolston-Bain, 1985.
Rippy, J. Fred. “The Negro and the Spanish Pioneer in the New World,” Journal of Negro History. 6 (April, 1921).
Roncal, Joaquín. “The Negro Race in Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Aug., 1944).
Sierra, Catalina. El Nacimiento de México. México: Universidad Autónoma de México, 1960.
Valdés, Dennis N. “The Decline of Slavery in Mexico” in The Americas, vol. XLIV, no. 2 (Oct. 1987). van den, Berghe. Pierre L. Race and Racism A Comparative Perspective. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1967.
Venegas, Francisco Xavier. Bando. (Crown, Octubre 15, 1805). Mexico, Diciembre 18, 1810.
Vinson III, Ben. “The Racial Profile of a Rural Mexican Province in the ‘Costa Chica’: Igualapa in 1791” in The Americas, Vol. 57, No. 2 (October 2000).
Von Germeten, Nicole. Black Blood Brothers: Confraternities and Social Mobility for Afro-Mexicans. Florida: University of Florida, 2006.
CHAPTER 2
INVENTING MEXICO: RACE AND THE DISCOURSE OF INDEPENDENCE
In 1821, after more than a decade of anti-colonial insurgency and three centuries of
colonial domination, the territory of Nueva España entered a new era as an independent
nation. Under the leadership of Agustín Iturbide, Mexico’s own “Napoleon,” the Plan de
Iguala was forced upon the Viceroy, and soon the former Spanish colony would officially
re-name itself “Mexico.” With the notable exception of the category of slaves, which
would continue to be legal after independence, the new nation declared that its
inhabitants were to be Mexican, equal in the eyes of its new, distinctly anti-colonial legal and social institutions. The distinction between colonialism and independence, however, did not in reality entail a shift in power from the hands of the few into the hands of the now equally deserving pueblo. Blacks and Indians remained isolated and
disenfranchised, economically, socially and politically, despite the presumably radical
abolition of the former colony’s intricate and powerful system of racial categories.
But, as becomes obvious to anyone seeking to research the nineteenth century, the
Mexican republic’s abandonment of the vile racial caste system as a stigma of the
oppressive colonial past did not actually lead to a more just, equitable society. Rather, it
was more an expression of the desire to construct and project a national image of freedom 43 and equality in spite of intractable inequality. For the historian, the post-independence disappearance of racial categories from local and federal record-keeping and largely from public consciousness presents practical challenges. However, as much as those in power sought to obscure the continuing struggles of specific, under-represented groups from the national consciousness, their persistence and significance to Mexican history remains a worthy, exciting project for us today.
So far, the relevance of Blacks to Mexican independence remains largely unexplored, and their role seen as limited to the benefits of the abolition of slavery eight years after independence. Historically, though, Blacks can be seen as an active part of
Mexico’s development. In this chapter I argue that the process of Mexican independence, from the mobilization of a people to their consolidation as a national entity, itself is fraught with questions that must include the experience of Blacks.
Arguably, the rhetoric of equality and citizenship became the most powerful and effective form of persuasion for their participation. Through public discourse, appeals to equality and shared independence overpowered more tangible rewards as the rebellion’s most effective rallying cry. I seek to show how discourses around citizenship, freedom, and equality during the independence movement appealed to or were applied by non-whites, examining the efforts to convince Blacks and other castas to fight for the cause of independence.90 More than joining the movement on impulse, these discourses had to be
inviting to the pueblo since once independence was won, the rhetoric of freedom and
equality had to be put into practice. A transformation had to occur to consolidate the
90 Even though “non-whites”were by no means homogenous I use the term to distinguish them from all Spaniards, including criollos.
44 different groups into one nation. What did the elites, at the forefront of nationalization, believe would attract certain types of people to their efforts and what, at the opposite end of the spectrum, motivated the lowest segment of society to fight for a vision of a new nation? These questions are important in signaling what type of nation was imagined, who would participate in it, and in what fashion. Because we lack the testimony of Black participants, it is difficult to know for certain the reasons that particular Blacks may have had for participating in the war for independence. However, one way to begin is to analyze the incentives offered to them by insurgents and royalists—supporters of independence and supporters of Spanish rule, respectively—and the visions of the future imagined for them by political and social ‘superiors.’ Even though the participation by non-whites in these movements is not in itself evidence that they accepted these discourses, it does allow us to gage the possible reasons why they might have joined.
THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
On September 16, 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811), an ordained priest, delivered his famous grito for Independence. This is considered the beginning of the first authentic, colony-wide movement for Mexican Independence, and it is remarkable in the speed and scope of its growth within mere days of Hidalgo’s initial call. At the dawn of the sixteenth of September, Hidalgo was joined by fifteen men but, by “the morning of the sixteenth they became 600; in twelve more days they were 30,000; a month later
80,000 and at the crucial battle of Calderon bridge, on January 16, 1811, exactly four
45 months after his call to liberate, father Hidalgo could look back upon a following of
100,000 insurgents.”91
Hidalgo, distinct from his rebellious predecessors, spoke directly to the masses as
protagonists of their own fate and, more importantly, of the war for independence as a
legitimate and natural struggle by a people for its own land. By employing terms such as
“ciudadanos” and “Americans” to denote the categorical difference between the
American-born and European-born Spaniards, Hidalgo established the foreign-ness of
Spanish rule, and of Creole defenders of royalism. Hidalgo’s most passionate effort may
have been his 1810 manifesto to the people, in which he called all those born in New
Spain to unite against their common foreign enemy.92 Through these tactics, Hidalgo was able to increase his following not only among the American-born masses within days of the initial call for independence, but more specifically, among non-whites.
There is no doubt that Hidalgo’s rhetoric had wide appeal. Arguing for the justice and necessity of New Spain’s independence, Manuel de la Barcena, parish priest of the cathedral of Valladolid who first supported the Spanish monarchy and, subsequently,
New Spain’s independence, cast the war with Spain as the twin movement of a subjugated people fighting for its lost liberty and sovereignty, and of an essentially loyal community of colonists justly emancipating itself from a defunct metropole. Barcena openly argued that the Indians were unjustly subjugated and that the American-born
91 Hefter, J., “The Insurgents of 1810” in Los Insurgentes de 1810 Numero 2 de la serie “Documento Históricos Militares” (México: Publicación del Instituto Internacional de Historia Militar, A.C., 1964), pp. 85. 92 Hidalgo y Costilla, Miguel. Manifiesto que el Sr. D. Hidalgo y Costilla, Generalísimo de las Armas Americanas, y electo por la mayor parte de los pueblos del reyno para defender sus derechos y los de sus conciudadanos, hace al pueblo. Guadalajara, Diciembre 1810. Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut. Here forth referred to as TDRC.
46
“Spaniards and castas” deserved independence from Spain.93 Everyone in New Spain,
wrote Barcena, stood to benefit from independence. Thus, a common oppression
stemmed from a shared experience in a colonial system in which the oppressor was the
Spaniard (or the gachupín). According to George Reid Andrews “movements for
Spanish American independence originated not in the core regions of African and Indian
forced labor but on the peripheries, where mestizos outnumbered Indians and whites and
free blacks and mulattoes outnumbered slaves.”94 In a rallying speech Hidalgo
proclaimed:
Who would have thought, beloved citizens, that the sagacity and gall of the gachupines would have come so far? They profane the most sacred things in order to ensure their intolerable domination. Open your eyes, fellow Americans, do not let yourselves be seduced by our enemy.95
Hidalgo understood the need for the support from the pueblo, who after all, made up the
majority of the population. The stark military disparity with the well-armed and trained
Spanish army did not deter Hidalgo from recruiting peasants, nor were these discouraged
from joining the insurgents. The pueblo, who comprised 99% of the population, was
relatively unequipped and unprepared for battle.96 In the face of this deficit of arms and
troops, ordinary people from the lowest rungs of society were still attracted to rally to
Hidalgo’s seemingly hopeless cause. One incentive to join the insurgent movement was
the possibility to gain social status. The title of colonel was offered to any recruit who
93 Barcena, Manuel de la. Manifiesto al mundo. La justicia y la necesidad de la independencia de la Nueva España. Puebla y México: Ontiveros, 1821, pp. 3., JCB. 94 Andrews, George Reid. Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000 (Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 54. 95 Hefter, J., pp. 85. 96 Ibid., pp. 86.
47 brought one thousand soldiers or more along with him.97 In response to the rebellion’s
entrepreneurial approach, on October 24, 1810, Viceroy Xavier Venegas allocated funds
to reward soldiers who distinguished themselves in battle on behalf of Spain.98 In addition, royalists tried to discourage rebellion by making illegal the possession of weapons under penalty of forced military service.99
What is most significant about Hidalgo’s appeal to the pueblo was his
understanding that it was primarily an appeal to the castas—those of a mixed-race
category. In 1810, Fernando Navarro y Noriega, accountant for the New Spanish
government, estimated that there were 1,097,927 “Spaniards,” 3,676,281 Indians and
1,338,706 castas of all racial mixtures.100 Fearing that indeed the castas might join the
insurgent movement, on October 5, 1810, Venegas decreed that Indians, mulatos and
Blacks would stop paying tribute. He also asked for lands to be distributed to them.101
Thus, the struggle began for the favor of the castas.
Also of importance is the way that discourses of freedom from tyranny helped to unify the castas with the American-born Spaniards in spite of the fact that these discourses equalized all of New Spanish society in a way that was hardly an accurate reflection of everyday life or actual structures of power. The elite criollos (American- born Spaniards) successfully portrayed themselves as victims of tyranny, aligning
97 Hefter, J., 86. 98 Venegas de Saavedra, Francisco Xavier, Broadside, 24 de Octubre, 1810. John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Here forth referred to as JCB. 99 Callejas, Félix, Broadside, 13 de Enero, 1815. JCB. 100 Ochoa Serrano, Alvaro. “Los Africanos en México antes de Aguirre Beltrán (1821-1924)” in El rostro colectivo de la nación Mexicana. Ed., Maria Guadalupe Chaves Carbajal. México: Instituto de investigaciones históricas de la universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1997. Pp. 170. It is important to note that mestizos and criollos are included in the category of “Spaniard.” 101 Llorens Fabregat, Carmen. Proclamación de la abolición de la esclavitud. México: Comisión Nacional para las Celebraciones del 175 Aniversario de la Independencia Nacional y 75 Aniversario de la Revolución Mexicana, 1985. pp. 19.
48 themselves with the plight of the castas and their unjust “enslavement” over the past three centuries.102 There is evidence that alliances were made—a comradeship formed based on a mutual “slavery” suffered under the non-American born Spaniards. The concept of shared liberty would henceforth be associated with a patria inclusive of former castas and criollos.103
Genuine alliances across classes were indeed formed, as “members of the struggling bourgeoisie in formation led broad alliances of diverse groups united through their common opposition to Mexico’s small dominant class.”104 Among these alliances were Indians and other members of the castas, who were promised that once Spain was ousted, the distribution of power would be equal. Perhaps as a sign of good faith, the most obvious symbol of inequality, the caste system of racial distinctions, was abolished and officially proclaimed a vestige of colonial tyranny.
José María Morelos y Pavón, who continued the struggle for independence after
Hidalgo’s capture and execution in 1811, had an interest in the dismantling of the caste system. He is believed to be of African ancestry, yet most historians usually describe
102 Quijada, Mónica. “Que Nación? Dinámicas y dicotomías de la nación en el imaginario hispano americano del siglo XIX” in Imaginar la nación edited by Guerra, François-Xavier and Mónica Quijada. Munster, Hamburg: Asociación de Historiadores latinoamericanistas europeos, 1994. Pp. 42-43. 103 The key concept in the independence of Latin America is not nation but patria. Patria is understood as a filial loyalty tied to a location and a territory (Quijada, 20). The association of “patria” with “nation” led to a selective, elaboration and construction of historic memories that acted to legitimate the new political units as factors of affirmation in the present and the imposition of an “American identity.” “Above all, it acted as a factor in penetrating the social memory, characteristically heterogeneous and articulated in a dominant/dominated dialectic” (Quijada, 37). Patria would later become congruent to freedom (Quijada, 21). In the name of that patria “Americans” would begin to break away from the Spanish government and would start to form civic nations, with egalitarian laws and customs, a unified economy and a common education that would help produce free and equal citizens (Quijada, 21). Loyalty to the patria moved from Spain to “America” to “Mexico.” However, Quijada points out that although these were not necessarily part of the collective imagination (Quijada, 28). 104 Guardino, Peter and Charles Walker. “The State, Society, and Politics in Peru and Mexico in the Late Colonial and Early Republican Periods” in Latin American Perspectives, v19, n2, i73 (Spring 1992). Pp. 27.
49 him as “mestizo,” a reference to a person of mixed Indian and Spanish ancestry.105 Prior to the end of the caste system, Morelos may have purchased the more socially appropriate label. Somehow, his birth certificate was also changed from bearing the designation of
“mulatto,” a label bearing African heritage, to read “criollo.”106 Clearly, the cultural and
social meaning of racial designations would not lose their power over the long night of
revolution.
Morelos himself proposed a system of social divisions based, not on race, but on
place of origin. On November 17, 1810 Morelos declared that in the new nation labels
such as “Indio,” “mulatos” or “castas” would be replaced by a simpler division between
“European” and “American.” Morelos wrote that, “in one word, compatriots are all of
those who reside in America, and who acknowledge our esteemed Fernando VII as
sovereign, and who adore and believe in the catholic religion, whether we were born here
or there, from here or from the other side of the oceans.”107 Perhaps this was Morelos’s
attempt at unifying the castas by asking them to imagine themselves as part of one land,
as opposed to the victims of a colonial system.
Historians generally agree that the popular response to Hidalgo’s and Morelos’
rhetoric was swift and unequivocally positive. In fact, the movement is often understood
as if it were some kind of muscular ground swelling of revolt, which Hidalgo and
Morelos and others were swept up in and sought to direct. “Mexicans lived under this
rigidly structured racial hierarchy until 1810, when the people went up against their
105 Vincent, Ted. “The Blacks Who Freed Mexico” in Journal of Negro History. Volume LXXIV, No. 3 (Summer 1994), pp. 258; Hefter, J., pp. 88. 106 Muhammad, Jameelah S. “Mexico and Central America” in No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today. Ed., Minority Rights Group. United Kingdom: Minority Rights Group, 1995. pp. 169. 107 Foncerrada, Melchor de. Foncerrada Michoacanense, oidor de México habla a sus compatriotas por la felicidad pública. México: Arizpe, 1810. pp. 4. TDRC.
50 masters. It is no accident that the rallying cry for the revolution was ‘¡Independencia!
¡Que mueran los gachupines!’–Death to the white devils! They had lived and suffered under it ever since they were born as a people. It is a yoke they unwillingly bore and constantly sought to cast off.”108 Yet, more than simply a force, and source, of rebellious
energy, the castas comprised a complex society of differentiated groups with distinct
histories, needs, resources and visions of the directions a new nation might take.
The issue of slavery and of Blacks was an important theme taken up by both sides
throughout the independence movement. As early as 1808, the self-proclaimed
“Ciudadano Bético” argued for the importance of “Africans” in Spain’s war against
France.109 The insurgents for their part were able to universalize the plight of actual slaves, turning the slavery of Blacks into a symbol for everyone’s lack of freedom. The trope of slavery remained popular throughout the successive battles over independence.
“Our nation, fellow citizens, is in danger. We, free men, we alone will be at fault if by disgrace the heavy chains of slavery oppress us once more…No, it cannot be; no more oppression…”110 But, alongside these symbolic references were sincere appeals to those who were in fact actual slaves. Slavery, like the caste system, after all, was a function of the tyranny of Spanish rule.
For a successful movement, though, ending slavery was not enough. Hidalgo clearly understood the importance of the active participation of slaves, specifically, in the
struggle. He acted quickly and decisively in this regard, leaving no doubt that the
abolishment of slavery and the participation of Blacks in the movement were an integral
108 Gomez, David F. Somos Chicanos: Strangers in Our Own Land. Boston: Beacon Press, 1973, pp. 30-31. 109 El Ciudadano Bético, Proclama. Veracruz, Septiembre 22, 1808, pp. 3. TDRC 110 A. R., “El amante de la constitución,” 1820. JCB.
51 part of the future. In the first month of the insurgence, Hidalgo declared the end to both caste laws as well as slavery. On October 19, 1810, he imposed the penalty of death and the confiscation of property for slave owners who refused to free their slaves, prohibited the slave trade, under penalty of death proclaimed the end of slave trafficking, and suppressed the casta tribute payment.111 Before his death, Hidalgo also claimed that the
abolition of slavery meant that former slaves held a social status equal to the Spaniard.
Hidalgo’s promise to end slavery appealed directly to the estimated 10,000 slaves in New
Spain and to the fifteen percent of the population who were of African descent in the
Bajío region where Hidalgo launched the grito for independence.112 Similarly, title
fifteen of Morelos’s September 14, 1813 decree reiterated that both slavery and the caste
system were to be abolished forever.113 In the new republic, social distinctions would be
based on each American’s ambition and virtue.114
These appeals to Blacks are less historical anomalies than a logical consequence
of the fact that Afro-castas were a visible and active part of colonial society, and not only
as slaves who, of course, provided an important source of labor. Although no count of slaves is included, the 1810 census of the colony indicates that of the 1,338,706 castas,
635,461 were no doubt free persons with some degree of African descent.115 To be more
111 Llorens Fabregat, pp. 19. 112 These estimates are for the year 1800. Vincent, Pp. 257. 113 “The Afro-Mexican role in the war is obscured, in part, because insurgent politics were aimed at minimizing race to maximize unity” Unfortunately, one of the results of these tactics is that without the use of racial labels, it is difficult to know to what extent Blacks participated in the movement. (Vincent, 259- 260). Morelos had wanted people to think in terms of nationality and not race. The abolishment of the caste system meant not just fighting for independence from Spain but also freedom. 114 Morelos, Jose Maria. “Sentimientos de la nación. 14 de septiembre, 1813” in Dos Etapas de la Independencia. Ed. Xavier Tavera Alfaro. Mexico: Departamento de Difusion Cultural e Intercambio Universitario, 1966. 115 Ochoa Serrano, Alvaro. “Los Africanos en Mexico antes de Aguirre Beltran (1821-1924)” in El rostro colectivo de la nacion Mexicana. Ed., Maria Guadalupe Chaves Carbajal. Mexico: Instituto de
52 specific, as of 1791, “there were nearly twenty times as many blacks and mulattoes as
Spaniards” in New Spain.116 So, while the number of slaves may have been relatively
small at the outbreak of insurgency, the Black presence in the colony was considerable
due to the large number of castas who had a significant degree of African blood. The
independence movement would certainly seek to take advantage of their military
experience.
In spite of laws that prohibited certain groups from using firearms or wearing the
silk and expensive decorations to which other militia men were entitled, many Afro-
castas were aptly qualified to join the fighting ranks of the rebellion, since, in colonial
Mexico, free Blacks had been obligated to serve time in local militias.117 When the
colonies were initially organized, Spain left defense of the colony to its vassals. In 1760,
Spain finally instituted a formal military in the colonies. But, prior to that, only
Spaniards could serve in the military because it was believed that the castas could not be
trusted with weapons or the defense of the colony. Many Spaniards did not like serving
and applied for transfers as soon as they set foot in the colonies. At the local level
colonial militias were bastions of racism. Ben Vinson III recounts that in 1797, for
example, a set of legal restrictions limited the number of Blacks who could serve as
investigaciones historicas de la universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo, 1997. Pp. 170. It is important to note that mestizos and criollos are included in the category of “Spaniard.” 116 Lewis, Laura A. “Blacks, Black Indians, Afromexicans: The Dynamics of Race, Nation, and Identity in a Mexican Moreno Community (Guerrero)” in American Ethnologist, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2000): 903. 117Aguirre Beltran, “The Integration of the Negro into the National Society of Mexico” in Race and Class in Latin America, ed., Magnus Morner. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970. pp.17-18; Anderson, Rodney. “Race and Social Stratification: A Comparison of Working-Class Spaniards, Indians, and Castas in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1821.” Hispanic American Historical Review, 68:2 (May 1988): 219-241. Pp. 213. Ben Vinson argues that the participation of “free-coloreds” in the militias varied according to location. In Veracruz in 1758, for example, four companies were comprised of 268 negros/pardos whereas in other areas, like Puebla, they were simply categorized as “pardos” or “racially-mixed” units. Vinson, Ben, Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico. California: Stanford University Press, 2001. pp. 19-24.
53 militia officers. Veracruz was the only city allowed to commission pardo or moreno commandants.118 This is not surprising considering that state’s history of slavery, as the
point of entry for slave ships.
Hidalgo and Morelos were so successful at recruiting Blacks that they nearly
filled the ranks of several segments of the Independence army. These regiments were
sometimes distinguished by flying a black flag.119 Some of the most intriguing episodes
of the war involved these regiments. In one, Morelos shrewdly used the advent of the
rainy season against the Spanish, knowing that the rain would lead to the spread of
yellow fever in the lowlands, to which many Blacks, but few whites were immune. Ted
Vincent adds that Morelos and his Black troops hid in the lowlands and waited for the
rain, but were almost foiled by an unexpected drought season during which their rations ran out. Holding out until the last possible moment, Morelos’s army made an exit in the
middle of the night. The next day the Spaniards entered their territory and prematurely declared victory. Within days, however, the rain arrived and so many died that the
Spanish were forced to withdraw from the area.120
Apart from the organized regiments of Morelos and Hidalgo Blacks were active in
other aspects of the war. Over a period of about five years, Blacks in Veracruz were able
to block the port to Spanish entry, sometimes for several months at a time.121 Free
Blacks, but also recently arrived slaves such as Juan del Carmen, Juan Bautista, Francisco
118 Vinson, Ben, Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico. California: Stanford University Press, 2001. pp. 215. 119 Vincent, pp. 264. 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid., 263.
54
Gomez and José María Alegre implemented these ambitious efforts.122 Among the
masterminds were Lino the “Negro Silversmith from Dolores,” identified by historian
Ted Vincent as the same Antonio Lino who led a guerrilla group in Guanajuato in 1813.
In that episode, as a large Spanish army was approaching the city, Lino ran through the
streets proclaiming that if the rebels could not stand and face the impending army, they
should at least kill all the Spanish prisoners before retreating. One hundred and thirty
eight prisoners were executed under his command.123
While Hidalgo and Morelos did their best to direct the violence and resentment
against the Spanish, not all Blacks bought into the distinction they were trying so
desperately to make. Among Morelos’s army were two officers who led campaigns
explicitly seeking the extermination of all Whites, including the American-born criollos.
Morelos had the officers executed for jeopardizing the war effort. But, more than the war
itself was threatened. For Morelos, the vision of the nation that was to emerge after the
war was also at stake.
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1812 AND THE NEW NATION
In the last years of the eighteenth century, the administration of the colonies experienced
constant changes in policy and direction. Spain had begun to implement reforms that
would improve the situation of African slaves and eliminate the distinctions that
marginalized the castas. On May 31, 1789 the first of these major reforms called for the
fulfillment of the obligations of slave owners. These included providing their slaves with
122 Muhammad, 168. 123 Vincent, 267.
55 education, food and dress, housing, medical attention.124 To slave owners, this
enforcement represented a loss of control and a sense of vulnerability, for now, slaves
could subject slave owners to accusations of neglect and thus of breaking the law.125
Because of the backlash by slave owners, these slave reforms were followed by more severe restrictions and repression of slaves and Blacks in the colony. These contradictions continued to plague the colony and were reflected in the constitution of
1812, two years after the initiation of the independence movement.
In an attempt to concede to some of the demands by the insurgent colonies, in what became known as the Cortes de Cadiz, representatives from Spain and its colonies gathered to create a limited constitution for the first time in New Spain. Article 18 of the
1812 Constitution granted residents of the Spanish dominions the name españoles and declared that españoles were citizens.126 However, Article 22 effectively excluded members of the castas from this definition by specifying that any individual who carried
African blood was denied citizenship.127 This contradiction was not allowed to stand without some debate among the delegates, some of whom pointed out the absurdity of
124 Historia General de España y América: emancipación y nacionalidades americanas, Tomo XIII. Madrid, Spain: Ediciones Rialp, S. A., pp. 34 125 Ibid, 34. 126 The 1812 Constitution did not differentiate between different classes of españoles. “Americans” and “Europeans” were regarded as one. In this sense, it was claimed that the nation was a union of all españoles, of different hemispheres. An español was someone born in the Spanish dominions and the children of these (Blanco Valdes, Roberto L. El “problema americano” en las primeras cortes liberales españolas 1810-1814. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, 1995. Pp. 31-32). It was believed that through this definition the colonies would gain equal representation against Spain. Not only that, there would be equality amongst españoles. Yet, there could be no equality while there were vecinos who were members of a political community with privileges (Guerra, François-Xavier, “El Soberano y su Reino: reflexiones sobre la génesis del ciudadano en américa latina” in Ciudadanía Política y Formación de las Naciones: perspectivas históricas de américa latina edited by Hilda Sabato. México: El Colegio de México, Fideicomiso historia de las américas, Fondo de cultura económica, 1999. Pp. 41). 127 Blanco Valdés, Roberto L. El “problema americano” en las primeras cortes liberales españolas 1810- 1814. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1995. pp. 33.
56 having created a class of persons of African ancestry who were simultaneously españoles and both members and non-members of society.128 Meanwhile, “the Spanish majority in
the Cortes de Cadiz…sought to conciliate the colored castes by classifying them as
‘Spaniards’ in the Constitution of 1812, though it refused to enfranchise them as full
citizens.”129 The remote opportunity for circumventing these restrictions did exist, if a
male casta could produce a letter of petition to the courts for special consideration due to
his service or special talents. A petitioner also had to be married to a decent woman,
living in Spanish territories, and have a profession that paid enough to maintain a household and educate any children. In addition, he himself had to be a child of a
legitimate marriage. This last requisite completely excluded recently arrived Africans
whose lineage was unknown.130 The delegates considered a proposal to allow españoles
of direct African ancestry to gain citizenship. American delegates ultimately voted
against the article.131 In spite of the discord among the delegates about the inability of the castas to attain citizenship, as a group they were unwilling to extend citizenship to
Africans or Black Americans.
But, that did not mean that the delegates underestimated the potential political power of the castas, whose numbers were critical to criollo parity with the Spanish-born gachupines. American delegates fought for automatic citizenship for castas but only because it would incorporate them into the electoral census that would determine the
128 Ibid., 35. 129 King, James F. “The Case of Jose Ponciano de Ayarza: A Document on Gracias al Sacar,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Nov., 1951), pp. 644. 130 Gálvez Jiménez, Mónica Leticia. Celaya: Sus Raíces Africanas. México: Ediciones la Rana, 1995. pp. 27. 131 Blanco Valdes, 39. It was also mentioned that according to the definition of citizenship, women also be granted political rights, and it was further expressed, that this would be absurd (Blanco Valdes, 38-39).
57 number of representatives at the future courts.132 The American delegates had hoped that
the castas would be included in the category of españoles so that their numbers could be
included among those needing representation.133 There was no question of the castas representing themselves, but to American delegates, castas were not being deprived of rights as long as they were counted and represented properly by the españoles or citizens who had the privilege and duty of voting and serving as representatives in the court. The castas, American delegates argued, had the right to be represented, or they would not be part of the political body. Lacking representation, “they would not be españoles, nor men, nor anything.”134 This was the status, or political non-status, of slaves who could
not vote, could certainly never serve as representatives, nor hope for representation in the
political arena.135 Yet, despite all these efforts to contain the issue, slavery and the status
of slaves became an important factor in the struggle for independence.
At first, the attack on the institution of slavery presented itself as an affront to
Spanish rule, but soon the criticism developed into a dangerous attack on internal
authority. As Esteban Palacios, a representative from Caracas, Venezuela, expressed at
one of the sessions for the 1812 constitution, “with regards to the abolition of slavery, I
approve it as a lover of humanity; but as a lover of the political order, I disapprove it.”136
Discord during the late colonial years developed into two facets. One expression of
132 Gerra, François-Xavier, “El Soberano y su Reino: reflexiones sobre la génesis del ciudadano en américa latina” in Ciudadanía Política y Formación de las Naciones: perspectivas históricas de américa latina edited by Hilda Sabato. México: El Colegio de México, Fideicomiso historia de las américas, Fondo de cultura económica, 1999. Pp. 39. 133 Blanco Valdés, pp. 41. 134 Ibid., 42. 135 Ibid., 33. 136 Moran Orti, Manuel. “Políticas liberales, políticas absolutistas (1810-1833)” in Revoluciones Hispánicas: Independencias americanas y liberalismo español edited by François-Xavier Guerra. Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 1995. Pp. 78.
58 discord looked outwards at the tyranny of colonialism or foreign control, and the other looked critically inwardly at domestic institutions through which that control was expressed.137 The most important and entrenched of these institutions was slavery, and
conflict over it would persist well into the decade following independence.
Historians such as Gálvez Jiménez, Peter Guardino and Charles Walker have
reconstructed the vision of independence clearly as one of power and economics.
Criollos who financed with their capital and equipped the war effort materially also
“hired” out their workers as soldiers. Many Blacks, Indians and mestizos fought because they had been ordered to participate by their bosses on the hacienda.138 Their Creole
hacendados sought a return on their investments in the war against the Spanish, and
would attempt to crush any groups that tried to step out of their place: “[Social
movements] were opposed by the colonial dominant class that first supported the colonial
state and then attempted to construct new economies and polities in the independent states by reapplying the principles that had allowed them to dominate society.”139
Criollos first capitalized on the discontent of subjected groups and then sought to build a new hegemony in their own image.140
A group achieves hegemony, according to Elsa Muñiz García, through its
capacity to institute, to its own advantage, an economic, political and ideological social
137 Two political systems appeared during the years of the movement. While the Spanish government implemented its set of laws, so did the independence leaders. In places like Chilapa, for example, Indian officials replaced corrupt and abusive officials with Morelos’s approval (Guardino, Peter and Charles Walker. “The State, Society, and Politics in Peru and Mexico in the Late Colonial and Early Republican Periods” in Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 19, no. 2, 173 (Spring 1992), Pp. 27. 138 Bartra, Armando. “Los grandes caciques de la independencia” in Guerrero Bronco. Tepepan, Mexico, D.F.: Ediciones Sinfiltro, 1996. pp. 20. 139 Guardino and Walker, pp. 13-14. 140 Muñiz García, Elsa. “Identidad y Cultura en México: Hacia la conformación de un marco teórico conceptual” in Identidades y Nacionalismos: una perspectiva interdisciplinaria edited by Lilia Granillo Vázquez. Azcapotzalco, México: Gernica, 1993. pp. 18.
59 order broad enough to incorporate potentially unruly subaltern groups.141 The question is, would the insurgent Creoles be able to develop hegemonic control over a population they had also helped to liberate? The formula was much more difficult than the application of brute force or the yoke of slavery. Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman argue that “with hegemonic control the ruling class does not attempt to eliminate or merge the identities of minority groups, but is merely content to make any ‘overtly violent ethnic contest for state power either ‘unthinkable’ or ‘unworkable’ on the part of the subordinated communities.’”142 The problem would center on how to limit the power certain people could attain or even aspire to share. Morelos would proclaim in 1810, “let
us just say: there are no gachupines, there are no criollos; those names remain written and condemned by agreement.”143 But for him as well as for the criollos themselves, the
point of eliminating the caste system was not to integrate the castas into the new nation
per se, but to replace an odious system of racial labels to a different one: citizen. Stanley
Green adds,
…the people of Mexico were in mid-passage toward that status from the caste and corporate groupings of Spain’s colonial system. Along with nationalist feelings went a conviction that independence required a new public relationship. There was a predisposition to elevate, or reduce, all classes and races to the rank of citizen.144
141 Ibid., 23 142 Kymlicka, Will and Wayne Norman. “Citizenship in Culturally Diverse Societies: Issues, Contexts, Concepts: in Citizenship in Diverse Societies. New York, London: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 13. 143 Foncerrada, pp. 15. 144 Green, Stanley C. The Mexican Republic: The First Decade, 1823-1832. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987, pp. 52.
60
By popularizing a sense of equality, insurgents might hope to overthrow Spain and retain their social, political and economic status. Neither the Spanish elites, nor the liberated lower classes, however, would hand over power to the criollos that easily.
One vision of a more radical social order was expressed by Vicente Guerrero, the insurgent leader who attempted to reject an offer of partnership from royalist-turned- insurgent Iturbide in 1821 because, among other things, Iturbide wanted to deny civil rights to people of African descent. Guerrero “personified the upward aspirations of the non-white masses of Mexico. Racially, he embodied all three stocks that had produced the most rapidly growing segment of the population, the castas. He was of mixed Black,
White, and Indian ancestry.”145 For powerful, white creoles like Iturbide, independence merely represented a political break with Spain but, to “disenfranchised nonwhites [like
Guerrero], independence signified a repudiation of the racially and ethnically based
inequities of the colonial system.”146 Yet, there could not be equality of race as long as
slavery persisted and Blacks remained without civil rights. In the end, Guerrero’s quest
for social equality did not carry much weight, and even he, Hidalgo, and Morelos could
not put an end to the system of slavery, at least not as a consequence of the movement for
national independence.
Analyzing the political errors that fomented the insurrection in New Spain,
Florencio Pérez y Comoto expresses perplexity about the contradiction between the movement’s rhetoric of liberty and the reality of inequality. “I do not understand,” Perez
145 Carroll, Patrick J. Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity and Regional Development. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. pp. 131. For a more in-depth study of Vicente Guerrero see The Legacy Of Vicente Guerrero: Mexico's First Black Indian President by Theodore G. Vincent. Florida: University Press of Florida, 2002). 146 Ibid.
61 writes, “how the Spaniards from the New World claim dominion and civil representation that they themselves deny to their [Indian] ancestors.”147 But, there was no contradiction
in the mind of the ultimate architect of independence, for “Iturbide [had] sought political
control for creole white elites [while] Hidalgo and Morelos had sought political, social,
and economic liberties for all segments of the population.”148 Iturbide would be the one
to proclaim independence and oversee the formation of the first stages of a nationhood
founded on a carefully crafted adaptation of the notion of equality with the entrenched
notion of a natural hierarchy based on race. Patrick Carroll argues, “on February 4, 1821,
Agustin Iturbide succeeded in doing what Miguel Hidalgo and Jose Maria Morelos had
failed to do. Through the Plan de Iguala, Iturbide brought independence to Mexico. He
succeeded because he limited his goals.”149 Iturbide’s success was due to his ability to
create a more equal status, not between castas and Whites, but among all Whites.
Despite the rhetoric of citizenship and equality before the law, racial categories
would remain the most salient factor in the social system, arguably as determinant as they
had been under the colonial caste system. Carroll writes,
Whites retained a strong vested interest in maintaining racial distinctions. They continued to use their whiteness as a justification for their privileged status. Whites, in trying to preserve their elevated social, economic, and political rank, in many ways patterned the new government after the older Spanish colonial order that competed with more popular and nationalistic forces for change.150
147 Pérez y Comoto, Florencio, Dr.. Impugnación de algunos errores políticos que fomentan la insurrección de Nueva España. Mexico, Agosto, 26, 1812. pp. 45-46. TDRC. 148 Carroll, pp. 130. 149 Ibid. 150 Carroll, pp. 143.
62
Thus, while criollos enjoyed most of the benefits of citizenship, it seems that Blacks would have to continue their struggle to become part of the new national consciousness.
One of the ironies of Mexican history is that its first formal steps would come in the shape of a constitutional monarchy headed by a former royalist, the self-proclaimed emperor of Mexico, Iturbide himself. On paper, the monarchy was simply the most rational means of stabilizing the country. As Iturbide explained, only a strong monarchy could overcome man’s imperfections and the inevitable internal battle among the people for power.151 Iturbide’s design, the Plan de Iguala, or “las Tres Garantías,” became the
basis for Independence. But, Iturbide was wrong about the stability of monarchy: the
battle for civil rights was just beginning and would not be settled by the proclamation,
“all of the inhabitants of New Spain, without distinction, whatsoever, among Europeans,
Africans, nor Indians, are all citizens of this monarchy with option to work, according to
their merit and virtue”.152 In order to prohibit racial discrimination, Law #313 of
Mexico’s first congress prohibited the recording of race in government, baptism, and wedding and death records.153 Law #303 further prohibited public officials from
speaking disparagingly of a person’s ethnic background.154 The problem remained,
however, that although castas were legally integrated, they continued to lack social and
political integration.
151 Iturbide, Agustín de. “Breve manifiesto del que subscribe.” Mexican Broadside 176. TDRC. 152 Iturbide, Agustín de. “Plan de Iguala”, 1821 in Iturbide pro y contra, ed. Jesús Romero Flores. Morelia, Michoacán, México: Balsal editores S.A., 1971, pp. 36. 153 There was an objective to erase the racial hierarchy, limiting it to a social dimension. There would no longer be Whites, Blacks or Indians but “rich and poor” (Quijada, 43). By convincing different groups to abandon their local identities (by all becoming Mexican), the independence leaders were not only ensuring that these people would remain loyal but also that they would slowly form a community consciousness and not rebel against it. 154 Vincent, pp. 271-272.
63
CONCLUSION
With few variations, after Independence the colonial caste system worked under the pretence of national equality. Primarily, racial distinctions continued. “The Americans, as they soon came to call themselves, were to have a culture that was ‘Mexican’ or
‘Peruvian’-Spanish in customs and rooted in an understanding of a mythical Indian past.
But it was to be white, español, by blood.”155 The end to formal institutions such as the
colonial system of racial classification and of slavery did not change the fact of racial
exploitation and inequality.
In the post-independence era, there remained many Mexicos. Under the Plan de
Iguala, as well as under the drafting of new constitutions, the idea of Mexico as a “free”
nation meant something different for the various groups that had together opposed the
colonial state.156 For the criollos who retained power, independence did not entail
building a community of equals. A new political community was to be imagined, as
Benedict Anderson ahs posed in his articulation of the nation, as “an imagined political
community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.”157 In the
imagination of the criollos, the new Mexico, with all its contradictions, could indeed
function as a political community because, as Anderson notes, “regardless of the actual
inequality and exploitation that may prevail…the nation is always conceived as a deep,
horizontal comradeship.”158 The rhetoric of equality, so skillfully employed as an
155 Pagden, Anthony. “Identity Formation in Spanish America” in Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800. Ed. Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagden. New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987. pp. 70. 156 Guardino & Walker, pp. 28. 157 Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London; New York: Verso, 1991. Pp. 6. 158 Ibid., 7.
64 organizing strategy during the independence movement, did not necessarily function the same way during the process of the formation of a national consciousness. The question would be the extent to which this new “deep, horizontal comradeship” could replace the vacuum left behind by the collapse of colonial authority. Without the crown to blame for the persistence of “actual inequality and exploitation,” how would the criollo class maintain control of the social and political space of the post-independence state?159
The new nation was faced with the difficulty of building a political community with the parameters of a nation-state-empire.160 The colonial state was defeated but not the structures of colonial rule. The same groups that had held power in the colonial state
remained in power in the new one: the clergy, the army officials, city merchants, whites.
“Their program essentially involved a replication of the colonial state without Spain.”161
Just as in the colonial state, the vast majority of people were excluded from power, but now they were mobilized. This left the door open for dangerous levels of disunity in the newly imagined nation.
At the top of the political hierarchy remained a strange amalgam of old and new
world consciousness. The fight for independence had been between loyalists
(conservatives) composed mostly of the military, the clergy, the city merchants and the group of insurgents (liberals) consisting mostly of peripheral hacendados, provincial merchants and members of the professional classes. Conservatives had warned that expelling the Spaniards from the territory would be suicide since the castas tended to
159 Guardino & Walker, pp. 28. 160 Chust, Manuel. La cuestión nacional americana en las Cortes de Cadiz (1810-1814). Valencia: Centro Francisco Tomás y Valiente UNED Alzira-Valencia, Fundación Instituto Historia Social; [México]: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1999. Pp. 57. 161 Guardino & Walker, 33.
65 identify Spaniards as any and all oppressive whites.162 In a sense, the compromise
worked out between conservatives and liberals was a forced, and hence fragile one: “The
royalist army’s failure to eliminate the insurgency in large areas of the viceroyalty led to
the royalist commanders’ 1821 attempt to incorporate the insurgents in a new political
system, one that conceded political independence but sought to preserve the social and
economic order of the viceroyalty.”163 In many regions, conflict among those trying to
gain independence led to internal struggles. There was conflict as elites struggled to
control the local branches of the state. Not only were the masses excluded, in many wasy,
so were the regional elites who lived outside of the capital. Many at both the top and
bottom of the new order remained disgruntled.
162 Chust, pp. 33-34. Also, Brading, D. A. “Nationalism and State-Building in Latin American History” in Wars, Parties and Nationalism: Essays on the Politics and Society of Nineteenth-Century Latin America edited by Eduardo Posada-Carbo. London: Institute for Latin American Studies, 1995. Pp. 96-97. 163 Guardino & Walker, pp. 33.
66
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CHAPTER 3
MEXICO MESTIZO: NATION AND THE DISCOURSE OF RACE
In 1820, even before the war for independence had been won, José Joaquín Fernández de
Lizardi published an argument in favor of land reform for Blacks in his newspaper
Conductor Eléctrico no. 23. Four years after independence, in 1825, he recommended
radical land reforms that provided the opportunity for land ownership to slaves and
support in their efforts to gain their own liberty.164 Fernández de Lizardi was proposing
the abolition of slavery, which by 1825 was another four years in the making, but he was
also proposing the inclusion of Blacks into the national imagination. Even as the
independence leaders had proclaimed a nation free to racial categories, Mexico had not
yet dealt with racially mixed population. As “a culturally old civilization thrust on new
ethnic identities,” Mexico would have to deal with its Black heritage and its Black
communities.165
As part of the process of establishing a Mexican national identity, the architects of
the new nation attempted to do away with colonial inequalities, or perhaps erase a history
of racial struggle by eliminating racial categories altogether. The casta system was
accepted as a symptom of colonial tyranny and abolishing any racial signifiers was a way
to establish full independence from Spain. At the same time, the nineteenth century—the
164 Di Tella, Torcuato S. National Popular Politics in Early Independent Mexico, 1820-1847. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996, pp. 78-79. 165 Ribeiro, Darcy. The Americas and Civilization. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1971. Pp. 78.
78 century of nation-building—proves to be one in which scholars and politicians alike
expose a veiled obsession with race. The abolition of distinctive racial categories did not
lead to a lack of discourse of race. 166 In fact, documents from the nineteenth century reveal that racial discourse did not disappear, nor did a lack of racial labels lead to a consciousness of the equality of all races. An attempt to develop a national history forced politico-scholars to question the different meanings of race and the different roles that
certain groups would play in the new, Mexican nation.
In 1821, as Mexico found itself politically and economically independent from
Spain, independence leaders understood that the new nation’s past was essentially one of
colonialism. In the years after independence Mexico found itself with only a present.
What might have been considered Mexico’s past was in fact New Spain’s past, and
without a past, the new nation’s future remained nebulous. Thus, politicians and
scholars—often the same person—set out to create a past that would not only reflect a
unique Mexican character but would also set the stage for what was to come in the future.
In the period after independence, these men, whom I call politico-scholars, aimed to
generate a sense of Mexicanness that was as yet racially and ideologically undefined.
What I aim to accomplish in this chapter is 1) to demonstrate how politicians and
scholars attempted to create a sense of unity—real or imagined—through the writing of a
common Mexican history; and 2) to show that in the nineteenth-century politico-scholars
were engaging in a complex national discourse of race that not only paved the way for a
shared ideology of mestizaje, but were also ultimately responsible for creating and
disseminating a national racial discourse that excluded Black contributions to Mexico’s
166 “Razas de Hombres” in El Progreso, tomo II, no. 16 (Córdoba, Septiembre 19, 1880).
79 national history and racial makeup, essentially crafting what I refer to as the Black exception. A closer look at how politico-scholars interpreted the past provides insight into the way that nineteenth-century elites imagined themselves and other Mexicans. It becomes clear that a racial national discourse was more a process of legitimating power than knowledge and authority.167
According to Prasenjit Duara, there are two processes involved in the formation
of a national history. In the first the needs of the present are used to inform the past and
in the second, the needs of the present are informed by the past. While historians can try
to ignore the undesirable aspects of their past, they cannot ignore the very real fact that
those aspects do not altogether disappear.168 What they can do, instead, is manipulate the
language that is used to address those “undesirable aspects.” In her analysis of national
identity in China, Duara adds that “nationalists always have to engage with their many
histories, even when they are manipulating them for their own purposes.”169 In the case
of Mexico, initially, many of the social hierarchies of the colonial period persisted.
Society remained divided into fixed inherited socioeconomic strata, based on race, ancestry, property ownership, and of course, gender. Even as politico-scholars espoused
a discourse of equality, that very same discourse reveals their rejection of the assertion of equality with the masses. They regarded themselves as socially (if not ‘racially’) superior.
167 Duran Solís, Leonel. “Cultura Nacional: Pluralidad, Cultura Popular, Identidad y Política Cultural” in Jornadas de Homenaje a Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán (Veracruz: IVEC, 1988), p. 58. 168 Duara, Prasenjit. “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When” in Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 161. 169 Duara, Prasenjit. “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When” in Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 158.
80 In the years after independence, it proved difficult to integrate into the
imagination heterogeneous populations. This heterogeneousness was characterized by a
social hierarchy, rooted in secular practices of one ethnic group dominant over the rest, in
this case, as I will show, one that was largely rooted in skin color.170 One of the most
important ways that dominance manifested itself in the new nation was in the form of
history. National rhetoric, according to Duara, is created and disseminated by politicians
and scholars and as such, they are the ones who dictate what language is used to speak of
the past and the present.171 Politico-scholars were in a position to shape history and
consequently, shape the present. In that process, they exclude the history of Blacks from
the Mexican national consciousness. Mexico’s nineteenth-century historiography,
therefore, is “eminently political” since it participated in the discourse of national
identity, largely produced by politico-scholars.172
History is a process, one that is necessary for the formation of a national identity.
Enrique Florescano explains that “political independence from Spain and the decision to
create a national political project created a new subject of historical narrative: the national state. For the first time, instead of a fragmented territory governed by foreign powers, Mexicans could begin to consider their nation, the different parts that comprise it, its population and its past, as a united entity.”173 We must view history not only as a
territory where identity can be created and contested, but also one in which it can be
170 Quijada, Mónica. “Que Nación? Dinámicas y dicotomías de la nación en el imaginario hispano americano del siglo XIX” in Imaginar la nación edited by Guerra, François-Xavier and Mónica Quijada (Munster, Hamburg: Asociación de Historiadores latinoamericanistas europeos, 1994), pp. 34. 171 Duara, Prasenjit. “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When” in Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 165. 172 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 360. 173 Ibid, 313.
81 repressed. As Juan Carlos Reyes points out in his work on Afromestizos in Colima,
politicians and scholars of the nineteenth century engaged with their histories but
manipulated them to their benefit.174 More than proving that the nation had moved towards equality by “erasing” racial distinctions, nineteenth-century national discourses
“obscure[d] relations of domination, through the negation of differences and the claim of
political equality.”175 Nationalism, in this case, becomes a form of discourse, motivated by a combination of intellectual and political practices.176 The best example of this is the
omission of Blacks from the history texts. The Black exception manifested itself in two ways. First, they were either relegated to the colonial New Spanish history, or they were omitted altogether. In both cases, any exclusion from the colonial past directly indicated an exclusion from the present. Second, when Blacks did enter the nineteenth-century history texts they entered as part of the homogenous group of “castas,” “mixed-race,” or
“mestizos,” as a silent “other.”177 Yet, it is worth noting the relationship between the
Black exception and mestizaje. Blacks formed part of the amorphous group of “castas”
or “mixed-race” mass in the first half of the nineteenth century and as “mestizos” in the
second half.
The twentieth century has been given credit for the formation of a national
identity that centered on a discourse of mestizaje. However, I argue that it was in the
174 Reyes G., Juan Carlos. “Negros Afromestizos en Colima, siglos XVI-XIX” in Presencia Africana en México, ed. Luz Maria Martínez Montiel (México: Consejo Nacional para la cultura y las artes, 1997), pp. 158); Duara, Prasenjit. “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When” in Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 159. 175 Purnell, Jennie, “Citizens and Sons of the Pueblo: National and Local Identities in the Making of the Mexican Nation” in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2 (March 2002): 217. 176 Mallón, Florencia. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 5. 177 French, William E. “Imagining and the Cultural History of Nineteenth Century Mexico” in Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 72, no. 2 (May 1999), pp. 258-259.
82 second half of the nineteenth century when Mexico would come to identify as culturally
and racially mestizo, a process that began with independence. Even as the national
discourse seems to be inclusive of Mexico’s diverse populations it is an imagined
national identity which is restricted to the mixture of conquered (Indigenous) and
conqueror (Spanish).178 This “cultural nationalism,” as Alan Knight refers to it, served as
an “ideological prop to political patriotism.”179 Mexico’s national discourse of
racial/ethnic equality, therefore, developed as one of hegemony.
This process of hegemony is exemplified by George Reid Andrews in The Afro-
Argentines of Buenos Aires. Through the use of Afro-Argentine newspapers, Andrews
argues that in the nineteenth century Buenos Aires effectively managed to erase the
presence of African features to the extent that today Argentina is considered one of the
whitest Latin American nations. As early as the nineteenth century, there existed the
belief that with the onset of Independence and the abolition of slavery, Blacks had not
survived in Argentina. This phenomenon is due in part because Argentines of African
descent were no longer considered “negros.” Consequently, what led to the
“disappearance” of Afro-Argentines, like that of Black Mexicans, was not due to their
small numbers, although that was believed to be the case, as much as to a
reconceptualization of what it meant to be Argentine, which by definition excluded non-
whites to the greatest extent possible.180 The national consciousness that arose in
Argentina in the nineteenth century was restrictive in the sense that it acknowledged few contributions made by Blacks, and in effect, attempted to make them “disappear.”
178 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 360. 179 Knight, Alan, “Peasants into Patriots: Thoughts on the Making of the Mexican Nation” in Mexican Studies/ Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Winter, 1994): 141. 180 Andrews, George Reid, The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800-1900 (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980), pp. 203.
83 Similarly, one way of imagining Blacks in the new, Mexican nation, was through
deracializing them. Prasenjit Duara warns that we must consider the role that group- consciousness plays in the writing of history and national discourse. Through their inclusion in the group of “castas” or “mestizos,” Blacks were unable to form a single
group consciousness. Therefore, Mexico’s national identity of racial mixture—later
known as mestizaje— was created at the expense of a Black Mexican identity.181 Taunya
Lovell Banks uses the term “raced” as a verb to point out that race is imposed on different groups of people.182 In Mexico’s case, the population was “raced” as mestizo—
the mixture of Indian and Spanish—at the same time that it was de-raced as Black. The
national discourse of racial mixture, and later mestizaje, dispensed with negritud in
conversations of the nation and its own image.183 Therefore, Blacks “disappeared”
through omission from national discourses. Even though there is no clear evidence that scholars of the nineteenth century purposefully omitted Black contributions to Mexico’s national racial makeup, there is evidence to suggest that they propagated the idea that
Blacks comprised a minor and insignificant portion of the population.
Part of what propelled this omission was an understanding of Blackness as physically inherent. The omission of a Black Mexican history, according to Juan Carlos
181 Duara, Prasenjit. “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When” in Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 159. 182 Lovell Banks, Taunya. “Mestizaje and the Mexican Mestizo Self: No Hay Sangre Negra, So There is No Blackness.” University of Maryland School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2005-48 (Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection), Footnote 3, pp. 3, via http://ssrn.com/abstract=790625 (accessed July 18, 2008). 183 Vinson III, Ben and Bobby Vaughn. Afroméxico: El pulso de la población negra en méxico: una historia recordada, olvidada y vuelta a recordar (México: Centro de investigación y docencia económicas, Fondo de cultura económica, 2004), pp. 36.
84 Reyes, should be understood as a “pigmentocratic phenomenon.”184 The lack of obvious
physical African characteristics amongst the majority of the Mexican population led politico-scholars, and even foreigners, to assume that there were no Blacks in Mexico, or that they had made no significant contribution to the racial national makeup. As much as the nation was contested territory, the Black body was also a site of contestation of power since those classified as “Black” in the post-independence era were defined though pre- established, clearly delineated, Black physical characteristics.185 In this case, the Black
body was at the center of national identity formation since a lack of “Black” bodies
permitted politico-scholars the freedom to exclude them from the national discourse.186
This is especially important when we consider that these politico-scholars resided in
Mexico City, away from historically Black communities.
Finally, Marco Polo Hernández Cueva makes the argument that in the twentieth
century, and following the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) specifically, “the Africaness
of Mexican mestizaje was removed from the ideal image of Mexicaness disseminated in and out of the country”187 Discourses of race that included Blacks at the local level were
dwarfed by the national discourse. However, Hernández Cuevas takes for granted that in
the nineteenth-century alternate discourses of race and identity existed. In fact, they were
taking place at the local level and reveal that Blacks were not erased from Mexico’s
history altogether. LikeHernández Cuevas, later historians, beginning with those of the
184 Reyes G., Juan Carlos. “Negros Afromestizos en Colima, siglos XVI-XIX” in Presencia Africana en México, ed. Luz María Martínez Montiel (México: Consejo Nacional para la cultura y las artes, 1997), pp. 262. 185 French, William E. “Imagining and the Cultural History of Nineteenth Century Mexico” in Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 72, no. 2 (May 1999), pp. 263. 186 French, William E. “Imagining and the Cultural History of Nineteenth Century Mexico” in Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 72, no. 2 (May 1999), pp. 264. 187 Hernández Cuevas, Marco Polo. African Mexicans and the Discourse of Modern Nation (NY-Oxford: University Press of America, 2004), pp. XV.
85 second half of the nineteenth century to today, assume that earlier historians had been
objective in the writing of history and that these had not included Blacks because there
were none. The ideology of mestizaje in the twentieth century was the culmination of a long process with roots at the national level. Since the politico-scholars were located in
Mexico City, the nation’s capital, it was their discourse that became dominant. For example, the state of Colima’s census showed that at the end of the eighteenth century forty-three percent of the population was made up of Blacks and mulattos.188 While such
a large percentage of Blacks at the end of the colonial period might indicate that in the
state of Colima discourses of Blackness had more potential for survival, a look at the
state’s own history reveals that national discourses of race eclipsed local ones, even when
clear physical “readings” of local citizens revealed a history of African racial mixture.
Ultimately, the ideology of mestizaje, as Jonathan Eastwood proposes, was one
that “promised inevitable order and progress.”189 A move away from “castas” and
“people of color” to “mestizo” was seen as a sign or progress since it showed that rather than being a multi-racial society, Mexico was a bi-racial society, one in which the
Indian/Aztec past was presented as glorious and in which the less desirable mixed groups, primarily those of African descent, were no longer present. There was a desire to limit some groups. The mestizo in the late nineteenth century became the reflection of that desire.190
188 Reyes G., Juan Carlos. “Negros Afromestizos en Colima, siglos XVI-XIX” in Presencia Africana en México, ed. Luz María Martínez Montiel (México: Consejo Nacional para la cultura y las artes, 1997), pp. 262. 189 Eastwood, Jonathan. “Positivism and Nationalism in 19th Century France and Mexico” in Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 17, No. 4 (December 2004): 340. 190 Martínez-Echabazal, Lourdes. “Mestizaje and the discourse of national/cultural identity in Latin America, 1845-1959” in Latin American Perspectives, vol. 25, no. 3, (May 1998), pp. 32.
86 THE INTERSECTION OF NATION AND RACE
Discourses of race, in the eight years after independence and before the abolition of
slavery in 1829, can be understood from two perspectives. One takes the form of debates
in congress among politicians and scholars. The other can be understood from the
perspective of Black slaves. Even as the voices of slaves largely remain hidden, an analysis of their petitions for freedom allow us to better understand the role that Blacks
played in the development of a national racial discourse. Primarily, the discourses taking
place in the years before the abolition of slavery, whether by congressmen or by slaves
themselves, sought to make a connection between national freedom and personal
freedom. All of this was spurred on by the abolition of racial categories with the Plan de
Iguala. Before the abolition of slavery, differences remained between those who were
free and those who were enslaved, the latter largely comprised of people of varying
degrees of African descent. However, once slavery was abolished the racial discourse
changed from one defined by a person’s status as free or enslaved to one defined by the
body. “Blacks” were defined as only those who could physically be characterized as
possessing African features. A shift in discourse proves to be a crucial break between
regional and federal racial ideologies. Nineteenth-century documents help shed light on
the various discourses surrounding the role of Blacks and on the negotiations that were
taking place in the developing nation.
On October 18, 1821, just two months after the Treaty of Córdoba was signed,
declaring Mexico’s independence from Spain, Juan Francisco de Azcarate Y Lezama
(1767-1851), a distinguished lawyer, member of the Mexico City Ayuntamiento (City
87 Council) and a forerunner of Mexican independence,191 proposed that there was “not a better moment to prohibit slavery in the Mexican Empire, than that in which its independence has been gained …”192 By December, the question of the abolition of slavery was being considered by congress.193 By January 30 of the following year, the
subject was still up for discussion.194 A few years later, many had come to believe that
they could put the discussion to rest since there were no slaves left. On January 2, 1824,
Lucas Alamán only got laughs when he informed the Chamber of Deputies that the
British were demanding general emancipation as a precondition to diplomatic relations
with Mexico. Already, many Mexicans had come to believe that their nation was free of
slaves, even before the formal work of abolition and its consequences had been put to
paper.195 In reality there were still a few slaves. Most slaves worked on the sugar plantations of the so-called Tierra Caliente, the subtropical hotlands just south of Mexico
City and in the mines and sugar plantations in Veracruz. The northern states also still had
a few slaves—the state of Zacatecas, for example, recorded about fifty, serving mainly as
domestics.196 Likewise, George Frances Lyon, an English marine captain, observed that
he had not even thought that Mexico had any slaves at all, but comments that on a particular day in March of 1826, he discovered that there were a few in Veracruz.197
Laura Muñoz Mata has pointed out that in certain regions of Veracruz into the first half
191 Azcarate Y Lezama, Juan Francisco de. Encyclopedia of Mexico (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). 192 Alamán, Lucas. Historia de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su independencia en el año de 1808, hasta la época presente, vol. V (Méjico, Impr. de J. M. Lara, 1852.), pg. 466. 193 AGN, Gobernación, sin sección, soporte 11, eje 15, foja 8-10, (12/1/1821). 194 AGN, Gobernación, sin sección, soporte 19, eje 2, foja 7-10 (Enero 30, 1822). 195 Green, Stanley C. The Mexican Republic: The First Decade, 1823-1832. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987) pp. 119. 196 Green, Stanley C. The Mexican Republic: The First Decade, 1823-1832. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987) pp. 119. 197 Lyon, George Frances. Cien Viajeros en Veracruz: Crónicas Y Relatos, vol. III (1822-1830), ed. Martha Poblett Miranda (Veracruz: Gobierno del estado de Veracruz, 1992), pp. 273.
88 of the nineteenth century there were colonies of Blacks and mulattos.198 What these disparities between political leaders and the reality of the periphery reveal is the division between Mexico City, the seat of the federal government, and regional communities.
Still, as congressmen were discussing the future of slavery, politico-scholars were at
work writing Mexico’s history. No doubt their present understanding of Mexico would
inform their scholarship.
Politico-scholars, also believing that no Blacks remained, reference them in the
post-independence period only in relation to slavery. In Méjico: Su Evolución Social
(1900-1902), Justo Sierra notes that negros, “scanty in numbers, represent the descendants of the ancient slaves.”199 This should come as no surprise since these were
the only people that the authors could identify as “Black.” Sierra further adds that while
slavery existed, “the slave’s son was born free,” implying that the only slaves in Mexico
had been those brought directly from Africa.200 In Méjico: Sus Revoluciones (1836), José
María Luis Mora argued in the first half of the nineteenth century that in Mexico slavery
had been unknown. He further asserted that the numbers of Blacks were so small that
they caused little fear in the tranquility of the Republic.201 In Historia de Méjico (1852),
Lucas Alamán reiterated a similar sentiment when he claimed that slavery had ceased
with the 1810 independence movement; that the few slaves remaining in New Spain who had worked on sugar plantations had liberated themselves by taking up arms. He further
198 Muñoz Mata, Laura. “Afromestizos en el Puerto de Yucatán” in Pardos, Mulatos, y Libertos: Sexto Encuentro de Afromexicanistas, ed. Adriana Naveda Chavez-Hita (Xalapa, Veracruz, México: Universidad de Veracruz, 2001), pp. 210-213. 199 Sierra, Justo. Mexico: Its Social Evolution, vol. 1, no. 1 (Mexico: J. Ballesca & Co., Successor, 1900- 1902), pp. 21. 200 Sierra, Justo. Mexico: Its Social Evolution, vol. 2 (Mexico: J. Ballesca & Co., Successor, 1900-1902), pp. 111. 201 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 74.
89 noted that those slaves from Veracruz had joined the insurgents and that their owners had
not thought to reclaim them, especially since now they worked on the same plantations
where they had once been slaves.202
At the same time, the institution of slavery had not been abolished and it seems that there was a level of consciousness among political leaders regarding the idea that
Mexico could not be a free nation so long as the onerous colonial institution survived, even as many believed that there were no more slaves. National independence acquired a resounding connection to personal independence for both politicians and slaves alike.
Slavery had become synonymous with colonialism in the same way that independence had become synonymous with freedom. In Mora’s words, after independence “no other distinction remained than that which was materially visible.”203 Still, since slavery had
not officially been abolished, many local leaders remained confused as to how to address
the matter. In April of 1822, just one year after national independence, the Municipal
officer of the state of Puebla wrote a letter to the Secretary of Justice regarding a Black
slave named José Francisco Florentino Muñoz who had gone to him complaining about
mistreatment from his owner, Don Manuel Muñoz Truxillo. Even though José Francisco
himself was not advocating for his freedom per se, a local man identified as “Licenciado
Mineda” had expressed his concern over the abolition of slavery and argued that José
Francisco should be freed. In an attempt to resolve the problem, the Municipal officer
purchased the slave’s freedom for three hundred pesos and sent him to work in a factory
to make a living. The Municipal officer was asking for reimbursement of the 300 pesos
202 Alamán, Lucas. Historia de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su independencia en el año de 1808, hasta la época presente, vol. V (Méjico, Impr. de J. M. Lara, 1852.), pg. 467. 203 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 73.
90 from the Secretary of Justice.204 What is noteworthy about this case is not only
“Licenciado Mineda’s” staunch support for the abolition of slavery, but also the solution
taken by the Municipal officer. The latter neither advocated for the abolition of slavery
nationwide, nor did he condone slavery since he purchased the slave and granted him
freedom.
As politicians and scholars discussed the fate of slavery, slaves themselves sought
to participate in the debate, revealing that while the nation is not a collective historical
subject it is negotiable.205 In the Mexican national archive, the Archivo General de la
Nación, there are a handful of petitions from slaves seeking their own liberation, in the
years after independence. Such was the case of two slave women in Gaudalajara who in
August of 1823 went to a local official, requesting their freedom.206 In a letter written
three months later the two women argued that the Plan de Iguala abolished caste
differences in stating that “all inhabitants of this America are citizens, without exception,” including slaves. The two women asked to be allowed to pass the rest of
their lives in “peaceful liberty.”207 What is most striking is that neither of the women
knew how to read or write. 208 Yet, the fact that they could argue for their freedom from
slavery based on the premise that the Plan de Iguala guaranteed them that right, leads me
to believe that these discourses of freedom as directly related to independence were
taking place at the local level. I have found at least eight other cases of slaves who
sought their liberation based on the argument that slavery had been abrogated under the
204 AGN, Justicia, s. 21, e. 28, f. 272-275, (1822). 205 Duara, Prasenjit. “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When” in Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 152. 206 AGN, Gobernación, c. 54, e. 15, f. 2 (Agosto 2, 1823). 207 AGN, Gobernación, c. 54, e. 15, f. 4 (Noviembre 11, 1823). 208 AGN, Gobernación, c. 54, e. 15, f. 2 (Agosto 2, 1823).
91 Plan de Iguala.209 Also, in many of these cases the local government officials inquiring
about the status of slaves had expressed their opinion that slavery should be abolished.210
What these cases reveal is that there was a vague understanding as to how slavery fit into the new discourse of independence and freedom. Although more research needs to be done on this topic, various sources indicate that slaves also equated independence with freedom.
In reality the institution of slavery would persist for eight years after national independence, but this did not stop government leaders from actively making public demonstrations which highlighted the tenuous connection between freedom and independence. In Historia de Méjico, Alamán relates that on the September 16 celebrations of independence the government leaders had thought to find some slaves to free but had a difficult time finding any, except in the Yucatan area where the independence revolution had not penetrated. Alamán notes that even they had very few.211 More specifically, during the Independence Day celebrations of 1825, President
Guadalupe Victoria had slaves imported from Córdoba, Veracruz and publicly declared
them free with the statement, “slaves, on this day in which the anniversary of liberty is
celebrated, receive it in the name of the homeland and remember that you are free
because of her, to honor her and defend her.”212 By 1829, it was argued that no slaves
209 AGN, Gobernación, c. 54, e. 15, f. 5 (1823); AGN, Gobernación, c. 35, e. 19, f. 52 (May 1, 1822); AGN, Gobernación, c. 10, e. 1, f. 162-163 (1821). 210 AGN, Gobernación, c. 54, e. 15, f. 3 & 5 (1823). 211 Alamán, Lucas. Historia de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su independencia en el año de 1808, hasta la época presente, vol. V (Méjico, Impr. de J. M. Lara, 1852.), pg. 467. 212 Herrera Casasus, Luisa. Piezas de Indias: La esclavitud negra en méxico (Veracruz, México: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1991) pp. 129; Celebración del Grito de Independencia, 1810-1985: Recopilación Hemerográfica (México: Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, 1985); Riva Palacio, Vicente. México a través de los siglos: historia general y completa del desenvolvimiento social, político, religioso, militar, artístico, científico y literario de México: desde la antigüedad más remota hasta la época actual (Barcelona, Espasa y compañía, 1888-89), vol. IV, pp. 139.
92 could be found for the occasion. That year, when Vicente Guerrero became president he
proclaimed national emancipation on Independence Day, eight years after Mexico’s
independence.213 Guerrero’s proclamation, however, was not the first time that slavery
was abolished, nor would it be the last.
In 1824 the traffic and commerce of slavery was abolished, coinciding with the
overthrow of Agustin Iturbide’s monarchy and the desire to maintain friendly relations
with England.214 By 1826, “the state delegates abolished entailed estates and all
hereditary distinctions of title, and freed the slaves; a few states planned for gradual
emancipation by declaring that all children of slaves would be born free.”215 By 1827 the
state constitution of Chiapas abolished slavery and all “divisions of the masses.” The
government of the state even offered indemnities to slave owners.216 In the first half of
the nineteenth century the abolition of slavery would continuously be reiterated. Such
was the case with the 1836 national constitution.217 This should come as no surprise since Mexico’s previous Constitution of 1824 had been written five years before the decree was promulgate by Guerrero. At the same time, however, in spite of the difficulty that presidents had in finding slaves to free at Independence Day celebrations, not all slaves had been freed by 1829. In fact, as late as 1851 the Minister of Internal Relations,
José Joaquín Pesado, had asked for information regarding the slaves that were
213 AGN, Gobernación, c. 116, e. 16, f. 10 (Septiembre 16, 1829); Green, Stanley C. The Mexican Republic: The First Decade, 1823-1832. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987) pp. 119. 214 AGN, Gobernación, caja 70, expediente 7, (Julio 14, 1824); AMC, vol, 73, est. 1, f. 265 (1824). Although the constitution of 1824 did not mention slavery, the Constitutional Congress did prohibit the slave trade on July 18, 1824. 215 Green, Stanley C. The Mexican Republic: The First Decade, 1823-1832. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987) pp. 69. 216 AGN, Gobernación, c. 103, e. 12, f. 10 (Agosto 20, 1827); AGN, Gobernación, c. 103, e. 12, f. 15 (Julio 17, 1827). 217 AGN, Justicia, Soporte 96 (Abril 5, 1837).
93 manumitted between September 15, 1829 and April 4, 1837.218 Though the document does not mention why Pesado is asking for the information it is clear that into the second half of the nineteenth century the issue of slavery had not been fully put to rest. Mexico’s relationship with slavery would be solved once and for all with the constitution of
1857.219
Ironically, it was through the combination of the abolition of racial categories and
of slavery that Blacks began to “disappear.” Even though people of African descent were
still physically present—they did not simply vanish—these events implied the loss of a
language that defined Blacks as a separate group. In his seminal work, Méjico a través
de los siglos (1884-1889) Vicente Riva Palacio makes little mention of Blacks in the
years after independence, though he does mention that slavery was abolished in 1829 by
President Vicente Guerrero “with an act of justice and national welfare.”220 Without racial categories what was lost was the ability to label free individuals as Black. This is a symptom of an ideology of racial mixture, which in essence rendered Blacks invisible.221
TOWARDS A NATIONAL DISCOURSE OF RACIAL MIXTURE
In their dual roles, politico-scholars like José María Luis Mora, Lucas Alamán, Vicente
Riva Palacio, and Justo Sierra generated and disseminated national ideologies, propelled
by histories that omitted or minimized Mexico’s African contributions. As Enrique
218 AGN, Gobernación, c. 399, e. 17, (Diciembre 29, 1851). 219 For a further analysis of Mexico’s relationship with slaves from the United States see chapter 4. 220 Riva Palacio, Vicente. México a través de los siglos: historia general y completa del desenvolvimiento social, político, religioso, militar, artístico, científico y literario de México: desde la antigüedad más remota hasta la época actual (Barcelona, Espasa y compañía, 1888-89), vol. IV, pp. 214. 221 Reyes G., Juan Carlos. “Negros Afromestizos en Colima, siglos XVI-XIX” in Presencia Africana en México, ed. Luz María Martínez Montiel (México: Consejo Nacional para la cultura y las artes, 1997), pp. 329.
94 Florescano suggests, this was a top-down national identity in which the politico-scholars
“defined the themes of reflection for the citizens.”222 Politico-scholars were part of that
process of articulating what was “Mexican.”223 What becomes clear is that in the first
half of the century, the “disappearance” of Blacks from the national discourse was not
inevitable. Rather, through a constant omission of Mexico’s Black history, the groups
that had been named “castas” gradually became “mestizos.” At the same time, by the
second half of the century the definition of “mestizo” as a mixture of Indian and White
had further allowed politico-scholars to ignore Mexico’s Black history. Yet, in spite of the glaring exclusion of a major component of Mexico’s history, politico-scholars were
able to create a discourse of national unity—real or imagined.
In the years immediately following independence, the majority of Mexicans—the
pueblo—were racially ambiguous and undefined. This proved to be a constant challenge for those seeking to create a sense of unity. The historiography of the period shows that, at least among politico-scholars, Mexicans’ racial makeup was constantly being negotiated. Juan Carlos Reyes argues that the writings of the nineteenth century were able to omit at least one category of “inferior citizens” from the national history through a supposed acceptance of the new ideology of equality. But this concept of racial equality carried two meanings. On the one hand, there was the belief that people of all races were treated equally. On the other hand, there was the belief that all Mexican citizens were racially equal because they were all equally racially mixed. While discourses of racial mixture appeared to embrace all racial differences, it in fact, became more closed to an
222 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 359. 223 In his study of the late nineteenth-century Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo refers to these men as the “wizards of progress.” See chapter 4 in Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at the World’s Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
95 acceptance of a Black Mexican history. José María Luis Mora, for example, describes
the Mexican population in 1836 as being comprised of Whites and “people of color,” the
first comprised of the descendants of Spaniards and the second primarily of indigenous
groups.224 Alamán, on the other hand, presented them by their colonial title, “castas.”225
Several decades later Sierra simply wrote of the “masses,” giving the impression that
there was indeed a homogenous “mass.”226 Riva Palacio argued that the population of
Mexico in 1821 could be divided into three groups: Spanish, Criollo, and Indian.227
Yet, even with the lack of a common definition of the “masses,” or the “pueblo,’ politico-scholars saw racial mixture as a major component of Mexican identity. Riva
Palacio, credited with writing one of the most comprehensive Black Mexico histories, completely ignores their presence in the nineteenth-century historiography, perhaps believing that independence and the Plan de Iguala had fulfilled their promise of social equality.228 Still, it is significant that the Indian and Spanish components of Mexico’s racial makeup were present while the African component became obscured. Rather than being included as a separate racial group, Blacks were included in the more ambiguous categories of “people of color” and “castas.” Mora does acknowledge that Africans were a part of Mexico’s “complicated mixture.” Mora presented the Mexican people as a
224 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 73. 225 Alamán, Lucas. Historia de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su independencia en el año de 1808, hasta la época presente, vol. V (Méjico, Impr. de J. M. Lara, 1852.), pg. 879. 226 Sierra, Justo. Mexico: Its Social Evolution, vol. 2 (Mexico: J. Ballesca & Co., Successor, 1900-1902), pp. 431, 433. 227 Riva Palacio, Vicente. México a través de los siglos: historia general y completa del desenvolvimiento social, político, religioso, militar, artístico, científico y literario de México: desde la antigüedad más remota hasta la época actual (Barcelona, Espasa y compañía, 1888-89), vol. IV, pp. V. 228 Riva Palacio, Vicente. México a través de los siglos: historia general y completa del desenvolvimiento social, político, religioso, militar, artístico, científico y literario de México: desde la antigüedad más remota hasta la época actual (Barcelona, Espasa y compañía, 1888-89), vol. IV, pp. 56.
96 “complicated racial mixture.”229 His categorization of the “pueblo” simply as “people of
color” left little room for distinctions among different racial groups. To take it a step
further, Mora agued that there were few Blacks in the republic because slavery in Mexico
had been “virtually unknown.”230 Likewise, Sierra acknowledges that inhabitants of
Mexico include “negros.”231 Yet they both make little mention of Blacks outside of the
history of slavery and even then it is only to point out that there were few slaves.232
Therefore, while not directly denying that there was an African component, its importance was significantly diminished to the point where it was seen as nonexistent.
In seeking to write a national history, all politico-scholars had to come to terms with Mexico’s Spanish heritage. In this respect José María Luis Mora (1794-1850) was a moderate. Rather than denigrating the colonial period as one of “darkness and brutality” or lauding it for its cultural achievements, Mora’s Mexico y sus Revoluciones (1836) took the position that the Spanish conquest and Mexico’s subsequent break from Spain were unfortunate, but necessary. Mora has been described as the “prominent liberal theorist of
Mexico’s nineteenth-century” for his “heightened awareness of the political use of history as propaganda.”233 His writings of Mexican history sought to highlight the fundamental question of the nation’s identity: what it means to be Mexican. 234
229 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 59. 230 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 74. 231 Sierra, Justo. Mexico: Its Social Evolution, vol. 1, no. 1 (Mexico: J. Ballesca & Co., Successor, 1900- 1902), pp. 20. 232 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 59. 233 Mora, José María Luis. Encyclopedia of Mexico (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). 234 Mora, José María Luis. Encyclopedia of Mexico (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997).
97 Like Mora, Lucas Alamán (1792-1853),235 looked towards New Spain in search
of a Mexican identity. But unlike Mora, Alamán’s five volume work, Historia de Mexico
(1846-52), presented a history that praised the institutions of New Spain and claimed
them as the basis for the new nation. Perhaps more than his contemporaries, Alamán saw
history as an “ideological foundation” for nation-building. 236 Alamán sought to present a
history of Mexico that was to a great degree based solely on Spanish origins. That is why
it is not surprising that in covering the colonial period he would minimize and neglect
indigenous culture. Likewise, Alamán dismissed the role of Blacks in Mexico’s history
and identity, with the argument that there had been few African slaves in New Spain. In
addition, like Mora, Alamán denied the possibility of any Black Mexican identity by
suggesting that Mexicans were made of the mixture of three races: Spanish, Indian, and
“castas.”237 Alamán’s use of the term “casta,” in the first half of the nineteenth century,
to refer to the masses as a homogenous entity was an acknowledgement of racial mixture
as integrally Mexican. Most notably, Alamán was among the first, and most prominent
politico-scholar to disseminate a discourse of race that presented the majority of
Mexicans as a racially-mixed people.
Having set the stage for this understanding of Mexican identity, what Mora
referred to as “people of color” and Alamán as “castas,” politico-scholars of the later
years would come to define broadly as “mestizo,” the basis of twentieth-century national
235 Lucas Alamán was named Secretary of State by Agustin de Iturbide and served in that post intermittently until 1831, even after Iturbide had been deposed and a Constitutional government had been established, but due to political instability, he was never able to serve for more than a few months at a time. He was also a key figure in the drafting of the 1836 constitution. Alamán, Lucas. Encyclopedia of Mexico (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). 236 Alamán, Lucas. Encyclopedia of Mexico (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). 237 Alamán, Lucas. Historia de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su independencia en el año de 1808, hasta la época presente, vol. V (Méjico, Impr. de J. M. Lara, 1852.), pg. 879.
98 discourses of mestizaje. This transition was a development of the production of national
histories throughout the nineteenth century that continuously omitted Black histories.
Thus, by the second half of the nineteenth century it was largely believed that Blacks had
fully been absorbed by the other classes. And in the absence of Blacks, what remained
were Indians, Whites, and their subsequent mixture—the “mestizo.”
Politico-scholars advocated racial mixture as a way for the lower classes to
experience what Mora termed “a quick and happy termination.”238 Mora’s utopia of
racial homogeneity relied on the assertion that those few Blacks who remained would be
absorbed through racial mixture with whites, a process that began with independence.239
In his 1866 work, La Economia politica aplicada a la propiedad territorial en Mexico,
Francisco Pimentel would express his agreement with Mora’s argument.240 Two years
earlier in Memoria sobre las causas que han originado la situación actual de la raza
indígena de méxico y medios de remediarla, Pimentel himself pointed out that the mestizo
already composed the majority of the population.241 Sierra, for his part, provides a more interesting argument when he states that “only the middle class progresses, for it absorbs the active individuals from the lower levels.” In addition, Sierra adds, “the division by races…has had a steadily diminishing influence as an obstacle to social evolution since the intermediate mestizo has grown steadily more numerous; in him the dominant class has its center and its roots.” 242 Rather than a simple argument for the absorption of the
238 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 75. 239 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 74. 240 Pimentel, Francisco. La Economía política aplicada a la propiedad territorial en México (México: Imprenta de Ignacio Cumplido, 1866), pp. 185. 241 Pimentel, Francisco. Memoria sobre las causas que han originado la situación actual de la raza indígena de méxico y medios de remediarla. (México: Imprenta de Andrade y Escalante, 1864), pp. 234. 242 Sierra, Justo. The Political Evolution of the Mexican People (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1969), pp. 360.
99 lower classes, Sierra points out that the product of that racial mixture would lead to a
significant middle class that with time would become the dominant class. Sierra further
notes that the mestizo was “an important element of Mexican nationality and one of the
most abounding.”243
Vicente Riva Palacio (1832-1896) is regarded as one of Mexico’s greatest intellectual figures, best known for his five volume work, Mexico a través de los siglos
(1884-1889).244 Born in Mexico City in 1832 to a respected family, Riva Palacio rose to the rank of General in the army. He also served as governor of the states of Mexico and
Michoacan and was later appointed Minister of Mexico to the Court of Spain. He was an
esteemed public and literary figure until his death in 1896.245 According to Enrique
Florescano, the official Mexican history tells that when Manuel González became
president (1880-1884), fearing opposition from the prestigious and well-celebrated
general, he occupied Riva Palacio by assigning him the task of writing the history of the
Reform. At the same time, the unofficial story tells that González was a puppet of
Porfirio Diaz who sought to establish a national project that would unify the nation through a celebration of the triumph of its government.246 Riva Palacio completed his
task in one year and by 1882 he had been assigned a much more difficult job, that of
writing a general history of Mexico, from pre-Columbian times to Mexico’s triumphant
243 Sierra, Justo. Mexico: Its Social Evolution, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Mexico: J. Ballesca & Co., Successor, 1900- 1902), pp. 20-21. 244 Vicente Riva Palacio began his literary career in the 1860s. In addition to numerous historical novels, Riva Palacio was responsible for making Inquisition documents accessible to the public after 1861 when President Benito Juarez put him in charge of the Inquisition archive. Riva Palacio y Guerrero, Vicente. Encyclopedia of Mexico (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). 245 Riva Palacio, Vicente and Juan de Dios Peza. Tradiciones y Leyendas Mexicanas. Edited Manuel Romero de Terreros and S. L. Millard Rosenberg (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1927) pp. iii. 246 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 363- 64.
100 War of the Reform.247 The publication of Mexico a través de los siglos was the most
prestigious of its time with seven thousand copies.248 According to Florescano, Mexico a
través de los siglos, seemed to restore the nation to its origins.249
Mexico a través de los siglos, is unique not only because it was a collaborative effort between Riva Palacio and the many scholars that he commissioned to write different sections, but also for its extensive scope and depth. To the architects of the new nation, prior to Riva Palacio, a Indian heritage implied a move backward instead of forward.250 Breaking from the Spanish crown politically, they still claimed Spain as their
place of origin.251 A major portion of the five volume work focuses on pre-Columbian
history and tradition. Rather than portraying indigenous groups as necessary victims of
conquest, Mexico a través presented a Mexican history that validated and sought to relish
its rich indigenous past and make it its own, even if it ignored the very real contributions
of living Indians. Ironically, it is in the late nineteenth century, and in large part with the
writing of Mexico a través, when Mexico’s history develops as one of conquered and
conqueror.252 This is what gives Mexico legitimacy and unity as an American nation.
The process of conquest and the melding of the Indigenous and European ways was
presented as an evolutionary progress that resulted in the creation of Mexico.253 Now
Mexico, like the European nations, “had a past whose origins encompassed ancient
247 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 364. 248 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 365. 249 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 357. 250 Izard, Miquel. “Elites criollas y mobilización popular” in Revoluciones Hispánicas: Independencias americanas y liberalismo español edited by François-Xavier Guerra. Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 1995. Pp. 89-90. 251 Guerra, “Identidad,” 1995, 221. 252 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 351. 253 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 354.
101 times.”254 For the first time, and in spite of internal contradictions, the nation could begin
to see itself as a single entity with a common origin and future.255 Conversely, a focus on the Spanish as conqueror and the Indigenous as conquered largely ignored the role of
Africans in the process of conquest.
Accordingly, as the national discourse transitioned from one of general racial
mixture to that of mestizaje, as defined primarily by Indian and Spanish characteristics, it also implied a focus on Indigenous and Spanish history as a foundation of Mexico’s present national identity, and vice versa. Riva Palacio argues that the mixture of conqueror and conquered forced the production of a race equally diverse from either
Spanish or Indian.256 As of the second half of the nineteenth-century identification with
only Indigenous or Spanish roots was criticized. A good alternative was “a formula that
integrated both pasts.”257 This “formula,” however, made a large oversight. It did not
include a Black Mexican past. Consequently, the ideology of mestizaje and a focus on
Indigenous and Spanish contributions allowed for the further omission of a Black
Mexican history and identity from national discourses of race.
Not withstanding, Riva Palacio is also noteworthy for becoming one of the first
scholars to write a history of Mexico that included Blacks in his 1869 publication of El
Libro Rojo.258 Mexico a través continued in that tradition, becoming the fist major
historical work to consider Blacks as an integral part of Mexico’s history. Indeed, with
254 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 357. 255 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 313. 256 Riva Palacio, Vicente. México a través de los siglos: historia general y completa del desenvolvimiento social, político, religioso, militar, artístico, científico y literario de México: desde la antigüedad más remota hasta la época actual (Barcelona, Espasa y compañía, 1888-89), vol. IV, pp. III. 257 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 347- 48. 258 For more information on Riva Palacio’s handling of Black Mexican history see chapter 3 of this work.
102 Mexico a través de los siglos, Riva Palacio accomplished what no politico-scholar had
accomplished to that point. Unlike the liberal José María Luis Mora who had rejected the
prehispanic and colonial past and unlike conservative Lucas Alamán who had only
accepted Hispanic-based history, Riva Palacio incorporated them all in his work. Yet, in
the late nineteenth century Mexico a través presented Mexico as a nation whose Black
history lay solely in the past—in Mexico’s colonial past. In fact, rather than labeling the
masses as “castas,” Mexico a través referred to them simply as “the pueblo,” the people.
Combined, these two factors represented an important transition. First, the inclusion of a
colonial Black history legitimized Mexico a través as an official and accurate history.
Second, by limiting Mexico’s Black history to the past, Riva Palacio cemented the notion that Blacks had indeed “disappeared.” This paved the road for an understanding of
Mexico in the late nineteenth century as largely a “mestizo” nation, thus contributing to the development of a discourse of mestizaje. Finally, discourse of the “mestizo” no longer allowed room for the inclusion of a present Black identity. In order words, by the late nineteenth century, Mexico had become much less racially diverse. In this vein,
Mexico a través can be valued as an example of the progression of a national discourse of mestizaje that was by no means inevitable. In the late nineteenth century the text’s inclusion of a complex Black Mexican history exposes the potential that previous politico-scholars had in developing an alternative national discourse of racial mixture— one that was inclusive of Blacks. Mexico a través, therefore, reveals that the definition of
“mestizaje” as pertaining solely of Indian and Spanish characteristics was not set in stone.
With the exclusion of Blacks from the definition of “mestizo,” it became easier for future scholars to continue to ignore Black Mexican history. Between 1900 and 1902
103 Justo Sierra (1848-1912), for example, synthesized the five volumes of Mexico a través
into the work Mexico: su evolución social. But this last work was less accepting of
Mexico’s complex racial history and largely omitted all traces of Black Mexican history.
It was not because of ignorance that politico-scholars like Sierra disregarded Mexico’s
Black history and its impact on the national racial makeup. Rather, they did not give it
much importance. Sierra does not even deem it important to mention the process and
negotiation of abolishing slavery in the years after independence. Mexico culminates
with the “consolidation of an independent secular republic during the Reform and in the
emergence of the mestizo as the dominant social force in Mexican public life.”259 This gross oversight by Sierra is significant since he played a major role in influencing twentieth-century national discourses or race. At the anniversary of his birth his Obras
Completas (1948), he was recognized as “‘el maestro,’ the country’s national mentor.”260
Justo Sierra, like other politico-scholars and like the events of the nineteenth century, left
“a lasting footprint in the national consciousness.”261 Most notably, Sierra was the first to
usher in a new role for the mestizo. While not shying away from the common practice by
politico-scholars of focusing on the White or Spanish elements of Mexico’s racial
history, Sierra presents the mestizo, not as a subcomponent of the pueblo but as
fundamentally Mexican. He writes that “the two principle types of the dwellers of
Mexico” are “the indigenous and the mestizo.”262 No longer is the mestizo presented as
separate from Whites, Spaniards, or criollos. In Sierra’s view the mestizo is the
embodiment of Mexicaness.
259 Sierra, Justo. Encyclopedia of Mexico (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). 260 Sierra, Justo. Encyclopedia of Mexico (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). 261 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 316. 262 Sierra, Justo. Mexico: Its Social Evolution, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Mexico: J. Ballesca & Co., Successor, 1900- 1902), 25.
104 REGIONAL DISCOURSES
Distinctions and categorizations of Black Mexicans were based not on history—the
history of Blacks in Mexico or even of racial mixture—but on physical appearance. Even
in the absence of racial categories politico-scholars of the nineteenth century relied on a racialized discourse of the body to point out physical characteristics in the population that
were reminiscent of race. In 1864, Francisco Pimentel, notable politico-scholar in his
own right, calculated that Mexico had a total population of 8,629,982, of which slightly
over four million were “castas” and eight thousand were Black.263 Undoubtedly “castas”
included African racial mixture as well as Spanish and Indian, however, Pimentel’s
assertion that there were only eight thousand Blacks derived from the notion that the
latter were only those who could be clearly, and physically, identified as such. Waddy
Thompson (1798-1868), Ambassador to Mexico from 1842 to 1844, serves as another
example of this perception. He reflected, “…the African blood is, I think, easily
detected. The appearance of the mulattoes is almost as distinct from the Indian as it is from the white man; there is a manifest difference even in color.”264 Yet, since such
statements were based on observations of physical traits, the presence of Black Mexicans
was minimized or ignored as an exception. Likewise, these observations were based on a
particular understanding of race, and more specifically, of Africans. Consequently,
travelers and politico-scholars were more likely to associate a Black presence with the
coastal areas, which were known for their history of slavery and where citizens were
263 Pimentel, Francisco. Memoria sobre las causas que han originado la situación actual de la raza indígena de méxico y medios de remediarla. (México: Imprenta de Andrade y Escalante, 1864), pp. 196. 264 Thompson, Waddy. Recollections of Mexico (New York, London: Wiley and Putnam, 1846), pp. 187.
105 more likely to retain some of the physical vestiges of their African ancestry. Sierra
wrote,
The nation’s black population, much reduced in number in its pure state, is confined to the coasts and the hot regions in general, to which it was imported during the period of vicekingdom under the slave regime. Free since the proclamation of Independence it may be said, by one of the first acts of our liberator, the [blacks] have preserved their ancient position where they dedicate themselves to the toilsome agricultural labors, living in a condition that does not differ from that of the indigenous.265
Seven decades earlier Mora first expressed those sentiments when he pointed out that
whatever Blacks remained in the nation lived in the two coasts, but adds that these were
very few.266
The use of travelers’ accounts provides insight, if not into how different regions
understood race, into how different regions could be understood, racially. Even though
biases must not be overlooked, these accounts prove to be useful, especially considering that it is doubtful that these travelers, all from different countries, stood alone in their understanding of race. In other words, these accounts coincide with regional and federal discourses of race already taking place. Waddy Thompson writes “there are a good many negroes [sic] in Veracruz; more probably, than in any other portion of Mexico. I did not see half a dozen negroes in the city of Mexico in a residence there of two years, and very few mulattoes.”267 Albert M. Gilliam, U.S. Consul from 1843-44, shared a similar
experience when he recounted that “at the city of Mexico, I beheld every imaginable
color of skin that a human being possesses, excepting that of the African; for of this latter
265 Sierra, Justo. Mexico: Its Social Evolution, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Mexico: J. Ballesca & Co., Successor, 1900- 1902), pp. 31-32. 266 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 74. 267 Thompson, Waddy. Recollections of Mexico (New York, London: Wiley and Putnam, 1846), pp. 5.
106 race I met with none, as negroes are hardly ever to be seen at any distance from the
coasts…”268 Jules Joseph Leclercq, President of the Royal Belgium Society of
Geography and member of the Paris Society of Geography, was passing through Mexico in 1883 and noted that in Veracruz the Black race was vastly more numerous than the
Indigenous.269 Leclercq’s observations, like those of his contemporaries, confirm that in
the late nineteenth century Mexicans were being defined by physical standards. In
Geografía y estadística de la república mexicana, published in 1890, Alfonso Luis
Velasco wrote that “in the state of Veracruz descendants of Europeans and Indians, of
Europeans and blacks, of Indians and blacks, can be found. In order to not establish
odious divisions in a country like Mexico, democratic in its institutions and customs, all
men are civilly equal.”270 Even as a discourse of equality was taking place, neither travelers not scholars could move beyond perceived racial differences. Not only that, these sources reaffirm that Blacks had in fact not disappeared, as politico-scholars suggested had happened. What is most revealing, perhaps, is the variation in regional and federal perceptions of race.
Census documents at the Municipal Archive of Córdoba reveal that in some regions of the country there were still Blacks. For the period between 1840 and 1843, and for no obvious reason, some towns in the area surrounding Córdoba were recording information about race and ethnicity. Even though these documents are not enough to suggest a trend either at the local, state, or national level, since racial and ethnic
268 Gilliam, Albert M. Travels in Mexico During the Years 1843 and 1844 (Aberdeen: Published by George Clark and Son, 1847), pp. 115. 269 Leclercq, Jules Joseph. Cien Viajeros en Veracruz: Crónicas Y Relatos, vol. VII (1879-1896), ed. Martha Poblett Miranda (Veracruz: Gobierno del estado de Veracruz, 1992), pp. 148. 270 Velasco, Alfonso Luis. Geografía y estadística de la república mexicana, tomo II (Veracruz: Oficina de la secretaría de fomento, 1890): 193.
107 information was only recorded for these limited years, they do suggest that there were
variations in census collecting information and that at least, in the state of Veracruz, there
was still a preoccupation with race.271 For the year 1840 the population of ten towns in the Córdoba area totaled 4,125. The documents included four possible Black categories.
Of the total population, 41 people were mulatto, 133 were black, 27 were pardos and 4 were morenos.272 For the year 1843 the population for nine towns totaled 2,847. Of
these, 57 were black, 58 were mulatto and 7 were moreno.273 Collectively, these
documents reveal a few things. First, that there was no standard way to gather ethnographic information, which in turn implies that there was no standard format of racial categories. Second, the ideology of racial equality was still very much a matter of rhetoric. In other words, acceptance of a Black presence in Veracruz did not automatically imply an acceptance of Blacks. Finally, these sources provide a small glimpse into the physical presence of people of African descent. The fact that many of
the “mulattos” in these documents were alive in the colonial period, suggests that,
whether willingly or not, these individuals were being described by the same racial status that they would have had in the colonial period. Conversely, based on this evidence, one can only imagine that Black Mexicans who were born after Independence and who did not possess strong African physical characteristics, would be identified as part of the
racially-mixed masses. But it is precisely this definition of “Mexican” that was being
debated and shaped in the nineteenth century.
271 It is possible, and likely, that census takers were not looking to signal out Blacks per se, but rather another group. Still, these records reveal that Córdoba, at least, was not racially equal, either physically or ideologically. 272 AMC, vol 102, est. 2 (1840). 273 AMC, vol. 104, (1841-43).
108 Florescano aptly argues that in the same way that the nation-state sought to
homogenize education and language, it also sought to create a historiography “whose
objective it was to present an image of national unity which fatally inhibited the
manifestation of local and regional history.”274 Travelers’ accounts and local documents
demonstrate a small, but noticeable, Black presence in Veracruz, late into the nineteenth
century. At the same time, a regional Black presence did not play a significant role in
national discourses of race.
CONCLUSION
José María Luis Mora argued that the Mexican character should be looked for in the
white race “in her [the white race] the whole world should fasten the concept that should
be formed of the nation.”275 Sierra, on the other hand, argued that mestizos “form the
illustrious element or class of the country, in whose hands the steering of Mexican
society in the moral, intellectual and material order of things has always fallen.”276
Unlike Sierra who maintained that the middle class—the mestizo—had become dominant, Mora presented a picture that was wholly top-down. These disparities, I believe, can be attributed to the changing discourse of race throughout the nineteenth century. Sierra’s argument was not any more accepting of the mestizo as superior to
Whites. Rather, it is a symbol of the acceptance of the mestizo as the basis of Mexican national identity.
274 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 347. 275 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 75. 276 Sierra, Justo. Mexico: Its Social Evolution, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Mexico: J. Ballesca & Co., Successor, 1900- 1902), pp. 27.
109 A closer examination of nineteenth-century historiography illustrates that while
politico-scholars did not outwardly reject any particular racial group, the mestizo became
the “physical and moral representation of Mexico” and its subsequent bi-racial history.277
More importantly, in the second half of the century the transition from “casta” to
“mestizo” was facilitated by the idea that through racial mixture, Blacks had
“disappeared.” 278 This notion, in turn, was guided by perceptions of race as defined
through physical characteristics. In the absence of what politico-scholars perceived to be
clear African physical traits, the majority of the Mexican population was deemed to not
be “Black.” Consequently, the absence of a clear Black presence gave politico-scholars the agency to further exclude Black contributions to Mexico’s national discourse.
277 Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana (México: Taurus, 2007), pp. 361, 368. 278 Martínez-Echabazal, Lourdes. “Mestizaje and the Discourse of National/Cultural Identity in Latin America, 1845-1959” in Latin American Perspectives, vol. 25, no. 3, (May 1998), pp. 32.
110
BIBLIOGRAPHY—CHAPTER 3
ARCHIVES
Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City—AGN
Archivo Municipal de Códoba, Veracruz—AMC
BOOKS AND ARTICLES
Alamán, Lucas. Historia de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su independencia en el año de 1808, hasta la época presente, Méjico, Impr. de J. M. Lara, 1852.
Andrews, George Reid, The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800-1900. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980.
Brading, D. A. “Nationalism and State-Building in Latin American History” in Wars, Parties and Nationalism: Essays on the Politics and Society of Nineteenth-Century Latin America, edited by Eduardo Posada-Carbo. London: Institute for Latin American Studies, 1995.
Di Tella, Torcuato S. National Popular Politics in Early Independent Mexico, 1820- 1847. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Duara, Prasenjit. “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When” in Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Duran Solís, Leonel. “Cultura Nacional: Pluralidad, Cultura Popular, Identidad y Política Cultural” in Jornadas de Homenaje a Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán. Veracruz: IVEC, 1988.
Eastwood, Jonathan. “Positivism and Nationalism in 19th Century France and Mexico” in Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 17, No. 4 (December 2004): 331-357.
Encyclopedia of Mexico. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
Florescano, Enrique. Historia de las historias de la nación Mexicana. México: Taurus, 2007.
111 French, William E. “Imagining and the Cultural History of Nineteenth Century Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 2, Special Issue: Mexico's New Cultural History: Una Lucha Libre (May, 1999), pp. 249-267.
Gilliam, Albert M.. Travels in Mexico During the Years 1843 and 1844. Aberdeen: Published by George Clark and Son, 1847.
Green, Stanley C. The Mexican Republic: The First Decade, 1823-1832. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987.
Hernández Cuevas, Marco Polo. African Mexicans and the Discourse of Modern Nation. NY-Oxford: University Press of America, 2004.
Herrera Casasús, Ma. Luisa. Piezas de Indias; la esclavitud negra en México. México: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1991.
Knight, Alan. “Peasants into Patriots: Thoughts on the Making of the Mexican Nation” in Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Winter, 1994), pp. 135-161.
Mallón, Florencia. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
Martinez-Echabazal, Lourdes. “Mestizaje and the discourse of national/cultural identity in Latin America, 1845-1959” in Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 3, Race and National Identity in the Americas (May, 1998), pp. 21-42.
Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones. Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836.
Muñoz Mata, Laura. “Afromestizos en el Puerto de Yucatán” in Pardos, Mulatos, y Libertos: Sexto Encuentro de Afromexicanistas. Ed. Adriana Naveda Chávez-Hita. Xalapa, Veracruz, México: Universidad de Veracruz, 2001.
Pimentel, Francisco. Memoria sobre las causas que han originado la situación actual de la raza indígena de méxico y medios de remediarla. México: Imprenta de Andrade y Escalante, 1864.
Pimentel, Francisco. La Economía política aplicada a la propiedad territorial en México. México: Imprenta de Ignacio Cumplido, 1866.
Poblett Miranda, Martha, ed. Cien Viajeros en Veracruz: Crónicas Y Relatos. Veracruz: Gobierno del estado de Veracruz, 1992.
Poinsett, Joel Roberts. Notas Sobre México (translated by Pablo Martínez del Campo). México: Editorial Jus, 2nd edition 1973.
112 Purnell, Jennie, “Citizens and Sons of the Pueblo: National and Local Identities in the Making of the Mexican Nation” in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 25, Number 2, 1 March 2002 , pp. 213-237.
Quijada, Mónica. “Que Nación? Dinámicas y dicotomías de la nación en el imaginario hispano americano del siglo XIX” in Imaginar la nación. Edited by Guerra, François- Xavier and Mónica Quijada. Munster, Hamburg: Asociación de Historiadores latinoamericanistas europeos, 1994.
“Razas de Hombres” in El Progreso, tomo II, no. 16 (Córdoba, Septiembre 19, 1880).
Reyes G., Juan Carlos. “Negros Afromestizos en Colima, siglos XVI-XIX” in Presencia Africana en México, ed. Luz María Martínez Montiel. México: Consejo Nacional para la cultura y las artes, 1997.
Ribeiro, Darcy. The Americas and Civilization. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1971.
Riva Palacio, Vicente. México a través de los siglos: historia general y completa del desenvolvimiento social, político, religioso, militar, artístico, científico y literario de México: desde la antigüedad más remota hasta la época actual. Barcelona, Espasa y compañía, 1888-89.
Riva Palacio, Vicente and Juan de Dios Peza. Tradiciones y Leyendas Mexicanas. Edited Manuel Romero de Terreros and S. L. Millard Rosenberg. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1927.
Sierra, Justo. Mexico: Its Social Evolution. Mexico: J. Ballesca & Co., Successor, 1900- 1902.
Sierra, Justo. The Political Evolution of the Mexican People. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1969.
Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio. Mexico at the World’s Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Thompson, Waddy. Recollections of Mexico. New York, London: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
Vinson, Ben III and Bobby Vaughn. Afromexico: El pulso de la población negra en méxico: una historia recordada, olvidada y vuelta a recordar. México: Centro de investigación y docencia económicas, Fondo de cultura económica, 2004.
CHAPTER 4
FREEDOM ACROSS THE BORDER: U.S. FUGITIVE SLAVE MIGRATION AND THE DISCOUSRE OF MEXICAN RACIAL EQUALITY, 1821-1866
Mexico’s nineteenth-century discourse of race reflects the nation’s idealistic society of
racial equality. With the abolition of racial categories Mexico could convince itself that
there were no more Blacks in the nation, at least ideologically. While those who had
been designated as part of the Afro-castas had not literally disappeared, the absence of
racial categories resulted in a loss in the ability to prove the supposed belief in racial
equality. If everyone was essentially Mexican,279 there was no way to show that the
ideology of racial equality was more than a mere discourse. It was one thing to promote an ideology of racial equality when the population was either white or presumably
equally racially mixed. But, it was quite another to prove it in the presence of the
population which Mora claimed had experienced “a quick and happy termination.”280
The presence of Blacks from the U.S. gave Mexico the opportunity to not only further develop that discourse, but also forced the new nation to put that ideology into practice.
The presence of U.S. runaway slaves would compel Mexico to enforce, and to a certain degree create, a discourse of equality and non-bias towards Blacks. This chapter centers on the threat of U.S. slavery and United States slave/Black migration to Mexican
279 Even though a sense of what it meant to be “Mexican” was still developing I use the term here to refer to those who were citizens of the nation. 280 Mora, José María Luis. Méjico: Sus Revoluciones, vol. 1, no. 1 (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1836), pp. 75.
114 territories. I show how Mexico dealt with the issue of slavery and Blackness in its
territory and the discourse that it promoted surrounding that issue. With the presence of
slaves in the Mexican state of Texas, slavery would become a major concern of
government officials. That issue would become especially prevalent after the Texas
Revolution (1836) and the years between the Mexican War (1845-1848) and the U.S.
Civil War (1861-1865). It was the presence of slavery and foreign Blacks at its border
and in its territory that provided a unique opportunity to promote what was already
becoming a discourse of racial equality.
Even though the term mestizaje signifies racial mixture, the discourse surrounding
it has taken on a deracializing effect by denoting a society that did not use race as a social
factor. In this work I will show that the discourse of mestizaje—of racial equality—was being created and used in nineteenth-century Mexico. Those discourses revolved, to a great degree, around foreign Blacks, often slaves or former slaves. With the abolition of slavery in Mexico in 1829 and the abolition of racial categories after independence, the
issue of slavery and Blackness were not big concerns in Mexico. It was taken for granted
that there were no more Blacks in Mexico. Even if Mexico has not accomplished racial
equality, national discourses had created a sense of equality. 281
Mexico’s geographic connection with the United States forced it to deal with
issues it felt it had already resolved at home.282 Reflections and discourses against
slavery in mid-nineteenth-century Mexico became rejections of colonialism, both of
281 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 6. 282 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 8.
115 Spain and the U.S., and a supposed acceptance of racial equality. 283 Texas was the ideal
place for Mexico to fight the battle against slavery. In this way, the Mexican government
would fight the battle of equality at home but from a distance. It is significant that
Mexican discourses against U.S. slavery centered on the institution as inhumane and barbaric. Mexico would take advantage of this opportunity to express its moral superiority against nations like the U.S. that still upheld slavery. This sense of superiority was especially important to Mexico in the aftermath of the Texas Revolution and the U.S. Intervention, which resulted in the loss of half of the nation’s land. 284
In this chapter I will discuss the presence of slavery in the Mexican state of Texas from the years after Mexico abolished slavery (1829) to the aftermath of the U.S.
Intervention (1848) through the French Intervention (1861-1867) and into the U.S. Civil war when that nation abolished slavery once and for all. By tracing this trajectory we can see not only Mexico’s reaction to the presence of Blacks in its country but also how those foreign Blacks influenced a discourse of racial equality. Moreover, we can see that during the nineteenth century an interesting web developed between slavery and
Veracruz. As I showed in chapter 3 of this work, regional discourses of race did not fully support national ones. Throughout the nineteenth century, as politico-scholars sought to erase the last vestiges of Mexico’s Black presence and history, officials sought to attract
Black migration to Veracruz. In part, Veracruz’s location on the coast made it accessible by ship from areas from the US such as Texas. Also, Veracruz was in need of people to
283 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 6. 284 While in the United Status the war that took place between the two nations from the years 1845 to 1848 is referred to as the “Mexican War,” in Mexico this same event is referred to as the “U.S. Intervention.”
116 colonize its lands.285 Most importantly, however, Veracruz’s own history of slavery and
racial mixture made it an ideal place for Blacks and former slaves in which to establish
themselves.
Finally, the importance of this work rests on demonstrating how Mexico
responded to Blacks in its nation. The presence of foreign Blacks forced Mexico to further develop and implement a discourse of equality, one that in the twentieth century would express a mestizo national ethnic consciousness. Thus, it is important to look at how a clearly distinguishable Black presence shaped that discourse. Moreover, I will show that people in the United States were also helping to propagate that discourse; one that would inculcate a particular image of Mexican identity in the U.S. mind: the mestizo image. United States responses to Mexico’s treatment of foreign Blacks and slaves reflect the belief that Mexico did not have any Blacks. Not only did Mexico’s discourse of racial equality highlight its racially-mixed past to its citizens to the U.S., it also gave emphasis to the absence of Blacks it its own country.286 Therefore, in the nineteenth
century, Mexico was becoming a nation of “mixed-race” people; a mestizo people.
THE TEXAS COLONY
In January of 1821 the Spanish Crown granted permission to Moses Austin to establish
an Anglo colony of three hundred settlers in Texas. That would prove to be an important
year not only for Austin but also for Mexico. Moses Austin died later that year in June
1821. A few months afterward Mexico would declare its independence from Spain.
285 Proyecto de ley sobre colonización, presentado a la deliberación del honorable congreso del estado de Veracruz por su commission respective de la cámara del senado (Jalapa, Veracruz: Jalapa State Government, 1826). 286 This would prove especially important for how the US would treat Mexicans in its own territory, especially after the Mexican-American war.
117 Upon his death, Moses’s son, Stephen Fuller Austin, would inherit the land grant.
Mexico would later validate the grant under its own terms. The relationship between
Anglo immigrants and the settlement of Mexican territory would produce difficult
moments for Mexico for over four decades. The main issue would prove to be slavery.
Even though Moses Austin’s grant made no mention of slavery, Stephen’s revised
grant to the Mexican empire asked for eighty acres of land per slave that belonged to a
colonist’s family. The decree granting Stephen Austin the right to settle three hundred
families in Texas allowed the settlers to bring slaves.287 Lester Bugbee argues that “in approving this plan, the government of Mexico, through its representative in Texas, acquiesced in and substantially encouraged the introduction of slaves into the new settlement.”288
In 1822, Austin’s colony faced a possible dilemma. Under the rule of the self-
proclaimed emperor, Agustín de Iturbide, the Mexican government agreed on a law
declaring that no slaves could be purchased or sold and that at age fourteen all slaves
would be considered free.289 Luckily, the law was not signed by Iturbide until January of
1823.290 Within a few short months Iturbide’s empire was declared illegal and with that,
all laws that he had implemented were suspended.
287 Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 15. 288 Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, I” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 3 (Sep., 1898), pp. 391. 289 Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 7. 290 It is noteworthy that in the “reglamento para la admisión de los extranjeros” signed by Iturbide on February 1, 1823 there is no mention of property or slavery. Primera Serie de documentos sueltos, Paquete 51-12-1, doc. 3, fj. 34, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (Febrero 1, 1823).
118 Austin’s grant was spared after the overthrow of Iurbide and the slave provisions
were eliminated.291 This should not be all that surprising in light of the fact that Mexico
still had not abolished slavery and would not do so for another six years. However, as
Lester Bugbee points out, there was an inherent contradiction in these actions.
Thus it was that the government of Mexico, while all buoyant with the hopes born of the Revolution and moved by theories of the equality and brotherhood of man, authorized the introduction of negro slavery into one of its fairest provinces, which it deluded itself with the belief that it was providing for the almost immediate extermination of the abhorred institution.292
In spite of the fact that Mexico had not abolished slavery, as I discussed in chapter 3,
there was an overwhelming belief across the country that there were no more slaves.
Furthermore, the institution of slavery was in direct opposition to the ideology of racial equality.
Perhaps even more challenging, the Mexican government soon enacted laws that would prove contradictory to the approved Austin grant. First, the Mexican congress created the 1824 constitution. Even though slavery was not abolished per se, the new constitution did state that the commerce in slavery was prohibited and that any slaves
who entered into Mexico would be granted freedom.293 Then, in July of 1824 congress
passed a federal colonization law. This law stated that the commerce and traffic of slaves
was prohibited and declared that slaves who entered Mexican soil would automatically
become free. It also provided for strict penalties for violation of the law. Although on
291 Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, I” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 3 (Sep., 1898), pp. 395. 292 Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, I” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 3 (Sep., 1898), pp. 396. 293 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 7.
119 the surface the law seemed clear, that was not the case. The colonization law also stated
that penalties would be suspended for six months for colonists who wished to land their
slaves in the Isthmus de Tehuantepec. Texas colonists interpreted this to mean that they
could in fact introduce slaves into Texas since it allowed others to continue to do so and
only after the six months would the traffic and commerce of slaves be prohibited.294
Also, these new laws made no mention of the abolition of slavery, only of its traffic and commerce. This meant that the slaves who were already in Mexican territory would not be granted their freedom. To further exacerbate the problem, in August of 1824 the new,
Mexican, congress turned over the responsibility for enforcing colonization laws to the states.295 The Texas officials found themselves siding with the Anglo colonists. A year later, Austin, trying to please Texas settlers and follow Mexican law at the same time, proposed that
until 1840 colonists, but no others, should be allowed to take slaves to Texas for their own use and property; that, in accordance with the [Mexican] federal law, trading should be strictly forbidden, except that colonists might buy from each other; that after 1840 introduction should be prohibited under any pretext; and that the grandchildren of slaves thus introduced should be free, the males at twenty-five and the females at fifteen.296
By the fall of 1825 there were 443 slaves and 1800 Anglo colonists in Texas.297 In the
meantime, colonists continued to avoid freeing their slaves at the same time that Mexican
294 Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 11. 295 Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 8. 296 Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 13. 297 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 11.
120 officials continued to attempt to eradicate slavery, albeit halfheartedly since they had not
completed abolished slavery in the nation.
Even if Texas colonists would continue to introduce and keep their slaves,
Mexican regulations posed a problem for slave owners. Slaves would emigrate to
Mexico, including Texas, seeking freedom upon stepping on Mexican soil believing that the regulations would offer them their liberty. In 1825, U.S. settlers from outside of
Texas attempted to make an amendment to the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and
Navigation with Mexico. They wanted to be allowed to enter Mexican soil to recover escaped slaves. By July 10, 1826 both countries had signed the completed treaty and would simply have to ratify it. However, Mexico was slow in this process because of the article that dealt with slavery. Mexico failed to ratify the treaty and it was withdrawn in
1827. In February of 1828, Joel Robert Poinsett, first U.S. minister to Mexico, made another attempt at protecting the colonists and their slaves, whom they considered property. Again, the Mexican congress was troubled with the slave clause that stated that colonists could recover their slaves on Mexican territory. According to the Mexican
Secretary of State, congress members were concerned that the slave clause was in direct violation of their constitution. “While at the beginning of Texan colonization the
[Mexican] government reluctantly tolerated slavery, it was consistently and persistently hostile to the institution.”298 In the end, Mexico would once more reject the treaty,
focusing mainly on the slave clause as the primary reason.299 Yet, Mexico had little
negotiating power. First of all, the federal government was too far from Texas and
298 Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 35. 299 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975). pp. 9-14.
121 enforcing laws was nearly impossible. Second, attempting to abolish slavery in the Texas colony was difficult since slavery as an institution was not officially abolished in the
nation as a whole.
Meanwhile, Austin worked within the confines of Mexican law to make sure that
the colonists would continue to keep their slaves. In April of 1828 Austin proposed that
even though slaves could no longer be introduced into Texas, perhaps colonists could be
allowed to bring in their slaves as indentured servants.300 On May 5th of that year
officials of the state of Texas responded to Austin by passing a decree that legalized labor
contracts made in a foreign country. This decree allowed colonists to “hire” their slaves,
in the U.S, as servants. In this sense, the colonists would be able to enter Texas, then
Mexican territory, without having to free their slaves.301 Eugene C. Barker writes of this
deliberate legislation,
The application of this law was simple and comprehensive. Theoretically, master and slave, but often in practice only the master, went to a notary and declared the value of the slave to be certain sum. The slave wished to be free and in Texas would be free; but he could avail himself of this boon unless his master took him there and the master could not afford to sacrifice his value. Therefore, in recognition of the owner’s right and of the privileges which he himself would acquire by emigration, the slave contracted to work for the master at stipulated wages after removal until he had repaid his value.302
300 Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 19. 301 Primera serie de papeles sueltos, INAH, paquete 51-7-56, doc. 47, fj. 102 (May 5, 1828); Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, II” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 4 (Dec., 1898), pp. 667; Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 20. 302 Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 19.
122 The decree also made claims on the children of slaves after their removal to Texas.
Under the decree the children would serve the master until the age of twenty-five,
without wages. After reaching that age they would continue to serve under the same terms as the father until all debts were paid.303 With this decree Mexican authorities’
efforts at preventing Anglo settlers from introducing slaves to Mexican territory were
both thwarted and successful since the laborers were not slaves, at least in name.
In the following year, Mexico would at last have a foot to stand on in their
demands of Anglo colonizers. In 1829, eight years after independence and seven years
after Anglos had begun to colonize Texas, Mexico would finally abolish that infamous
institution. On September 16, 1829, at the Independence Day celebrations, President
Vicente Guerrero proclaimed slavery abolished. According to José María Tornel y
Mendivil, Minister of War, it was a “glorious reminder of our political liberty and today,
also a reminder of the incorporation of the descendants of Africa, who came to our
country dragging a chain, in the great Mexican family.”304 Tornel y Mendivil took this
moment not only to reiterate the ideals of equality established after independence but also
to argue that Africans/Blacks had already been incorporated into the larger Mexican
community. Indeed, the final factor in promulgating a discourse of racial equality was
the abolition of slavery.
303 Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, I” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 3 (Sep., 1898), pp. 412. 304 Tornel y Mendivil, José María. Breve reseña histórica de los acontecimientos mas notables de la nación mexicana desde el año de 1821 hasta nuestros días (Mexico: Imprenta de Cumplido, 1852), pp. 85- 86; Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 21.
123 In Texas the decree was withheld from the public by local officials who hoped to
be allowed to exempt the state from it.305 Indeed, they were successful and on December
of 1829 a declaration was issued which exempted Texas slaves from emancipation under
Guerrero’s decree.306 Yet, Lester Bugbee points out that it is possible that this last decree was never made public in the rest of Mexico, perhaps because government officials had made a decision that went against the very discourse and ideology that they were
disseminating to the Mexican people. 307
One way to stem the tide of slavery in Texas was to put an end to all immigration.
In April of 1830, Mexican officials attempted to rectify the situation by passing a law that
forbade foreign immigration across its northern border and prohibited the introduction of
slaves to its territory.308 Interestingly, the law continued to recognize existing slavery in
Texas.309 What bothered government leaders like Lucas Alamán, Secretary of State, was
not only that slaves were not manumitted upon entering Mexican territory, as they were
supposed to be, but also that Anglo colonists continued to introduce and purchase new slaves. Alamán recognized that Texas colonizers had been successful because of slave labor. To enforce the law that prohibited the introduction of slaves would incite sedition among the colonizers and perhaps even an invasion of Mexico. These ideas put the
305 Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 28). 306 Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, II” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 4 (Dec., 1898), pp. 655. 307 Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, II” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 4 (Dec., 1898), pp. 658. 308 Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 33. 309 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 17.
124 Mexican government in a difficult position of defending its humanitarian principles while
possibly inciting a rebellion, or worse, an invasion from its northern neighbor.310
Still, circumventing the law was not difficult since slaves were being introduced into
Texas under the guise of “servants.” In a four month period in 1831 alone, 105 slaves were brought into Texas by sixteen Anglos. Contracts from a New Orleans notary public show that indeed these “servants” were reduced to slavery through contracts that spanned eighty to ninety years. The contracts, all signed by notaries, confirmed the names of the
“laborers,” age, state of origin, and price that was paid for their labor. All of the
“laborers” claimed that they had received their pay prior to signing the contract and that having received pay they were now indebted to the said contractor, heading for the state of Texas, in the Mexican republic.311 General Manuel de Mier y Terán suggested that
since it was difficult to know which “servants” were in fact slaves, the solution lay in
simply not allowing any Blacks into the state of Texasl, an action that was never taken.312
Even as the Mexican government continued to thwart its own objectives, perhaps inadvertently, by finding ways to allow Anglos to evade the laws, it continued to promote an anti-slavery discourse and at times even attempted to take action that reflected that discourse. Desirous to populate the territory, Mexico tried to find ways to allow colonists to settle, knowing that the latter were entering with their slaves. Mexican officials found themselves caught between two conflicting desires.
Under the leadership of Anthony Butler, Poinsett’s successor as U.S. minister to
Mexico, the U.S. proposed another treaty with Mexico in 1831, again with the fugitive
310 Orozco y Berra, Manuel, ed. “Appendix I” in Diccionario Universal de Historia y de Geografía, tomo 1 (Mexico: Imprenta de F. Escalante, 1854). 311 Primera serie de papeles sueltos, INAH, paquete 51-7-56, doc. 9, fj. 13-14 (March 5, 1831). 312 Primera serie de papeles sueltos, INAH, paquete 51-7-56, doc. 1, fj. 1-2 (February 14, 1832).
125 slave clause included, but the Mexican congress continued to oppose the measure.
Ultimately the slave clause was defeated, but by a small margin.313 As further evidence of the constant contradictions plaguing Mexico was an April 1837 decree proclaiming the liberation of slaves and granting compensation to slave owners.314 Yet, at that point the
only slaves left in Mexico were those in Texas. Guerrero had abolished slavery eight years prior. At the same time, however, Texans were excluded from the compensation that was given to slave owners who freed their slaves. It is clear that there was no consensus among Mexican politicians as to how to handle Texas slavery. Officials would
continue to report on the presence of slaves in Texas and express concern over the fact
that Anglo-Americans were trying to introduce them to that territory even as anti-slavery
laws were not being enforced in Texas.315 Bugbee notes that Mexico’s “fervent advocacy of liberty” “was merely an abstract question with them, for they had few slaves to lose by
a general emancipation.”316 Therefore, the relationship between Texas slavery and the
discourse of racial equality remained a contradiction since officials tried to eradicate
slavery and tolerate it at the same time.
THE DISCOURSE OF RACIAL EQUALITY, PART I
Ironically, as Anglos sought ways to circumvent Mexican anti-slave laws, Texas became
a potential haven for slaves, free Blacks, and abolitionists seeking to establish Black
colonies. As Anglo colonists saw Texas as a settlement for slavery, slaves and
313 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 17. 314 Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, II” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 4 (Dec., 1898), pp. 659. 315 Primera Serie de documentos sueltos, INAH, paquete 51-8-65, doc. 46, fj. 67, (June 16, 1834). 316 Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, I” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 3 (Sep., 1898), pp. 392.
126 abolitionists saw it as conducive to fighting for abolition. Two particular abolitionists
stand out from among the rest: Nicholas Drouet and Benjamin Lundy. Actions by Drouet
and Lundy would play an important role in endorsing Mexico’s ideology of racial
equality amongst Anglo-Americans.
In late 1833 Nicholas Drouet, a creole from New Orleans, petitioned the Mexican
government for a grant to establish a colony of Black families in Texas. First, however,
he inquired as to whether in fact all citizens enjoyed the rights of free men. He sought a
land grant “with the objective of establishing themselves there, enjoy that civil right of
man of which they are currently deprived by the barbarous laws of that country [the
United States] and die, if the occasion arises, in defense of a magnanimous and generous
nation that knows how to value free men whatever their creed may be…”317 The
Mexican government was willing to grant permission to five hundred Black families to
settle in Texas, and as along as they obeyed the Mexican laws they would enjoy
“complete equality.”318 A letter from the Mexican Cónsul in New Orleans reiterated that
Blacks would be protected in Texas and would have equal rights with Mexican
citizens.319
Benjamin Lundy was pursuing a similar endeavor. In 1815, at the age of 26
Lundy helped form the “Union Humane Society,” an anti-slavery society.320 He traveled
the U.S. trying to gain support for his cause and after traveling through Texas from 1831
317 Primera Serie de documentos sueltos, INAH, paquete 51-16-3, doc. 1, fj. 124, (December 12, 1833). 318 Note on margin, dated January 18, 1834 in Primera Serie de documentos sueltos, INAH, paquete 51-16- 3, doc. 1, fj. 124, (December 12, 1833). 319 Primera Serie de documentos sueltos, INAH, paquete 51-8-66, doc. 4, fj. 6 (February 17, 1834)). 320 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 16.
127 to 1832, decided that he would create a settlement of free people of color in that area.321
Lundy’s travel accounts reveal a similar sentiment amongst non-Mexicans that Mexico
was a place where slaves could seek freedom. While in Texas, he met a man named
Francis Berry who had moved there from Virginia with his slaves. By the time that
Lundy met him Berry had no slaves left because they had run away “to the Spaniards.”322
In San Antonio de Bexar Lundy met a free Black man who commented that though he was “jet-black” in color, “the Mexicans pay him the same respect as to other people, there being no difference made here on account of color.”323 Lundy observed that
there was no distinction as to freedom by reason of color and that all complexions were
respected.324 Like Lundy, other travelers such as Cora Montgomery noted a different
attitude towards Blacks in Mexico. She relates a story told to her by an acquaintance
who came across a man in Monterrey that seemed familiar to him. Montgomery’s
acquaintance said to the man, “Ah, Dan, is that you?” and the man retorted, “[call me]
Don Dionisio de Echavaria, if you please, sir.” The acquaintance asked, “but how did you
come by such a fine name, Señor Don?” and the former Dan responded that his father-in- law was a judge who allowed him to take his name since Dan’s former name was “only fit for a plantation nigger.”325 Accounts like this cultivated the idea that Mexico was a
type of haven for Blacks and former slaves.
321 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 30-31. 322 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 44. 323 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 48. 324 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 63. 325 Montgomery, Cora [Mrs. William Leslie Cazneau] Eagle Pass, or Life on the Border (New York: George P. Putnam and Co., 1852), pp, 139.
128 In spite of the positive attitudes that Lundy encountered, he faced one problem in proceeding with his settlement. In San Antonio de Béxar the governor told Lundy that he
had no objection to a settlement by people of color, but that he could not do anything to
help until the 1830 anti-immigrant law was repealed.326 Though Anglo colonists
continued to establish themselves in Texas, the law was still in effect and as such, Lundy
could not officially receive approval for his colony. On his third trip to Mexico in mid-
1834 Lundy stopped in New Orleans where he met a woman named Lafitte Brocard who
informed him that her brother, Nicholas Dronette (sic), a dark mulatto and recent officer of the Mexican army, had received a grant from the Mexican government to settle with colonists of color from Louisiana.327 Coincidently, Lundy’s and Drouet’s petitions were made more or less at the same time. Yet, while Drouet’s petition was approved, Lundy
faced problems with the 1830 law. This is another example of how Mexican officials
were not coordinated. Undoubtedly, the introduction of Blacks to Mexico by abolitionist
groups was seen by some as important while some sought to obey the law that was still in
place. This is likely the case since both petitions were well received among government
officials. Along his travels Lundy showed his plan to many Mexican officials, all of
whom enthusiastically approved of his endeavors.328
Lundy caught up to Drouet in Matamoros where he attended two meetings with
the “colored people” of the area that had already established themselves in Mexico. At
326 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 78. 327 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 113. 328 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 172.
129 the first meeting the latter expressed their aversion to returning to the U.S.329 At the second meeting the residents adopted “resolutions favorable to the emigration to Mexico, of their brethren in the United States.”330 Lundy hoped to contribute to this resolution
and in 1835 he was finally in a position to do so.
In March of 1835 Lundy was granted permission to introduce 250 families to
Matamoros. Yet, Lundy was not happy with this grant. He had hoped to acquire
individual land grants that he would distribute to the settlers. Instead, he was awarded
only one grant that he would have to divide amongst 250 families.331 Unfortunately,
Lundy would not accomplish his goal of establishing a Black colony in Mexico. In 1835
the Texas Revolution broke out.
After a brief “revolution” in 1835-36 Texas declared itself independent from
Mexico.332 It existed as an independent nation from that time until 1845 when the U.S. accepted it into the union. In the months before Texas declared its independence, in a letter to José María Tornel y Mendivil, General Antonio López de Santa Anna wrote that there were a considerable number of slaves in Texas that should be free according to
Mexican law. “Shall we permit those wretches to moan in chains any longer in a country whose kind laws protect the liberty of man without distinction of caste or color?”333 Two
months later, in April of 1836, Jose Urrea, a general of the Mexican army in Texas was
329 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 143. 330 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 144-45. 331 Lundy, Benjamin. The Live, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) (First published in 1847), pp. 167-68. 332 For a bigger discussion on the Texas Revolution see David Montejano. Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997). 333 The Mexican Side of the Texan Revolution (1836) by the Chief Mexican Participants, ed. Carlos E. Castañeda (Texas: P.L. Turner Co. Publishers, 1928), Doc. 8.
130 sent to replace Vicente Filisola, general in chief of the army. Filisola had allowed U.S.
commissioners, Henry W. Kearnes, Henry Teal, and Victor Lorpy to recover whatever
property they had lost during the war. Among their property were slaves, who according
to Mexican law, should not have been returned because upon stepping into Mexican land
they had gained their freedom and therefore were no longer considered property.334 But even though Mexico had lost Texas, slavery was still at its border and so long as the U.S. upheld the institution of slavery, Mexico would continue to be put in a compromising position. Since slavery had been tied to Blackness, to do away with slavery meant the ultimate rejection of racial difference, at least in discourse. Moreover, Mexico’s discourse of racial equality was being challenged and here was its opportunity to put theory into practice. After the Texas Revolution, no only did Mexican officials refused to acknowledge Texas’s independence, but they argued that they were doing so on the basis of slavery. Recognizing Texas’s independence meant sanctioning slavery.335 This stance
in addition to its unrelenting position on the return of runaway slaves helped to further
create an image of a Mexican society of equality.
FUGITIVE SLAVES
After the Texas Revolution the recovery of slaves became an even bigger, constant concern for Texas colonists. By 1840 Mexico had not yet recognized Texas independence. That year, Texas officials gave free Blacks the burden of choosing to become enslaved if they remained in Texas, or being deported to Mexico where they
334 The Mexican Side of the Texan Revolution (1836) by the Chief Mexican Participants, ed. Carlos E. Castañeda (Texas: P.L. Turner Co. Publishers, 1928), pp. 270. 335 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 25.
131 would be able to maintain their freedom. While it is difficult to estimate how many
Black people left Texas under this provision, Mexico took the opportunity to prove itself by offering land to those who went across its still undefined border.336 In fact, once the
loss of Texas seemed inevitable, and as the Mexican War loomed above, Mexicans began
to see Blacks and former slaves as potential allies. During the war, not only did Blacks
escape to Mexico, General Santa Anna circulated a notice that tried to persuade Blacks to
escape from their masters. Santa Anna portrayed Mexico as a nation with no distinction
of races; a place where people could find freedom and liberty.337 In sum, with the last
Mexican stronghold of slavery lost Mexico could further promote its discourse of racial
equality and finally endorse its anti-slavery policies.
Mexico became a potential refuge for slaves. Texas colonists began to take it
upon themselves to send filibusters to recover the slaves and in 1847 petitioned President
James Polk to take action on their behalf. The colonists even tried to set up posts to
arrest the runaway slaves on their way across the Rio Grande.338 Things only got worse for Anglo slave owners after the Mexican War. In 1850 Mexico passed a law that declared that “no foreign government would be allowed to touch a slave who had sought refuge in Mexico.”339 In other words, any slave who set foot on Mexican soil, on free
soil, would also become free.
336 Menchaca, Martha. Recovering History, Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2001), pp. 231-232. 337 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 31. 338 Tyler, Ronnie C. “Fugitive Slaves in Mexico” in The Journal of Negro History, vol. 57, no. 1 (Jan., 1972), pp. 3-4. 339 Tyler, Ronnie C. “Fugitive Slaves in Mexico” in The Journal of Negro History, vol. 57, no. 1 (Jan., 1972), pp. 4.
132 Yet, as in earlier years, not all Mexican officials agreed on placing discourse and
law above foreign interest. The Mexican congress continued to debate the issue in the
senate stating that the return of runaway slaves to their masters would lead to good
neighborly relations with the U.S. Others, like Pizarro Martinez, then Mexican consul in
New Orleans, asserted that even though Blacks were “lazy and lacking in morals,” he was
also concerned that “free negroes in Texas would attract Anglo settlers who anticipated
exploiting the Black labor pool.”340 Though it is clear that not all Mexican officials felt
the same way towards slavery, or even Blacks, the dominant discourse was one of
freedom and racial equality and that discourse was promoted around the existence of U.S.
slavery.
By 1851, three years after the end of the Mexican War, Mexico was shelter to
thousands of runaway slaves.341 In a 1852 publication in the South-Western American
John S. ‘Rip’ Ford made the following statement,
the contiguous Mexican States afford to fugitive slaves asylum, where they are treated with respect and with more consideration than either Americans or Europeans. Slavery in this State [of Texas] is, and will be, more or less affected by the municipal regulations in force in the coterminous States of Mexico.342
Santiago Vidaurri supported this argument when he communicated to the State of Texas
that three thousand slaves had escaped into Mexico in the eight years between 1852 and
1860.343 In 1864, at the height of the U.S. Civil War, in seeking to introduce a bill to
340 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 21. 341 Tyler, Ronnie C. “Fugitive Slaves in Mexico” in The Journal of Negro History, vol. 57, no. 1 (Jan., 1972), pp. 1. 342 Ford, John S. ‘Rip.’ “Mexican Affairs” in The South-Western American, (November 17, 1852). 343 “Interesting From the Rio Grande” in Chicago Press and Tribune (May 5, 1860), pp. 2.
133 congress to find a solution to the escaped slaves in Mexico, James H. Lane, Kansas
politician, stated that “it is known to us that among that [Mexican] people there are no
prejudices against the Black man, and that intermarriage is not prohibited either by law or
custom.”344 In this sense, Mexico’s stance on anti-slavery conveyed an image of a more
tolerant society, an image that the U.S. helped to promote.
CONFEDERATES IN MEXICO
Mexico’s battle with slavery would come to a head just as the U.S. was finishing its four-
year-long civil war. In 1862, discontent with President Benito Juarez’s refusal to pay the
nation’s foreign debt, France instituted Maximilian of Hapsburg as Emperor of Mexico.
While these were extraordinary times in Mexico’s history, a series of events would ensue
that would force Mexico to take a stance against slavery for one last time. In that process
Mexican officials would again be called on to disseminate their discourse of racial equality.
Matthew F. Maury, a former confederate, had established friendly relations with
Maximilian before the end of the U.S. Civil War.345 The two seemed a likely union.
Both had become marginalized in their respective home countries and were in need of
support. Maury was trying to escape the fate of a country free of slavery and Maximilian
was trying to establish support and legitimacy in Mexico. Meanwhile, Maximilian had
set up an office in New York from which Luis de Arroyo would serve as General Consul for the empire. Arroyo’s job was to secure approval from the U.S. for the inflicted
344 Rippy, Fred J.. “A Negro Colonization Project in Mexico, 1895” in The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Jan., 1921), pp. 66-67. 345 Rister, Carl Coke. “Carlota, A Confederate Colony in Mexico” in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Feb., 1945), pp. 39.
134 empire. The solution to the confederates’ and Maximilian’s problems was simple.
Maximilian would allow the confederates to establish a colony in Mexico in exchange for
their political support.
By decree, on April 27, 1865, Maximilian set up a land company that would be in charge of selling and distributing land grants to new colonists. Represented by Barnard
G. Caulfield, the emigrants who purchased land through the American and Mexican
Emigrant Company would be exempt from the payment of 5% tax for the sale of land.346
Maximilian also named Maury Consul of Colonization while Maury’s compatriot, J.B.
Magruder, was named head of the Land Office. Maury was authorized to establish colonization offices in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Texas, Missouri, California and New Orleans.347 By mid-October there were agents in Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati,
Philadelphia, Chicago, and Buffalo.348
In addition, Maximilian appropriated ten thousand pesos for the establishment of a twelve-month, English language newspaper. Henry W. Allen, former confederate governor of Louisiana became the paper’s editor.349 The Mexican Times, a weekly
newspaper, was “devoted to the best interests of the Mexican Empire.” The newspaper
had as its goal to give full and accurate descriptions of the rich lands and their produce,
the climate, the mines, and the minerals for the purpose of promoting immigration and
346 “The Decree” in The Mexican Times, v.1, n.13, (December 9, 1865), pp.4. 347 “Correspondencia de la Legación Mexicana en Washington Durante la Intervención Estranjera, 1860- 1868.” Colección de documentos para formar la historia de la intervencion (Mexico: Imprenta del Gobierno en Palacio, 1870). Vol. V, Document 549 (November 4, 1865); The Mexican Times, September 16, 1865, v. 1, n. 1, pp. 3; Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 461. 348 The Mexican Times, v.1, n.7, (October 28, 1865), pp.3. 349 Hanna, Alfred J. “A Confederate Newspaper in Mexico” in The Journal of Southern History, vol. 12, no.1 (Feb., 1946), pp. 68; Rister, Carl Coke. “Carlota, A Confederate Colony in Mexico” in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Feb., 1945), pp. 40.
135 progress.350 The writers of the paper would do this by representing Mexico as an ideal
place. Many of the paper’s pages were taken up by reports on the climate, agriculture and
the landscape of Mexico. One immigrant who was surveying the lands in Mexico wrote
that it was the most beautiful country he ever saw. Not only that, “there is no portion of
Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana, or Tennessee that surpasses it.”351 In Mexico, emigrants
from the U.S. and Europe could find “rich, productive and cheap lands.” “No country on
earth has as many natural advantages. Mexico is self sustaining in every way.” Among
the crops that could be grown were sugar-cane, cacao, indigo, coffee, cotton, tobacco and numerous fruits. These were “magnificent lands” and “rich mines.” “There are in her mountains ten thousand times more silver and gold than have been taken out. All she wants is energy—energy—energy.”352 The climate was an eternal spring where there
were no fevers or epidemics of any kind.
To you, who in the cold and rigorous climates, are afflicted with long and painful coughs; to you, who are dying with that insidious disease known as consumption, we say, come the stable lands of Mexico. You will need no physician here; but without medicine of any kind, you will find a quick and certain cure and receive a new lease of life.353
Not only was Mexico an ideal place, it was an ideal place for confederates who saw
themselves as persecuted martyrs of their own country. “To those who have drank (sic)
the cup of bitterness to the very dregs—we say come to Mexico…Here you will find a
shelter…as did the Puritans who came to the bleak shores of America.” Contributors to
The Mexican Times wrote about forming a colony in Mexico and making it a home. In
350 “Prospectus,” in The Mexican Times, v.1, n.2, (September 23, 1865), pp. 3. 351 “Letter from Cordova,” The Mexican Times, v.1, n.4, (October 7, 1865), pp.3. 352 “The Empire of Mexico and its Great Resources,” in The Mexican Times, v.1, n.3, (September 30, 1965), pp.2; The Mexican Times, v. 1, n. 1, (September 16, 1865), pp. 2. 353 “The rain—it raineth every day,” in The Mexican Times, v. 1, n. 1, (September 16, 1865), pp. 3.
136 this way, confederates could help “make her [Mexico] what she of right ought to be, the
garden spot of this continent.”354 As more confederates arrived in Mexico, they would
then take up the torch of the immigration campaign by contributing to the paper. The
exiled confederates picked a day no less important than Mexican Independence day—
September 16—to launch their newspaper.
Editors of the Mexican Times advised its readers to emigrate in groups of 25 to 30
people and to buy lands “in a group of private individuals.”355 Moreover, the editors
were clear in pointing out that although colonists could arrive with little money they
should not go to Mexico without money. “To sum our advice, we say: this is the finest
country on the face of God’s earth, and presents the best openings for comfortable homes and large fortunes for those who have a small capital on which to begin, but to those who
are without means, we say, in all candor, stay where you are.”356 Other useful advice was
that of carrying a blanket to wrap the feet because of the cold the colonists were likely to
experience en route.357 Overall, however, in spite of the potential hazards and caveats,
the discontent of having lost the war, coupled with the welcome that confederates were
being given persuaded many to make their quickly way to Mexico.
As early as May of 1865, Joseph O. Shelby of Missouri organized a force of three hundred men to go to Mexico. A month later they were joined in San Antonio by others from Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas, and Alabama.358 In Clinton, De
Witt County, Texas, seventy private citizens hired an agent to represent them and help
354 The Mexican Times, v. 1, n. 1, (September 16, 1865), pp. 2. 355 “Immigration” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 20, (January 27, 1866), pp. 2. 356 “Immigration” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 20, (January 27, 1866), pp 2. 357 “Editorial Correspondence!” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 27, (March 17, 1866), pp. 1. 358 Rister, Carl Coke. “Carlota, A Confederate Colony in Mexico” in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Feb., 1945), pp. 36.
137 them get established in Mexico.359 Likewise, in western Texas a number of the citizens
of Guadalupe gathered at the court house in late March of 1866 to establish not only who
wanted to emigrate to Mexico but how to procure lands there. At the meeting Mr. M. B.
Franklin recounted his impressions of the town of Córdoba, Veracruz, and that region
from when he had been stationed in Mexico for several weeks during the Mexican
American war.360 While the residents of Guadalupe measured their options three ships
arrived in Veracruz carrying Confederates. There were at least one hundred and four
people, including men, women and children, all of whom were going to settle in
Córdoba.361 The editors of The Mexican Times estimated that 50,000 people would arrive
into Mexico in 1866.362 These numbers are impressive, especially when we consider that
according to George Harmon, as of September 20, 1865, there were only ninety-eight
former confederates in Mexico.363
THE CARLOTA COLONY
On September 5, 1865, after evaluating thirteen rural areas, Maury designated an estate in
Córdoba as the area for settlement. The land of the future Carlota colony, named after
Maximilian’s wife, the empress, had been neglected for various reasons. Primarily, the
land had been confiscated by the Juarez government from the Catholic Church and
abandonment had been “depriving agriculture and the population of the fruits which they
359 “A Texas Colony for Mexico” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 28, (March 24, 1866). pp. 4. 360 “Hot for Mexico” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 31, (April 7, 1866), pp. 2. 361 “Emigration” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 26, (March 10, 1866), pp. 1. 362 “Emigration” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 26, (March 10, 1866), pp. 2. 363 Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 460.
138 ought to produce.”364 Carlota was located nine miles southeast of Córdoba.365 That placed Carlota at a mere three and a half kilometers distance from the town of San
Lorenzo, a town that had a history of slavery and would in fact play an important role in the discourse of race in late nineteenth-century Córdoba.366
Not only was Veracruz a good place for relocation from the U.S. because it was a port city, so close to New Orleans, but because of its history with slavery and racial mixture. An interesting relationship ensued between the U.S. and Veracruz. In April of
1836, days before the end of the Texas Revolution, residents of Orizaba and Córdoba expressed their concern about the growing number of slaves in Texas.367 They claimed that slaves had continued to retain the status of slaves in spite of Mexican laws and asked the Mexican government to see to it that the laws of the Constitution be obeyed and, furthermore, that the current slaves be manumitted.368 But more than a mere argument of law or morality, residents of Córdoba and Orizaba sought to replenish their haciendas with new forms of labor. They argued that once the slaves were manumitted, they could move to these cities to work as laborers. They even proposed a series of regulations. The first stated that the laborers would be contracted for no less than ten years. Second, they
364 Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 459; Slavery or Peonage in Mexico. Message from the President of the United States in answer to a resolution of the House of 11th instant concerning the re-establishment of slavery or peonage in the republic of Mexico. December 20, 1865.—Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and ordered to be printed, pp.. 5. 365 Rister, Carl Coke. “Carlota, A Confederate Colony in Mexico” in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Feb., 1945), pp. 40-41; Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 472. 366 Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 472. See chapter 6 of this work for more information on the history of San Lorenzo and Córdoba, Veracruz. 367 As early as 1826 the Veracruz Senate was considering a colonization project in which lands would be given to Mexicans or foreigners willing to colonize the land, due to a need to populate the area. (Proyecto de ley sobre colonización, presentado a la deliberación del honorable congreso del estado de Veracruz por su comisión respectiva de la cámara del senado (Jalapa: Jalapa State Government, 1826)). 368 Primera serie de documentos sueltos, paquete 51-10-87, legajo 10, exp. 87, Abril 16, 1836, Archivo Nacional de Antropología e Historia.
139 would be given a piece of land which they could harvest for their own purposes, free of
rent for three years. Third, the workers would be paid the same amount as all other
laborers. Fourth, hacienda owners would also provide the necessary equipment for the workers. Finally, if, after the ten years, the worker wanted to move to another hacienda,
he would first have to pay any debt that he owed to the hacendado. Then he would have
to notify the hacendado as to where he planned to move to and permission had to be
granted by the prospective employer.369 It is not clear if this proposal was ever accepted
by influential leaders in Veracruz, but it is important to point out two factors involved in
this petition. First, the hacendados of Córdoba and Orizaba sought to profit from slavery
in Texas under a humanitarian guise. Second, their eagerness to welcome Blacks from
Texas revealed their willingness to work alongside, or in this case, employ Blacks. This
can be attributed, no doubt, to the region’s long history of slavery and hacendados’
experience with Black labor.
Throughout the century, Veracruz would attract the attention of many others
seeking to introduce Blacks to that state. For example, in 1857 Luis N. Fouche was
granted permission by the Mexican government to establish a town of free Blacks in
Veracruz that he called Eureka. Under the terms of the contract one hundred families
would be granted Mexican citizenship and be exempt from taxes and even military
service. That same year forty Black families arrived in Veracruz from New Orleans to
establish their own town. According to Schwartz, El Progreso, a Veracruz newspaper,
welcomed the colonists “described the new arrivals as intelligent, moral, cultured, and
369 Primera serie de documentos sueltos, paquete 51-10-87, legajo 10, exp. 87, Abril 16, 1836, Archivo Nacional de Antropología e Historia.
140 never mentioned their racial characteristics.”370 The paper’s omission of racial
characteristics is significant. This was perhaps a representation of Mexico’s discourse of
racial equality. On the other hand, it could have also been a way to avoid calling
attention to the new arrivals’ distinct racial background. What is important is that foreign
Blacks (from the U.S.) either went directly across the border from Texas into Mexico or
they ended up in the state of Veracruz.
In 1865 The Mexican Times continued to promote Carlota as an ideal place for
settlement, in many of the ways that it promoted Mexico, in general. What is most
important about these reports was not only how the idea of Carlota was “sold” to
confederates who had already been convinced to migrate to Mexico since it was there that
the newspaper was published, but what the paper reveals about Córdoba and Veracruz.
According to the editors of The Mexican Times, its location on the line of the Imperial
Railroad from Veracruz to Mexico City made Córdoba the “gateway of colonization.”371
In addition, The Mexican Times noted, Córdoba had a total of fourteen municipalities, forty-four rancherias, and approximately twenty-eight thousand people.372 But what is
perhaps more striking, and at the same time not all that surprising, is the fact that San
Lorenzo, located three and a half kilometers from Carlota would not be included in the founding story of Córdoba, as told by the confederates. The Mexican Times reported that
Córdoba was named after the Viceroy and was founded in 1618 by the “thirty gentlemen.”373 In a letter published in the New York Daily News on December 9, 1865
370 Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico (El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975), pp. 41. 371 The Mexican Times, v.1, n.8, (November 4, 1865), pp.2. 372 “District of Cordova” in The Mexican Times, v.1, n.8, (November 4, 1865), pp.1. 373 “District of Cordova,” in The Mexican Times, v.1, n.9, (November 11, 1865), pp.1. A typo in the paper actually states that the founding date for Córdoba was 1818.
141 General Sterling Price stated that “our colony commences with about thirty
Confederates” in much the same way that Córdoba began with the “thirty gentlemen.”374
Perhaps a reminder of San Lorenzo’s and Córdoba’s true founding would have affected
the very reason why these confederates were fleeing the U.S. They had, after all, fought
a war against their countrymen in defense of the very institution that San Lorenzo’s
founders had escaped from: slavery.
Upon their arrival to Córdoba, confederates who could afford it went directly to
the Confederate Hotel, the “largest two-story house” in the city.375 By December of 1865
already prominent men such as Governor Isham Harris of Tennessee and Judge John
Perkins of Louisiana had gone with numerous friends to examine their new home.376 In
February 1866 Georgia’s newspaper, The Columbus, was lamenting that “in the worth of
Judge Swan [of Tennessee] this country has lost a bright ornament, and the colony of
Cordova acquired a man of sterling honesty and unflinching devotion.” Twelve families joined him.377 In January 1866 the editors of The Mexican Times were happy to report
that all the emigrants in Mexico from the U.S. were doing well.378 At the same time,
George Harmon reports that in January of 1866 the great “city” of Carlota was nothing
more than a few tents and a dozen unfinished houses.379 By April there were three
houses made of bamboo and thatched roofs. The largest house belonged to general
374 “From Mexico,”in The Mexican Times, v.1, n.17, (January 6, 1866), pp.1. 375 Hanna, Alfred J. “A Confederate Newspaper in Mexico” in The Journal of Southern History, vol. 12, no.1 (Feb., 1946), pp. 69. 376 The terms for buying land were as follows: 10,000 hectares in the area surrounding Cordova at a dollar an acre with six percent interest to be paid in five years. Land would only be sold to settlers at quantities of 320 acres for a single man or 640 for a married man. (“Notice,” in The Mexican Times, v.1, n.12, (December 2, 1865), pp.2). 377 “Gone to Cordova” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 23, (February 17, 1866) pp. 2. 378 “Immigration” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 20, (January 27, 1866), pp. 2 379 Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 466.
142 Sterling Price, containing two rooms.380 By spring, there were as many as 2,300 former confederates in all of Mexico.381 However, Alfred J. Hanna argues that less than one
thousand confederates tried to take advantage of Maximilian’s immigration policies
between 1865 and 1867.382 These numbers are hardly something to be concerned about
and yet, authorities on both sides of the border would participate in a discourse that
would bring the issue of slavery to the forefront once again.
THE DISCOURSE OF RACIAL EQUALITY, PART II
It is ironic that after the civil war confederates would want to settle in Mexico since
Mexico had for years refused to return runaway slaves and had challenged slave-holding in its territory. However, as I stated earlier, these were exceptional times in Mexico’s history and, as we shall see, while Mexican officials disagreed with the establishment of the Carlota colony, Maximilian was supportive of the Confederates’ efforts. What brought the discourse of racial equality to the forefront was a the topic of labor. After all, who would toil those rich and productive lands? In addition to obtaining land the colonization decree seemed to encourage confederates to supply their own labor essentially by recruiting their former slaves.
Maximilian announced his colonization plan including the part that would cause the most concern, on September 5, 1865 and it would take but nine days for Matías
Romero, Mexican Minister to the U.S., to hear of the news in Washington D.C. United
380 Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 472. 381 Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 469. 382 Hanna, Alfred J. “A Confederate Newspaper in Mexico” in The Journal of Southern History, vol. 12, no.1 (Feb., 1946), pp. 73. See footnote 23.
143 States government officials for their part immediately considered the plan to be an
attempt to reestablish slavery.383 Article six of Maximilian’s foreign colonization decree only mentioned free labor, but nobody on either side of the border bought it. The language of the decree seemed straight-forward, claiming that “immigrants who may desire to bring laborers with them, or induce them to come in considerable numbers, of any race whatever, are authorized to do so; but those laborers will be subject to special protective regulations.”384 Under article six there were several regulations: Point 1
dictated that “under the laws of the empire all persons of color are free by the mere act of
their touching Mexican territory.” It also stated that a contract had to be for no less than
five years and no more than ten. Moreover, employers were responsible for feeding, clothing, lodging and providing medical attention to the employees; that in the event of
the death of the employee, the employer would become guardian and also employer of
the children; that in the event of death of the employer, the servants’ contracts would be
passed on to the employer’s heirs.385
Interestingly, The Mexican Times argued that Mexican society was divided into
two classes, upper and lower, and that out of the estimated eight million people, seven
million belonged to the latter. 386 Clearly the editors of the paper did not see the
contradiction of encouraging confederates to take their own labor to Mexico while the
383 Chavez Orozco, Luis., ed. Maximiliano y la restitución de la esclavitud en mexico, 1865-1866 (Mexico: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1961), pp. 82. 384 Slavery or Peonage in Mexico. Message from the President of the United States in answer to a resolution of the House of 11th instant concerning the re-establishment of slavery or peonage in the republic of Mexico. December 20, 1865.—Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and ordered to be printed. Pp. 4. 385 Slavery or Peonage in Mexico. Message from the President of the United States in answer to a resolution of the House of 11th instant concerning the re-establishment of slavery or peonage in the republic of Mexico. December 20, 1865.—Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and ordered to be printed. Pp. 4. 386 “To Persons Wishing to Settle in Mexico,” in The Mexican Times, v.1, n.13, (December 9, 1865), pp.2.
144 majority of the Mexican population belonged to the lower class. “Enterprising and
Intelligent’ immigrants would take to Mexico capital, machinery, and skillful labor,” the paper extolled. Moreover, labor would be in much demand and the imported laborers, the confederates claimed, would be improved.387 Nowhere is mention made of slavery.
Yet, Maury would add that former slaves were ideal laborers because even though they
had gained their freedom they had no means to support themselves. Consequently,
confederates relied on the same strategies that Anglo-Americans has used to evade anti-
slavery laws in Texas. Former slaves could go to Mexico as “servants,” under
contract.388 Maury claimed that the new plan would create “ ‘a new Virginia in the
tropical land of Moctezuma.’ ”389 This comment is important not only for its implication
for slavery but also for what it reveals about Mexico’s image in the nineteenth century as
a nation of mestizos, descendants of Spaniards and the great Aztecs. But it was the
possible connection with slavery that most interested government officials on both sides.
Maximilian’s plan inspired a series of alarmed communications between Romero,
William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and Thomas Corwin, United States Minister to
Mexico. From the start it became clear in the minds of Romero and U.S. officials that
Maximilian was creating a de facto form of slavery in Mexico. Arroyo, Maximilian’s
Consul for the empire in New York, managed to get help from Thomas Corwin, former
387 “Decree of Immigrants,” in The Mexican Times, v. 1, n. 1, (September 16, 1865), pp. 2. 388 Chavez Orozco, Luis., ed. Maximiliano y la restitución de la esclavitud en mexico, 1865-1866 (Mexico: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1961), pp. 18. 389 Chavez Orozco, Luis., ed. Maximiliano y la restitución de la esclavitud en mexico, 1865-1866 (Mexico: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1961); pp. 18; Daniels, Josephus. Diplomático en Mangas de Camisa (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1949), pp. 419.
145 minister to Mexico in obtaining an interview with Seward. Not surprisingly, Seward
refused to see him.390
On October 5, 1865 Romero articulated his concern with Maximilian’s decree and
hoped to gain support from the U.S.391 A supporter of President Benito Juarez, Romero
made sure to express to U.S. congressmen that Mexico opposed slavery.392 Romero
pointed out that even though the first article of Maximilian’s decree declared that all men were free, upon stepping on Mexican territory, the subsequent articles “…establish a slavery so much the more odious, because it is not restricted to color or determination of caste.” Romero further noted,
it is really an extraordinary thing, and almost incomprehensible, that when slavery has received a death-blow in the only country that could revive it, and it has been shown by facts that its existence is an evil, social, moral and political, there can be in the world a usurper who, without having established his authority in the country he tries to dominate over, should attempt to re-establish that odious system for the purpose of strengthening himself, and merely changing the name for the purpose of deluding the world.393
On October 21, 1865, James Speed, U.S. Attorney General, wrote a letter to Seward that
reiterated Romero’s sentiments, “whilst the sixth article of the decree speaks of working-
390 Frazer, Robert W. “Maximilian’s Propaganda Activities in the United States, 1865-1866” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 24. no. 1 (Feb., 1944): 6. 391 The outcome of the Intervención Norteamericana (Mexican War) of 1848 was clearly present on Romero’s mind. He reported to Seward on July 17, 1861 that if Mexico received help against the European invasion that it should not be at the cost of selling its territory to the United States. (Romero, Matías. Diario Personal, 1855-65. ed., Emma Cosio Villegas (Mexico: Colegio de Mexico, 1960), pp. 412.. 392 Romero, Matías. Diario Personal, 1855-65. ed., Emma Cosio Villegas (Mexico: Colegio de Mexico, 1960), pp. 385. 393 Slavery or Peonage in Mexico. Message from the President of the United States in answer to a resolution of the House of 11th instant concerning the re-establishment of slavery or peonage in the republic of Mexico. December 20, 1865.—Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and ordered to be printed. Pp. 9; Chicago Tribune (January 5, 1866), pp. 3.
146 men of every race, the regulations under it seem to embrace men of color only.”394 It would take these officials several months to realize that they had been deceived in more ways than one.
In a letter to Seward dated February 11, 1866, Romero reported that what seemed to be a recent plan for colonization by Maximilian had in fact started as early as April 27,
1865 with the formation of the American and Mexican Emigration Company in St. Louis,
Missouri.395 What bothered Romero and his colleagues in the U.S. was not the proposed confederate colony per se, which they had known about since April of the previous year,
but the labor provisions, which they had only found out about in September. In a
strategic move, in October, Romero had Maximilian’s decree of colonization published in
the New York Herald to rally support from the U.S.396 In addition to ongoing correspondence with the Attorney General and Secretary of State, Romero met with
President Abraham Lincoln. After several meetings he was happy to report that Lincoln
“strongly expressed himself against slavery.”397
394 Slavery or Peonage in Mexico. Message from the President of the United States in answer to a resolution of the House of 11th instant concerning the re-establishment of slavery or peonage in the republic of Mexico. December 20, 1865.—Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and ordered to be printed, pp. 7. 395 Chavez Orozco, Luis., ed. Maximiliano y la restitución de la esclavitud en mexico, 1865-1866 (Mexico: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1961). pp. 125. 396 “Correspondencia de la Legacion Mexicana en Washington Durante la Intervención Estranjera, 1860- 1868” Colección de documentos para formar la historia de la intervención (México: Imprenta del Gobierno en Palacio, 1871). Vol. V, Document 476 (October 5, 1865). 397 Romero, Matías. Diario Personal, 1855-65. ed., Emma Cosio Villegas (Mexico: Colegio de Mexico, 1960), pp. 378. The Mexican Times reprinted an article from the New York News n February 1866 which mentioned that “the US government was disposed to recognized Maximilian because he was the de facto government and because at the President’s New Year’s day reception none of the foreign ministers spoke a single word to Mr. Romero since they did not recognize him as the representative of any government.” Furthermore, the Secretary of State did not present him to anyone because though Mr. Romero represented “the principle of republicanism in Mexico” he did not represent any government in existence since Romero had been assigned his post by the deposed President Benito Juarez. However, there seems to be no other evidence that US government officials did not recognize Romero as a representative of the Mexican nation. (“Mexico and the United States” in The Mexican Times, (February 17, 1866) vol. 1, no. 23, pp. 1).
147 Maximilian’s efforts were seen as both an affront to the newly finished U.S. Civil
War, in which slavery was abolished, as well as a major threat to the balance of racial
groups and racial harmony in Mexico. The presence of foreign Blacks in the first half of
the nineteenth century had allowed Mexico to put forth its discourse of racial equality but
too many Blacks would expose the very real flaws in that discourse. Too many would
potentially force a social division, one based on race. Mexican officials were worried
about the consequences of a new wave of Blacks for Mexican society. In discussing
Maximilian’s colonization plan, Francisco Pimentel, a prominent scholar and politician,
stated that there was no need to look towards Blacks as a solution to the colonization of
the coasts since “Mexico possessed such an efficient element as the mestizo for those
enterprises.”398 Though Pimentel does not present a pleasant picture of the “mestizo,” it
is more positive than that of the Indian. Pimentel points out that the difference between
the Indian and the mestizo is that “the Indian is a sufferer, the mestizo is energetic.”399
By referring to the working class as “mestizo,” Pimentel was implying that the majority of the Mexican population was mestizo since the working class made up the largest portion. What is clear is that by the mid-nineteenth century a discourse was taking place in Mexico that sought to limit the Blacks presence and spoke of Mexicans as mestizos.
Already the idea that there were no Black Mexicans was already prevalent. So, rather than objecting to the obvious injustice and inequality of Maximilian’s colonization effort,
Pimentel was not only revealing that in fact there were racial differences in Mexico, but also that he clearly objected to the introduction of Blacks for reasons based on his
398 Chavez Orozco, Luis., ed. Maximiliano y la restitución de la esclavitud en mexico, 1865-1866 (Mexico: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1961), pp. 19. 399 Chavez Orozco, Luis., ed. Maximiliano y la restitución de la esclavitud en mexico, 1865-1866 (Mexico: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1961), pp. 19.
148 evaluation of racial differences. Undoubtedly, he, like many of his contemporaries, had
not lost a sense of understanding of blackness.
In his discussion of Maximilian’s colonization plan Pimentel added that if Blacks
were to be taken to Mexico they would either enter as free men or as slaves. In the case
of the former they would be useless and perhaps even pernicious. And if they were taken
as slaves, they would add all of the bad elements that came with slavery. Furthermore, he
stated that “there is not one person familiar with Blacks that would not agree that they
need a strict discipline to live peacefully and work.”400 Finally, Pimentel added that in
order for Blacks to work and be useful they needed to be enslaved and since Pimentel
saw slavery as one of the worst errors in human history, there should be no Blacks
introduced to Mexico.401 So, though Mexican leaders often spoke of racial equality,
Blacks (and Indians) stood outside of that reality, and in that sense, the arrival of U.S.
Blacks would bring about an imbalance to Mexico’s image of racial harmony.
Romero had expressed similar concerns in 1861 at the onset of the U.S. Civil
War. Montgomery Blair, U.S. Postmaster General, suggested to Romero that slaves in the U.S. should immigrate to Mexico because there they would be able to grow sugar and cotton. Romero responded that Mexico did not need the work of Blacks, “with the whites and our Indians we harvest cotton and sugar cane in small quantities, due to the scarcity of our population and the difficulty of exporting those products, but not because we are in need of the labor of blacks.” Romero is cautious to add that “we do not have any prevention against the people of color; we believe that all human beings are provided
400 Chavez Orozco, Luis., ed. Maximiliano y la restitución de la esclavitud en mexico, 1865-1866 (Mexico: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1961), pp. 19. 401 Chavez Orozco, Luis., ed. Maximiliano y la restitución de la esclavitud en mexico, 1865-1866 (Mexico: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1961), pp. 20.
149 with the same rights, without us making distinctions among them for the place they were
born in or the color with which nature dyed their skin …”402 Romero, like Pimentel, was
clear to stress the idea that Blacks were not considered inferior in Mexico because of
their race. In the second half of the nineteenth century discourses surrounding Blacks
still espoused the notion of equality but unlike earlier times, it sought to limit Black migration to Mexico.
What is most striking is that groups on both sides of the slave-laborer issue used the same anti-slavery/ racial equality discourse. In April of 1866, the Mexican newspaper, La Sociedad, stated that Maximilian “far from being inclined to favor slavery, abhorred that shameful legacy of paganism, which is still preserved in some countries to the great scandal of modern civilization.” The article quoted from a book written by
Maximilian in 1860 after a trip to Brazil: “it is the duty of every decent man, whoever he may be, to combat that abominable slavery.” The editors of The Mexican Times added that “It having been suggested that labor was scarce and unreliable in Mexico, and that large numbers of slaves could easily be introduced from other countries, his Majesty
[Maximilian] most emphatically said that slavery, under no guise, should exist in his dominions.”403 The Mexican Times reiterated the idea that Mexico was a place free of
slavery and therefore free of racial divisions. Mexico was the perfect place for the
Confederates because the other Latin American counties were rampant with anarchy and
misrule. Brazil, for example, where slavery continued to thrive, was not a good choice
since “to go there, would simply be ‘leaping from the fire back into the frying pan’
402 “Projecto de este gobierno respecto de los negros del sur, Correspondencia de la Legacion Mexicana en Washington Durante la Intervencion Estranjera, 1860-1868” Coleccion de documentos para formar la historia de la intervencion (Mexico: Imprenta del Gobierno en Palacio, 1861). Vol. 1, Document 156 (June 6, 1861). 403 “Mexico” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 41, (June 16, 1866), pp. 2.
150 again.” Mexico was not only close to the United States, but “by coming to Mexico they
[Confederates] get rid of this black question forever.”404 With regards to their own plans
The Mexican Times added that the confederates exiled in Mexico were not seeking a place to conspire and “came here not merely prepared but desirous, to found their new fortunes on a social basis wholly free from that institution of slavery…”405 For their part,
the confederates made many efforts to show that they were not seeking to reinstitute
slavery, nor were they fleeing the possibility of cohabitating with Blacks. In a letter to
his cousin, “Willyam,” Asa Spades from Oglethorpe County mentioned that in Mexico
“the niggers ant any better than white fokes. They goes thar way and we goes ourn.
There is a good many of the Amerikan niggers out here, but they knows thar places and
aint at all spiled. We gits along with em very well. They hires themselves about as
carriage drivers and waiters at the Hotels and sich like.”406 Spades’s description helps to
shed light on the life of Blacks in Mexico.407 Spade’s commentary also reveals that an
ideology of racial equality had indeed been firmly established in Mexico. Rather than a
reflection of his own sentiments towards Blacks, it is a testimony of how Blacks figured
in Mexican society. By the end of Maximilian’s reign, an ideology of racial equality had
indeed been firmly established in Mexico.
404 “Mexico and the South” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 39, (June 2, 1866), pp. 2 405 “The Emperor Maximilian on Slavery” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 34, (April 28, 1866), pp. 2. 406 “To Willyam Arp, Vulgilly Called Bill” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 24, (February 24, 1866), pp. 3. 407 In addition, by referring to them as “Amerikan,” Spade’s commentary reveals that in Mexico there were possibly Blacks from nationalities, other than the U.S.
151 CONCLUSION
The self-proclaimed “battle-wrecked pilgrims to a new shrine” did not find the paradise
they were looking for.408 Josephus Daniels, U.S. Ambassador in Mexico from 1933-42,
describes the confederate attempt in Mexico as “romantic but futile.”409 When it became
clear that Maximilian would not succeed, the majority of the confederates left Mexico,
most of them returning to their home states.410 By April of 1866 only half of the
confederates who had gone to Mexico had stayed. The rest returned, disillusioned by
their lack of accomplishments, having hoped to live off of the fruits of the land without
themselves investing any labor.411 In March 1866, the New Era reported that the colonists were being lured to Mexico with promises of land only to find that all of the land had been take up. It reported that the previous week more than 50 colonists had returned to the U.S. and that many more would follow.412 By that spring, there were approximately 5000 foreigners living in the valley of Córdoba, of which 175-250 were
U.S. citizens.413 When The Mexican Times produced its last issue in 1866 there were
only 38 paying subscribers.414 In a letter dated August 1866 to William Seward, Romero
reported that in June of that year the colony of Carlota had been abandoned and destroyed
408 “New Arrivals” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 20, (January 27, 1866), pp. 2. 409 Daniels, Josephus. Diplomático en Mangas de Camisa (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1949), pp. 417. 410 Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 486-87. In late May 1866, Napoleon III announced his plan to begin the withdrawal of the French forces in Mexico. 411 Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 473. 412 “Emigration—Prompt Action Required” in The Mexican Times, vol. 1, no. 28, (March 24, 1866), pp. 2. 413 Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937), pp. 469. In addition to the Carlota colony, there were other confederate colonies in Chihuahua, San Luis Potosí, Jalisco and Sonora; Harmon, pp. 459. 414 Daniels, Josephus. Diplomático en Mangas de Camisa (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1949), pp. 418.
152 by the liberal inhabitants of the region.415 And after all of the worry over the issue of
slavery, for the most part, confederate settlers either did their own work or hired Mexican
laborers.416
On the surface everyone expressed antagonism towards slavery intimated in
Maximilian’s plan for Confederate resettlement. Yet, all groups had different motives.
The U.S. for its part had recently abolished slavery and fought a long, internal war over
it. Maximilian was desperately seeking support for his empire and looked to the only
people he could hang on to as potential allies. The confederates were reeling from a war
they had lost, also due to slavery, and sought to establish themselves in a nation where
they believed they would not have to deal with racial issues. And most importantly,
Mexico was attempting to continue to develop itself as a nation. The presence of foreign
Blacks had allowed it to firmly plant the idea of Mexico as an equal society at the same
time that it now affirmed the nation’s lack of Black citizens. The early nineteenth
century had proven to be tumultuous and while a discourse of racial equality had been
firmly established, it had in part been established from afar, in Texas. The importance of
Maximilian’s colonization plan and the settlement of the Carlota colony lay in its
connection to slavery. Despite the fact that the sources make mention of Blacks in
Córdoba, I have come across no evidence that any Blacks were brought by the
confederates. Therefore, the concern over the establishment of former U.S. slaves as
laborers was an ideological rather than a literal matter. While the presence of U.S.
Blacks had been useful in the earlier part of the nineteenth century in supporting and
415 Correspondencia de la legación Mexicana en Washington, vol, 8, no. 540 (July to August, 1866) published 1879. 416 Rister, Carl Coke. “Carlota, A Confederate Colony in Mexico” in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Feb., 1945), pp. 43
153 validating Mexico’s discourse of racial equality, in the second half of the twentieth century their presence posed a threat to the racial stability of the nation and to the very ideology of equality. Their presence was likely to expose the weaknesses in Mexico’s racial discourse.
154
BIBLIOGRAPHY—CHAPTER 4
ARCHIVES
Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City—INAH
NEWSPAPERS
The Mexican Times
BOOKS AND ARTICLES
Barker, Eugene C. “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Jan., 1924).
Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, I” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 3 (Sep., 1898).
Bugbee, Lester G. “Slavery in Early Texas, II” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 4 (Dec., 1898).
Castañeda, Carlos E., ed. The Mexican Side of the Texan Revolution (1836) by the Chief Mexican Participants. Texas: P.L. Turner Co. Publishers, 1928).
Chávez Orozco, Luis., ed. Maximiliano y la restitución de la esclavitud en México, 1865- 1866. Mexico: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1961.
Colección de documentos para formar la historia de la intervención. México: Imprenta del Gobierno en Palacio, 1861-1879.
Daniels, Josephus. Diplomático en Mangas de Camisa. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1949.
Frazer, Robert W. “Maximilian’s Propaganda Activities in the United States, 1865-1866” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 24. no. 1 (Feb., 1944).
Ford, John S. ‘Rip.’ “Mexican Affairs” in The South-Western American (November 17, 1852).
155
“Interesting From the Rio Grande” in Chicago Press and Tribune (May 5, 1860). Hanna, Alfred J. “A Confederate Newspaper in Mexico” in The Journal of Southern History, vol. 12, no.1 (Feb., 1946).
Harmon, George D. “Confederate Migration to Mexico” in The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17, no. 4 (Nov., 1937).
Lundy, Benjamin. The Life, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.
Menchaca, Martha. Recovering History, Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2001.
Montejano, David. Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997.
Montgomery, Cora [Mrs. William Leslie Cazneau]. Eagle Pass, or Life on the Border. New York: George P. Putnam and Co., 1852.
Orozco y Berra, Manuel, ed. “Appendix I” in Diccionario Universal de Historia y de Geografía, tomo 1. Mexico: Imprenta de F. Escalante, 1854.
Proyecto de ley sobre colonización, presentado a la deliberación del honorable congreso del estado de Veracruz por su commission respective de la cámara del senado. Jalapa: Jalapa State Government, 1826.
Rippy, Fred J.. “A Negro Colonization Project in Mexico, 1895” in The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Jan., 1921).
Rister, Carl Coke. “Carlota, A Confederate Colony in Mexico” in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Feb., 1945).
Romero, Matías. Diario Personal, 1855-65. Ed., Emma Cosio Villegas. Mexico: Colegio de Mexico, 1960.
Slavery or Peonage in Mexico. Message from the President of the United States in answer to a resolution of the House of 11th instant concerning the re-establishment of slavery or peonage in the republic of Mexico. December 20, 1865—Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and ordered to be printed.
Schwartz, Rosalie. Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in Mexico. El Paso, Texas: University of Texas at El Paso, 1975.
156 Tornel y Mendivil, José María. Breve reseña histórica de los acontecimientos mas notables de la nación mexicana desde el año de 1821 hasta nuestros días. México: Imprenta de Cumplido, 1852.
Tyler, Ronnie C. “Fugitive Slaves in Mexico” in The Journal of Negro History, vol. 57, no. 1 (Jan., 1972).
CHAPTER 5
THE CULTURAL MEANING OF BLACKNESS: THE STRANGE BUT TRUE ADVENTURES OF “LA MULATA DE CÓRDOBA” AND “EL NEGRITO POETA”
Today, players of the popular Mexican “card game,” La Lotería, may not be aware of his
historical significance, but they certainly recognize the character of “El Negrito,” often
portrayed with a blue jacket, hat, and cane. Likewise, ambulantes, vendors, on city buses
and throughout Mexico City’s Metro system hawk reprints of the uncanny legend of La
Mulata for ten pesos, or less than one U.S. dollar.417 Two distinctly Black Mexican
characters, each with a tenuous basis in an actual historical figure or amalgam of figures,
have earned iconic status in contemporary Mexican folklore through complex cultural
processes that took over two centuries to play out.
Neither La Mulata de Córdoba nor El Negrito Poeta, as the two figures are more
commonly known, is ever attributed with an actual name. 418 Meanwhile, their monikers,
functioning as badges of an African origin or ancestry, take the place of actual names. In
one brilliant, or diabolical, linguistic sleight-of-hand, depending on one’s interpretation,
both lose their mundane individual identities and gain a kind of trans-historical status that
foregrounds their Blackness. The two figures also share a curious biographical history.
417 These popular accounts, often pocket-sized and printed on cheap paper, are primarily based on Luis González Obregón’s version, Leyendas de las calles de Méjico. 418 Since there is debate as to the actual birth name of either character, from here on I will use the titles La Mulata and El Negrito to refer to them.
158 The earliest written accounts of their lives appear to have been published in the
nineteenth century, although they are said to have lived their extraordinary lives during
the colonial period. Lacking historical evidence of their existence dating from the
colonial era, both figures endure in the Mexican imagination despite reasonable doubt
over their actual existence. Historical or purely fictional, they have become Mexican
national characters, that is, both are undoubtedly Mexican in their cultural identities and meanings. In fact, their immense and indelible popularity over the past two centuries suggests that El Negrito and La Mulata have indeed earned a unique status as both genuinely historical and folkloric at the same time and that a historical analysis of their development in the Mexican imaginary, and their influence on Mexican cultural production, could tell us something valuable about the meaning of Blackness in Mexico over the last two centuries.
Like the “homogenizing” effect of the immensely popular cartoon character,
Memín Pinguín, the nineteenth century’s most prominent “Black Mexicans,” La Mulata and El Negrito, played a role in developing a Mexican racial national consciousness that, ironically, excluded Blacks and Blackness in general. Referencing James Snead’s work,
Hernandez Cuevas identifies mythification and omission as two narrative strategies of twentieth-century cultural production that perpetuated Black stereotypes and reinforced the lie that Blacks did not exist in the newly-defined post-revolutionary nation.419
Although Hernandez Cuevas locates these actions in the twentieth century, the same theory can be applied in the case of La Mulata and El Negrito. Even as their stories recounted Mexico’s colonial Black presence, they did so as much to isolate, or rarify, that
419 Hernandez Cuevas, Marco Polo. “Modern National Discourse and La Muerte de Artemio Cruz: The Illusory ‘Death’ of African Mexican Lineage” in Afro-Hispanic Review, vol. 23, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 14.
159 presence as to depict it. The nineteenth century’s national racial discourse, as disseminated through historical as well as literary texts and oral transmission, treated
Blackness as any modern would treat other colonial artifacts or antiquities—as curiosities of the past. Nineteenth-century writers were more than comfortable appropriating “La
Mulata” and “El Negrito” and thus “homogenizing” Blackness by reducing it to the personification of one negrito and one mulata. Close analysis of these two figures reveals a nineteenth-century Mexican understanding of Blackness; Blackness that was not represented through individuals but through characters like these. In the case of La
Mulata and El Negrito, discourse plays a dual role: at the same time that nineteenth- century official histories omit Blackness they also ensured that whatever Black characteristics of the population did remain lay only in discourse.420 But, by perpetuating and further popularizing their names, these texts and oral traditions also institutionalized the signifiers of their race, ensuring that their Blackness could not be erased from historical memory, but perhaps effectively ensuring that they did remain “things of the past.”
In this chapter I seek to detail the role that La Mulata and El Negrito played in the development of Mexico’s national racial consciousness. My goal is not to produce a critical literary analysis as much as to place the stories of these two characters in the nineteenth century context in which they first appeared in writing and gained their lasting wide-spread popularity. Hernández Cuevas points out that Mexican scholarship does not
420 Hernandez Cuevas, Marco Polo. African Mexicans and the Discourse of Modern Nation (NY-Oxford: University Press of America, 2004), pp. 2
160 focus on the role of Black images in the discourse of the Mexican nation.421 This
omission is especially true of nineteenth-century scholarship. The stories of El Negrito
and La Mulata have been largely dismissed as singular, unique, exceptional examples of
racial cultural discourse. These two characters are also mythified, rendered exotic specimens of Mexican culture by being cast as “foreign” rather than typically Mexican in
nature, as characters essentially from another country or from outside of the mainstream
culture.422 However, it is possible to recover their historical value to nineteenth-century
Mexican cultural and national identity and through that history, to gain a deeper
understanding of the complex processes underlying the exclusion of Blacks from the
Mexican national identity.
At the same time, La Mulata and El Negrito are exceptional by the fact that they
did not remain in the past entirely. Both characters survived and even thrived in our own
day in spite of two obstacles: the trend within contemporary literary culture to largely
ignore literature of earlier periods in favor of post-Revolution literature (1910-21), and
the equally popular trend to ignore evidence of a Black presence in post-Independence
Mexico.423 Because these two characters are located in the colonial period, scholars have
largely ignored the fact that it was in the nineteenth century when their stories became
popular. Unaware of these trends, common folk continue to celebrate tales of the two
Black characters that, in the nineteenth century, achieved a national status, known to
Mexicans everywhere.
421 Hernandez Cuevas, Marco Polo. “Memin Pinguin: uno de los comicos mexicanos mas populares como instrumento para codificar al negro” in Afro-Hispanic Review, vol. 22, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 53. 422 Ibid., 52. 423 Vogeley, Nancy. “Introduction” in Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín. Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniendo, Wrtiten by Himself for his Children, translated by David Frye (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), pp. xxvi.
161 El Negrito and La Mulata are important figures because, apart from them, there
hardly exists any nineteenth-century representation or discussion of Mexico’s racially
mixed history. Echoing Guillermo Prieto’s work on Indian historiography, Ortiz
Monasterio reminds us that, like the study of Indian history, the history of Blacks in
Mexico lacked any prestige and it would take generations before scholars would take the
subject seriously. In this way La Mulata and El Negrito stand out as prestigious (Black)
characters worthy of having their stories recounted.424 Moreover, they were part of the
development of a Mexican national literature that came to fruition in the years after
Independence through an explosion of newspapers, journals, books, and inexpensive
pamphlets. In fact, they are key figures in Mexican literature’s rather unlikely
development, which occurred during what could be termed a cultural crisis for Mexico.
As one commentator puts it, with “the Indians discredited, the conquerors stigmatized,
the heroes of Independence degraded, the poet did not have anything to sing to and that is
why 1821 was not an opportune moment for the surge of a national literature.”425 Still, a
national literature was in fact in the making at this inopportune time, and partly through
the telling and re-telling of the stories of these two Black characters which provided a
means to experiment with themes of race and power that so perplexed Mexico’s search
for a national identity.
Perhaps the first critical step in the institutionalizing and eventual popularizing of
these characters was the manner in which both La Mulata de Córdoba and El Negrito
424 Ortiz Monasterio, José. México Eternamente: Vicente Riva Palacio ante la escritura de la historia (Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2004), pp. 46. 425 Ortiz Monasterio, José. México Eternamente: Vicente Riva Palacio ante la escritura de la historia (Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2004), pp. 48.
162 Poeta migrated from the outskirts, both geographically and culturally, towards the center
of a national life and the imagining of a Mexican national identity. Both of the characters
are said to have been “born” or to have originated from outside of Mexico City, yet they
eventually become strongly associated with the capital, the cradle of federal government
and home to most of the nineteenth century’s most prominent scholars. And both make
this centripetal journey during the most crucial period of nation-building for Mexico.
The legend of La Mulata first appears in writing in 1837 and references to El Negrito
appear as early as 1816 during the fight for Independence. Both will play an important role in the cultural production or imagining of Mexico as a new nation—as key to nation- building as railroads, constitutions and armies.
Stories featuring El Negrito and La Mulata appear throughout the nineteenth century at a time when historical chroniclers were also literary scholars and public figures
and when history itself “was a branch of the vigorous literary trunk…”426 Nineteenth-
century literary scholars used newspapers and magazines to introduce and distribute their
work, hoping to reach a larger audience. Newspapers served as vehicles for public
figures to make their political commentary and cultural criticism. Unfortunately, we may
never know if the stories of La Mulata and El Negrito originated in popular folklore or if
the early printed stories inspired ordinary people to create a tradition of oral tales that fed
centuries of literary development. Whether or not these characters are indeed simply
fictional, they have ultimately become part of Mexico’s history in a much more
significant way than has been acknowledged. The literary cultural production around La
426 Ortiz Monasterio, José. México Eternamente: Vicente Riva Palacio ante la escritura de la historia (Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2004), pp. 20.
163 Mulata and El Negrito contributed to the critical imagining of a Mexican national identity
and culture during a time when Mexican literature sought to make political statements
about its past, present and future.
These stories stand out among Mexican literary production of the period due to
their unique fusion of oral tradition and literary writing, which also led to La Mulata and
El Negrito’s appeal to both literate Mexicans and the pueblo. If the stories originated in
oral tradition, as historians primarily claim, these stories reflected the desires, tribulations
and concerns of common people, a cultural imaginary that could not be swept aside even
by the authors who adapted these stories to the audience expectations of the literate
citizens of the upper echelons.427 In this sense, El Negrito and La Mulata continued to
transcend class divisions throughout the centuries, appealing to both audiences in literary
and oral or popular forms.
As popular and influential in their own day as the historieta, or 1940s-era
Mexican comic books, whose most famous character is the long-lived Afro-Cuban-
Mexican boy, Memín Pinguín, the stories of La Mulata and El Negrito continued to
appeal to the “uneducated, illiterate classes” despite their adoption and adaptation by the
elite. People who did not know how to read easily could recount the short but poignant
story of La Mulata or could recite the clever, well-crafted verses attributed to El
Negrito.428 But, the widespread popularity of La Mulata and El Negrito in the nineteenth
century begs us to question the meaning of these figures to the pueblo, the masses, who
427 Scholars and the pueblo alike claim that these stories were based on actual historical figures, but there is no clear evidence of that. 428 I have found no source referring to the extent to which common people in the nineteenth century read or discussed these tales. Nor is it clear whether these stories extended beyond the capital into the countryside. What is clear is that the story of La Mulata and the short verses of El Negrito made these stories ideal for popular dissemination through oral transmission.
164 posed such a threat to the modern, nationalist dreams of Mexico’s educated elite. In his
analysis of Memín Pinguín, Marco Polo Hernández Cuevas argues that the historieta had
a largely negative impact on the development of twentieth-century Black Mexican
identity because it “began to penetrate the historical memory with the objective of
homogenizing the mentality of readers” and through these means “the illusion that only
one history existed began to be implanted.” 429 While Hernández Cuevas does not trace a
lineage back to what could be considered the literary forerunners of the Black Mexican
figure, it is tempting to compare the impact of the historieta of Memín Pinguín in the
twentieth century and that of La Mulata and El Negrito a century before. To what extent,
we might ask, did the popularity and cultural authority of La Mulata and El Negrito begin
the process, reinforced a century later by Memín Pinguín, of “the negation through
omission of the existence of many other cosmovisions in Mexico, […] cosmovisions such
as those of racially mixed people, of the diverse first nations, of the diverse African and
Asiatic cultures”?430 In this chapter I will show that La Mulata and El Negrito were but
one aspect of a complex process in the nineteenth century that sought to define Mexican
national identity as exclusive of Blacks.
LA MULATA
La Mulata has captivated the popular imagination and the interest of scholars of literature and history, as well as inspired artists and composers for at least two centuries.431 At least one literary editor argues that “‘La Mulata de Córdoba,’ is the Mexican legend that
429 Hernandez Cuevas, Marco Polo. “Memin Pinguin: uno de los comicos mexicanos mas populares como instrumento para codificar al negro” in Afro-Hispanic Review, vol. 22, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 54. 430 Hernandez Cuevas, Marco Polo. “Memin Pinguin: uno de los comicos mexicanos mas populares como instrumento para codificar al negro” in Afro-Hispanic Review, vol. 22, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 54. 431 All translations in this work are mine unless otherwise noted.
165 has had the most presence in our literature. Its story, like the beauty that is attributed to the character, has seduced, in the span of the nineteen and twentieth-centuries, more than
one Mexican writer.”432 The first written account of La Mulata appeared in 1837 in the
newly released literary newspaper, El Mosaico Mexicano with the title “Historia de un
peso.” It appears four years later in Calendario de las Señoritas Mejicanas, edited by
Mariano Galván Rivera, also with the same title. Interestingly, neither story mentions La
Mulata’s race or skin color.433 Yet, every nineteenth-century author to follow would
make that detail a focal point of the story.
The legend that has intrigued so many artists, intellectuals and audiences is the
story of a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century woman living in Córdoba, Veracruz, who is
accused of being a witch. She is a mulata whose parents no one knows anything about.
Naturally, the Inquisition has her arrested for witchcraft. One day, she points to a
charcoal drawing of a ship she has made on the wall of her cell and asks the jailer what
detail he thinks is missing from the drawing. He replies that it is not missing anything
because it is perfect and so, the only thing missing is for it to sail away. At this point, La
Mulata jumps onboard the ship and sails away leaving the jailer dumbfounded. Today
various versions continue to be refashioned from these primary details.
Manuel Ramírez Aparicio (1861) seems to be the first author to construct the
character into a mulata, henceforth giving her character and story its definitive modern
shape. Vicente Riva Palacio, in Tradiciones y Leyendas Mexicanas (1884), composed the
story in the form of ten line stanzas. Luis González Obregón in Mexico Viejo (1890)
432 Couto, José Bernardo. La Mulata de Córdoba y la historia de un peso, Luis Martínez Morales, editor (Mexico, Veracruz: Callejon del diamante, 1998), pp. 5. 433 Couto, José Bernardo. “La Mulata de Córdoba y la historia de un peso (Mexico, Veracruz: Callejon del diamante, 1998), pp. 5-6; “Leyenda: La Mulata de Córdoba” in Magazine: Revista de Córdoba. No. 75, Año 7 (Córdoba, Veracruz: September 2004): 14.
166 cites part of the text by Ramierz Aparicio and transcribes the last verse of Riva Palacio’s poetic version.434 Heriberto Frias based his version of the story which appeared in
Leyendas Históricas Mexicanas (1897-98) on the versions by Ramírez Aparicio and
González Obregón. Aurelio Luis Gallardo wrote and staged a lesser-known theatrical
score called La Hechicera de Córdoba (1869). In the twentieth century famed playwright
Javier Villaurrutia wrote a screenplay (1939) which was made into a film six years later.
He would next team up with Agustín Lazo and José Pablo Moncayo to produce an
operetta (1948) that was performed at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. Agustin
Lazo had released a ballet a few years earlier (1939) under the same name, “La Mulata de
Córdoba,” that was also presented at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City and later in
New York City.435
While the lineage of the first written accounts can be traced, the origin of the
mulata from Córdoba herself remains a mystery. In the appendix to his famous mid-
nineteenth-century Diccionario Universal (1856), Manuel Orozco y Berra included an
entry for “Mulata de Córdoba” which refers to her as an “hechicera,” who “could, at her
desire, make strange shapes, command the elements, and disturb the laws established by
nature.”436 Orozco y Berra suggests that the story might be based on a woman accused of
witchcraft by the Inquisition in the sixteenth century who, through some miraculous occurrence, managed to escape the cruel fate of the majority of the accused. He also adds
that, more than a mere story, (by 1856) La Mulata had entered the vernacular language.
434 Many later authors reference Riva Palacio’s 1922 version which originally appeared in his collection, Leyendas de las Calles de Mexico, and which, we shall see, is based on previous works. 435 Couto, José Bernardo. “La Mulata de Córdoba y la historia de un peso (Mexico, Veracruz: Callejon del diamante, 1998), pp. 8; “Leyenda: La Mulata de Córdoba” in Magazine: Revista de Córdoba. No. 75, Año 7 (Córdoba, Veracruz: September 2004): 14-15. 436 Orozco y Berra, Manuel. Apéndice al Diccionario universal de historia y de geografía, Tomo II, Vol. IX (Mexico: Imprenta de J.M. Andrade y F. Escalante, 1856), pp. 935.
167 People who wished to express the improbability of accomplishing or finishing something
would express that sentiment by stating “I am not the Mulata de Córdoba.”437 In fact,
that very phrase appears in Ramírez Aparicio’s version of the story five years later, “You
ask me for an impossible! You are an imprudent one! I do not make miracles! Am I La
Mulata de Córdoba?”438 The Diccionario Geográfico, Histórico, y Biográfico de los
Estado Unidos Mexicanos from 1890 states that the story of La Mulata is a memory of a
character that is passed on from generation to generation and cannot be confirmed. Like
Orozco y Berra, the author points out that the sailing away on the boat, the famous
question, “what is this boat lacking?” and its reply “only that it sail” are the lone
characteristics that all of the nineteenth-century versions have in common.439
Perhaps the most interesting development of the story is that the first written
account by José Bernardo Couto is quite distinct from what it has become today. In fact,
it stands out as the most singular of all the versions, in part because Couto’s protagonist,
unlike in subsequent versions, is never identified as a mulata, but rather an “Hechicera,”
which much like her later title, stands in place of a real name. Couto’s story begins where subsequent literary versions preferred to end. The story begins with “a famous hechicera from Córdoba” already jailed in Mexico City, having been arrested by the
Inquisition for performing witchcraft. One day she asks her alcaide, or jailer, what is missing from, or lacking in, the ship that she has drawn on the wall with charcoal. He
437 Orozco y Berra, Manuel. Apéndice al Diccionario universal de historia y de geografía, Tomo II, Vol. IX (Mexico: Imprenta de J.M. Andrade y F. Escalante, 1856), pp. 936. 438 Ramírez Aparicio, Manuel. Obras de Don Manuel Ramírez Aparacio, vol. 1 (Mexico: Impr. de V. Agueros, 1908), pp. 170. 439 Garcia Cubas, Antonio. Diccionario Geográfico, Histórico, y Biográfico de los Estado Unidos Mexicanos (Mexico: Oficina tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1890; Orozco y Berra, Manuel. Apéndice al Diccionario universal de historia y de geografía, Tomo II, Vol. IX (Mexico: Imprenta de J.M. Andrade y F. Escalante, 1856), pp. 936.
168 responds that the ship only lacks the ability to sail. “La Hechicera,” replies that if he wishes, it shall sail and jumps “onto” the drawing of the ship. The guard is left shocked when in fact the ship begins to sail away with the woman. According to Couto’s story, the authorities lose all track of the woman, but a rumor quickly circulated that she had sailed out of her cell, across the Pacific Ocean and within a few hours had landed in
Manila, in the Philippines. Couto reports that Mexican demographers attempted to determine her whereabouts, but failed. From here Couto’s story brings us to the present.
According to him, at some point the “wizard from Córdoba” must have returned to
Mexico to quietly take up residence in the capital again. Couto writes that the woman was not in the habit of performing sorcery, “nor is there any historical or traditional news that she had caused fright to any Christian, except the jailer.” But it is exactly for that reason that news has now resurfaced about her, he writes. One day, she performed a bit of harmless witchcraft in front of another person who had a peso in hand and wondered out loud how many owners it had had. “La Hechicera” answered, “it should not be difficult for me to guess, and better yet, make that same peso tell it to us.” Then, with the wave of her hands and the uttering of “cabalistic” words, the peso jumped up speaking and after being ordered to tell its story proceeded to tell the lengthy story of its so-called
“life.”440 As the title of Couto’s story suggests, this is indeed the story of a peso. The
story ends when “La Hechicera” senses someone approaching and, with a cautionary,
“hush!” returns the peso to its original form.441
440 Couto, José Bernardo. La Mulata de Córdoba y la historia de un peso, Luis Martínez Morales, editor (Mexico, Veracruz: Callejon del diamante, 1998), pp. 20). 441 Couto, José Bernardo. “Historia de un peso” in Calendario de las Señoritas Mexicanas, para el año 1841, edited by Mariano Galvan (Mexico: Mariano Galvan, 1841).
169 Born on December 29, 1803, Couto studied in Orizaba, Veracruz, and then went
on to Mexico City to continue his education.442 At the age of 25, Couto began a career as a politician and public figure, a Deputy of the Veracruz legislature and a key participant
in the negotiations between Mexico and the United States that fashioned the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, at the end of the Mexican War.443 Couto is recognized as an
important intellectual and public figure of his time. By the turn of the century, V.
Agüeros would describe Couto as one who “belonged to that notable group of individuals
who at the current mid-century distinguished themselves through their services to the
homeland.”444 His role in politics brought him in contact with influential men, including
Orozco y Berra, with whom he collaborated on the Diccionario Universal (1853-1856),
which contained the appendix entry for “La Mulata de Córdoba.”445 At the time the
Diccionario’s appendix was released in 1856, Couto’s version was the only known
published account of La Mulata’s story, and his version did not carry the racialized
signifier. She was a witch, a mysterious hechicera, but not a mulata in his literary
version. However, his collaboration with Orozco y Berra on the Diccionario indicates
one of two things. First, the Inquisition’s tendency to target afro-castas. And Córdoba’s
history of slavery and racial mixture might have led people to conclude that the hichicera
was of African racial mixture. Conversely, the inclusion of the Cordobesa’s race in the
Diccionario might indicate that oral folk stories preceded Couto’s own adaptation of the
442 Couto, José Bernardo. Obras del doctor D. José Bernardo Couto, V. Agüeros, editor (México: V. Agüeros, 1898), pp. VII. 443 Couto, José Bernardo. Obras del doctor D. José Bernardo Couto, V. Agüeros, editor (México: V. Agüeros, 1898), pp. VIII. 444 Couto, José Bernardo. Obras del doctor D. José Bernardo Couto (“Noticias del Autor” by V. Agüeros) (México: V. Agüeros, 1898), pp. V. 445 Couto, José Bernardo. Obras del doctor D. José Bernardo Couto, V. Agüeros, editor (México: V. Agüeros, 1898), pp. XXI.
170 original mulata witch from Córdoba. In this case it is not clear if Couto’s “negation
through omission” of the racial signifier of her “name” was unconscious or intentional.
Perhaps it was because as prominent as the woman is, his story is after all, about a peso.
Regardless, Couto’s attempt to transform the protagonist from La Mulata to la hechicera de Córdoba or simply, La Cordobesa, did not influence literary tradition, which stubbornly returned to the signifier of the character’s Blackness.
In fact, today’s readers will often find that in reproductions or references to
Couto’s seminal story, “Historia de un peso,” modern editors will replace Couto’s protagonist with “La Mulata”—as if the author had all along intended to name his character that way. For example, in his 1898 compilation of Couto’s works, V. Agüeros added an explicit reference to her race in his edited version of Couto’s “Historia de un peso.” Agüeros inserts a line referring to “a famous hechicera (llamada la mulata de
Córdoba ….)”446 It is an unusual bit of literary editing, for I know of no other instance
when an editor or publisher felt entitled to re-name the main character of another author’s
story. If Couto had intended to de-racialize the story of the woman from Córdoba who
defied the Inquisition, his intentions were for naught. In effect, La Mulata’s “magic”
turned out to be much more powerful than the might of the author’s pen. Like the peso in
Couto’s story, the character of “La Mulata” has been passed from author to author and
put to different uses. The peso, when it has survived editing, has remained a peso
throughout its journey, and La Mulata has remained a mulata over generations of
permutations.
446 Couto, José Bernardo. Obras del doctor D. José Bernardo Couto, V. Agüeros, editor (México: V. Agüeros, 1898), pp. 371
171 Manuel Ramírez Aparicio’s 1861 version of La Mulata is a tale featuring the lives of the common people, told for the instruction of the urban elite, the audience likely to be able to read the story in the first place. This version ‘names’ La Mulata for the first time in print, ensuring that her Blackness will become part of the story’s literary legacy. It does so in a way that places this Blackness in a mystical space and time that (logically) had to be overcome or transcended in order for Mexico to evolve into its modern self.
Aparicio’s version begins in the author’s present, that is, in the mid-1800s, with the narrator directly addressing his readers, placing them in a typical urban scene, asking the reader if s/he has ever been privy to “…the amusing conversations of our poor people?
For example, between a café waiter and a seamstress.” It is a typical street scene—a young man wants to court a young woman and asks her to go out with him. Ramírez
Aparicio’s story continues:
The seamstress does not agree to meet with him because it is against the will of her demanding aunt, but the waiter insists. Still, she refuses and then he begins to think that it is because she does not care for him or because she might be meeting with someone else. The waitress replies, “none of that, but…” He asks if she no longer cares for him and she replies, “none of that, but…” He says, “But what!” and she responds that he expects her to do the impossible but she does not perform miracles. She is not the Mulata de Córdoba.447
Now the narrator will relate to the reader the story behind that popular phrase, “I am not the Mulata de Córdoba!” The narrator of the story comments that there are few people
447 Ramírez Aparicio, Manuel. Obras de Don Manuel Ramírez Aparacio, vol. 1 (Mexico: Impr. de V. Agueros, 1908), pp. 169-70.
172 who have not heard the story of La Mulata. He further adds, “one must agree that her existence was a fact.”448
Ramírez Aparicio’s version provides a host of details and nuances to the story of
La Mulata leading up to her imprisonment by the Inquisitors. The narrator presents her
as an object that had earned the great curiosity and interest, one might even say she had earned a level of “fame” among the ordinary folk, the pueblo, not only for her magic, but for the curative, and consoling deeds she performed for her neighbors. She had been eternally youthful in appearance, never growing old. She lived in a cave in the wild,
Cordoban hillside, an area renown in colonial times as a refuge for escaped slaves. The most superstitious among the people swore that La Mulata
had contact with beings from a mysterious and supernatural world, with which she had communication when she thought it best, discovering through them the secrets of the present and those of the future. She possessed besides, gifts that made her sought after as a universal remedy for the pains of the body and the afflictions of the spirit.
Everyone knew that to solicit her help, one only needed to invoke her presence and she would appear, offering her services to the petitioner. A woman could seek her
services if she wanted to assure her boyfriend’s fidelity or a man could call upon her if he needed money to elevate his status as a potential suitor. It is said that she once had an
appointment in Córdoba and yet administered medicine to a sick person in the capital
(Mexico City) at the exact same hour. The narrator summarizes her reputation as a
“handkerchief for tears during the most trying moments,” explaining that, “she was, in short, a woman whom antiquity would have placed among its goddesses, or at least,
448 Ramírez Aparicio, Manuel. Obras de Don Manuel Ramírez Aparacio, vol. 1 (Mexico: Impr. de V. Agueros, 1908), pp. 171.
173 among its most venerated priestesses; she was a ‘medium,’ and of the most privileged of the favored that the spiritual school enjoyed in that era.” La Mulata’s invaluable services to the people are put to an end by the Inquisition, which in the narrator’s judgment, “was too sharp-sighted and superlatively materialistic. When such stupendous marvels reached its ears, it smiled with disdain and nailed the magician with a snake’s glance.” After she is jailed and fails or refuses to use her talents to escape, the pueblo who had once extolled her gifts began to doubt La Mulata’s powers. There is something of a lesson for the reader in the way the pueblo turn against their former chief consoler and ally—perhaps the only champion they really had. In the end, La Mulata does save herself, proposing
“to trick her guardians and leave the entire world dumbfounded.” Here the story follows
Couto’s version of her magical nautical escape before the very eyes of her jailer. The narrator ends the story with a melancholy line: “since that moment, la Mulata has disappeared forever.” 449 Readers are left to wonder if the vindictiveness of the
Inquisition or the faithlessness of the people themselves chased La Mulata away.
As a ‘pre-quel’ to Couto’s narrative, Ramírez Aparicio’s version not only firmly affixes the title “La Mulata” to the protagonist of this tale, but also emphasizes the locale of Córdoba and the significance of the area’s status as the periphery of ‘civilized,’ modern Mexico. The narrator laments that La Mulata does not exist in our own day to offer consolation and to remedy people’s bodily and spiritual afflictions, saying “great pity that she does not live in our era.”450 But, at the same time, her powers belonged to a
“superstitious” era and, moreover, are clearly identified with a semi-wild place on the
449 Ramírez Aparicio, Manuel. Obras de Don Manuel Ramírez Aparacio, vol. 1 (Mexico: Impr. de V. Agueros, 1908), pp. 171-177. 450 Ramírez Aparicio, Manuel. Obras de Don Manuel Ramírez Aparacio, vol. 1 (Mexico: Impr. de V. Agueros, 1908), pp. 175.
174 fringes of modern society. Córdoba, to its own chagrin, still intimated wild, even
dangerous places—caves hidden in the hills, mysterious mulatas with magical powers.
Even as it conveys an admiration for La Mulata and the meaning she had for the
pueblo, the narrative does not permit its reader to imagine that she could ever exist
anywhere but in the spaces of the historical imagination. She has “disappeared forever.”
In juxtaposing the failed tyranny of the Inquisition with the people’s failure to “keep
faith” with their own superstitiousness, I believe the story suggests that both of these
legacies of the past were, inevitably, meant to be overcome. Perhaps, the note of regret at
the equally inevitable loss of La Mulata sounds for the loss of Blackness in the making of
modern Mexican identity as well. The commonplace phrase, “I am not La Mulata de
Córdoba” is an ironic reflection of the certainty of that loss, reinforcing the refusal to
identify with Blackness. As in Ramírez Aparicio’s story, no matter how much one may
regret its loss, no matter what consolation it may have afforded in the past, Blackness has
“disappeared forever” from Mexican identity.
Forty seven years after Couto and twenty three years after Ramírez Aparicio
Vicente Riva Palacio (1832-1896) reintroduced La Mulata in Tradiciones y leyendas
Mexicanas (1884).451 Riva Palacio followed much of the thread of his predecessor,
Ramírez Aparicio, in “weaving” the story of La Mulata, but formally he departed
dramatically from previous versions. Originally presented in ten line stanzas, my
translation of Riva Palacio’s version of La Mulata can be summarized as follows: La
451 For more on Rival Palacio see Chapter 3 of this work.
175 Mulata was a very beautiful woman. “Apparently, she had a highly developed gift of
ubiquity and she was, moreover, always ready to help anyone in distress.”452 She was,
a beautiful damsel who in her eyes carries the rays of the African sun and with her bronze skin she is saying that she is also of the white race. No one ever knew her parents; but everyone upon seeing her wavy hair, the softness of her amusing features, and her undulating bosom and red lips, La Mulata they call her, since they suspect That she was daughter of [a] black woman and [a] Spaniard.453
…she lives in a withdrawn place. La Mulata alone and without a friend amongst a forest of palm and orange trees.454
There is a strong suspicion that La Mulata is a witch. The town keeps a watchful eye for
some proof of their suspicion or for a reason to turn her in to the authorities. The mayor, an older man, confessed his love to La Mulata, but nothing could convince her or inspire
even a single smile of hope from her; not gifts, crying, nor promises. The mayor, Martin
de Ocaña, tries to forget her, but the more he tries to hate her the more he idolizes her,
until one day he denounces her to the authorities and explains the rumors that have been
spread about town.455 The mayor shows up one night with one hundred men and
surround La Mulata’s house. She sees them coming, wraps herself in a white cloak and
452 Riva Paclacio, Vicente and Juan de Dios Peza. Tradiciones y Layendas Mexicanas. Manuel Romero de Terreros and S. L. Millard Rosenberg, eds. (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1927) pp. X. 453 Riva Paclacio, Vicente and Juan de Dios Peza. Tradiciones y Layendas Mexicanas. Edited Manuel Romero de Terreros and S. L. Millard Rosenberg (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1927) pp. 23. 454 Riva Paclacio, Vicente and Juan de Dios Peza. Tradiciones y Layendas Mexicanas. Edited Manuel Romero de Terreros and S. L. Millard Rosenberg (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1927) pp. 24. 455 Ibid., 24-25.
176 goes outside where a man draped in a black cloak waits with two horses. The two
manage to make their way past the men.
With confused buzz they fill the forest, From the mountains awakening the echo, Thus ardently behind her Without a fixed direction or clear path Go Don Martin and one hundred who accompany him.456
At the moment when the men can see her cloak and think they have caught her
and are close enough to touch her, everything gets enveloped in a cloud of dust and
confusion and she disappears. The Mayor can hear her mocking laughter in the distance
and that makes him even more determined to capture her.457 Morning comes in the
jungle and the mayor finds himself alone wondering whether he should return to Córdoba
or continue to chase La Mulata through the mountains. He decides to let his horse
wander about when suddenly he finds himself facing her and the man in the black cloak,
sitting on a rock, side by side. La Mulata “apologizes” to the mayor for having wasted
his time looking for her, and says that even if he chases her for one year he will not catch
her. She advises him that it would be best for him to return to Córdoba, and he obeys.
Without telling the reader how, Riva Palacio mentions that La Mulata is finally
captured and is put in a dungeon where no light ever enters and from which no one ever
escapes. Priests claim that with persistence they can set her on the right path. In the
meantime, the Inquisition has decided to burn her at the stake. One night a man comes to
her cell. It is the Inquisitor himself, also an old man, who has been coming to her cell for
456 Riva Paclacio, Vicente and Juan de Dios Peza. Tradiciones y Layendas Mexicanas. Edited Manuel Romero de Terreros and S. L. Millard Rosenberg (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1927) pp. 27. 457 Ibid., 27.
177 ten straight days, offering her freedom in exchange for marriage. He professes his love
for her and vows to take her away where no one will know her history or her name and where they can live together in a palace, for he is wealthy. La Mulata replies, “I have
already told you, sir, that I do not deserve so much dedication, nor should a noble man
hold shelter in his chest for one who since her cradle has been helpless and poor.”458
The Inquisitor insists that nothing matters except his love for her but she will hear
nothing of it. She does not want to deceive him with false love. Angered by her
rejection, the Inquisitor vows that she will die. He is humiliated. As he begins to leave her cell, La Mulata yells back to the old man and says that if he answers one question
correctly she will resign to him. Instantly, his demeanor changes and he eagerly agrees.
She asks: “do you see this boat painted with charcoal and that appears to be ready to
depart? What is it lacking?” The man stares at the ship and the more he stares at it the
more he thinks it is perfect. Eventually he answers “only to sail,” to which she responds
“not even that, sir.” And with one leap la Mulata boards the ship and sails away.459 The tale ends with a note from the narrator which states that, many years later, an old man in an insane asylum spoke of a ship that sailed underneath Mexico carrying a beautiful woman. This man, reveals Riva Palacio, was the old Inquisitor. La Mulata was never heard from again, but “it is assumed that under control of the devil she is moaning. Leave her among the flames readers!” the narrator finally warns.460
Riva Palacio’s La Mulata maintains the integrity of Ramírez Aparicio’s version,
though on the surface, it seems to take a more critical view of the protagonist. La Mulata
458 Ibid., 31. 459 Ibid., 32. 460 Ibid., 33.
178 is not celebrated here as she is in Ramírez Aparicio’s version as a folk hero, and there
appears to be little sympathy for her character and her resistance to the unwanted
attentions of the old men in authority. The narrator begs the reader to leave her among
the flames, indicating that she does indeed have relations with the devil. Though she is
honest and does not want to deceive her suitors, her relationship with the man in the dark
cloak implies that she is indeed a “witch.” However, the connection between the
Inquisition and the devil pose an interesting dichotomy. While the Inquisition sought to
burn her at the stake for her relations with the devil, the narrator concludes that it is
“assumed” that she is now “among the flames” of Hell—but, it is hardly certain. On the
other hand, unlike the Inquisitor whose fate is imprisonment in an insane asylum, La
Mulata ultimately escapes from the unjust clutches of the Inquisition.461 Moreover, the
mayor’s self interest and contempt for La Mulata’s lack of affection towards him, and his
“epic” efforts to punish her for it are hardly glorified by the narrator. Ultimately, Riva
Palacio’s story is about a figure that has the power to upset the structures of authority of both the state and the church, a disruptive power that society would of course “assume” originates with the devil. But, like her actual fate, the source of her power is not as certain as the motivations of her actions, which were simply to be left alone. This conflict—between the harassment, sexualized and lecherous, of old, white men of highest civil and religious authority, and a mulata woman, treated as an outsider within her country—had historical precedent and meaning for Riva Palacio.
Notably, Riva Palacio is better known for his historical masterpiece, Mexico A
Través de los Siglos, a ambitious scholarly work. But, it is not surprising that he would
461 This is the only version where instead of a jailer, the person who witnesses La Mulata’s escape is the Inquisitor.
179 also dabble in folklore, which in the nineteenth century was considered an integral part of
the nation’s identity and the nation’s history. His emphasis on La Mulata’s descent from
a Black woman and a Spanish man also comes as no surprise. In the first place, Vicente
Riva Palacio was grandson of former President and Independence leader, Vicente
Guerrero. It was Guerrero who abolished the legal structures of slavery in 1829.462
Secondly, in his tale, Riva Palacio emphasized that La Mulata lived behind a “curtain of vegetation” in much the same way that cimarrones (runaway slaves) lived in the jungle.
In addition, he portrays the mayor’s pursuit of La Mulata through the jungle in a way that mimics the missions of colonial authorities who were sent into the mountains around
Córdoba to hunt down runaway slaves. By and large, Riva Palacio presents an elaborate and captivating portrayal of La Mulata’s life and origin as a mulata and of Córdoba’s and
Mexico’s anguished history of racial mixture. For that, Riva Palacio’s version of “La
Mulata de Córdoba” can be seen as a historical piece as well as a literary one.
Of the many authors who reproduced “La Mulata de Córdoba,” Luis González
Obregón’s (1865-1938) version from 1890 is the one most referenced by subsequent writers. Interestingly too, his version of the story is the first to be fully set in Córdoba, while other versions make reference to the location as a background. In a sense, Córdoba is a lead character itself of González Obregón’s version.
González Obregón’s story begins with a description of agricultural products that are grown in Córdoba, primarily mangos and coffee. More importantly, González
Obregón paints a picture of the founding of Córdoba and its history of slavery, from
462 Ortiz Monasterio, José. México Eternamente: Vicente Riva Palacio ante la escritura de la historia (Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2004), pp. 67.
180 which La Mulata would have descended. “Córdoba was founded there in the first years
of the seventeenth century,” he writes, delving into the region’s historical connection to
slavery and slave revolts:
In that era, rebellious slaves prowled around Totulla, Palmillas, Totolinga and Tumbacarretas, putting the towns in continuous alarm, as they assaulted merchants, robbed passengers and were an obstacle for commerce and the Royal Hacienda by intercepting the road from Veracruz [to the capital, Mexico City].463
To solve the problem, various prominent men from the neighboring town of Huatusco
asked the Viceroy, Diego Fernandez de Córdoba, Marquis of Guadalcázar, to establish a
town there, to be named after him. The town was founded on April 25 of the year 1618.
“Córdoba, after all, is full of historical memories,” the narrator extols.
Continuing his elaborately detailed history of the town, González Obregón then
jumps forward to praise the town’s role in the fight for independence. “It opposed glorious resistance to the realists,” he says. It was also the place where the famous
Tratados de Córdoba was signed by the Viceroy Juan O’Donoju and Independence leader Agustín de Iturbide, that consummated independence.464 González Obregón seals
the importance of Córdoba, saying, “for its exuberant and virgin environment, for its
origin and its historical memories, Córdoba is therefore a prominent and enchanting
city…”465 Next, the story takes an interesting turn towards the fabulous: in addition to its
many virtues, Córdoba is perhaps better known as the hometown of La Mulata. “More
463 González Obregón, Luis. Leyendas de las calles de mexico. Ed. M. Aguilar (Mexico: Artes graficas ibermex, 1976), pp. 77-78. 464 González Obregón, Luis. Epoca Colonial, Mexico Viejo: Noticias Historicas Tradicionales, Leyendas y Costumbres del Periodo de 1521 A 1821 (Mexico: Tip. de la Escuela Correccional de Artes y Oficios, 1891), pp. 259-261. 465 Ibid., 260-61.
181 than that, in Córdoba a most beautiful woman was born, object of a popular tradition.”466
González Obregón celebrates that “the fantastic legend of la Mulata de Córdoba has lived
in the tradition of the people…,” indicating that it was the pueblo who kept the legend
alive.467
As in previous versions, though no one knew anything of her origin, the people
called her La Mulata and believed her to be a witch who had made a pact with the devil
and received his visits every night. But, part of what makes her a witch is the
unexplainable influence she has on men. When she appeared in town, all of the men
argued over who loved her the most. She, however, never reciprocated their advances,
and thus a rumor spread that her heart belonged to only one man: the lord of darkness.468
And it is the fact that does not accept any of the men as potential suitor that makes this
mulata more suspicious. As in Riva Palacio’s story, noble and powerful men pursued her, “in matters of love, the doors to her house always remained closed to the most well- bred gentlemen and these actions by any other woman would have been seen as virtuous but in la Mulata they became reason for rumors and suspicion.”469 It is noteworthy that
men from the upper-class as well as the peasantry pursued her. In light of this fact, it is
difficult to know for which class La Mulata’s allure would cause more concern.
But above all, it seems that it what made her undeniably beautiful and irresistible
to the men, was her racial mixture, “of Iberian breed she would have inherited as well the
royal stature of the Spanish lineage, the large almond-shaped eyes full of mystery and the
warm and golden skin, product of the fusion of two races that when blended could give
466 Ibid. 467 Ibid., 261 468 Ibid, 261-262. 469 “Leyenda: La Mulata de Córdoba” in Magazine: Revista de Córdoba. No. 75, Año 7 (Córdoba, Veracruz: September 2004): 11.
182 form to so beautiful a woman.”470 It did not matter that the woman attended mass
frequently and participated in charity events. Rumors quickly spread that she possessed
mystical powers.
People said that she appeared in various places at the same time. She was also
known for being an agent of impossible things. Women without suitors, men without
work, women who aspired to be wealthy and mingle with the “Vice Queen,” doctors
without patients, all sought out her services and all were sent away “happy, fulfilled, and
satisfied”471 The narrator repeats the explanation of the commonplace, “I am not la
Mulata de Córdoba” in response to an impossible request.472 Her popularity spreads
beyond the local. Her “name” and reputation is known throughout the entire colony.
From here, González Obregón directly quotes an entire passage from Ramírez Aparicio
in which the latter laments that la Mulata does not live in our time and comments that her
virtues in another time would have caused people to think of her as a goddess.473 Instead, he laments, she was persecuted. “How long did the fame of that woman last, true prodigy of her era and admiration of future centuries? No one knows.”474
Her fate follows the now familiar pattern: she is taken from Córdoba to Mexico
City to be tried by the Inquisition. The motivations of the Inquisition, González Obregón
points out, are not clear, nor clearly “just.” When she arrives in Mexico City, one daring
person maintains that she is not a witch at all, but that the Inquisition was after her
470 Ibid. 471 González Obregón, Luis. Epoca Colonial, Mexico Viejo: Noticias Historicas Tradicionales, Leyendas y Costumbres del Periodo de 1521 A 1821 (Mexico: Tip. de la Escuela Correccional de Artes y Oficios, 1891), pp. 262-63. 472 Ibid., 263. 473 Ibid. 474 González Obregón, Luis. Leyendas de las calles de mexico. Ed. M. Aguilar (Mexico: Artes graficas ibermex, 1976), pp. 83.
183 fortune consisting of ten large barrels full of gold. Another person comments that an
unrequited love is the cause of her troubles.475 On the eve of her execution, it is rumored
“that the bird,” referring to La Mulata, “had flown all the way to Manila” taunting the
vigilance of her jailers; that she had walked out in front of the jailer’s eyes.476 “What
power did that woman have to mock the narrow vigilance of the very respectable
inquisitor gentlemen?” asks the narrator. “Everyone ignored it [La Mulata’s escape] and the gossip was cruel for the members of the Holy Position.”477 González Obregón asks,
“how did this happen?” People would say that the devil himself had walked in to take
her away, as they made the sign on the cross on themselves. In the face of all of these
rumors, González Obregón claims that he will reveal to the reader the truth. The story
recounts the famous escape: her jailer marvels at a drawing of a ship that La Mulata has
made on one of her cell walls. “What is this ship lacking?” she asks. He answers that it
is perfect and that it only lacks the ability to sail, at which point she says she can change that, jumps on the ship and sails away, leaving the jailer dumbfounded.478 Many years later, a “poet,” the narrator adds, will write that a man in an insane asylum spoke of a ship that one night sailed under Mexico carrying a woman of high arrogance. No doubt,
González Obregón is referring to the poet, Riva Palacio.479
Referring to González Obregón’s impact on Mexican society, Carlos G. Peña
wrote that “no one before him had understood among us that History, more than in the
475 González Obregón, Luis. Epoca Colonial, Mexico Viejo: Noticias Historicas Tradicionales, Leyendas y Costumbres del Periodo de 1521 A 1821 (Mexico: Tip. de la Escuela Correccional de Artes y Oficios, 1891), pp. 264; Ferrandón, Leonardo. “La Mulata de Corodba” in Apuntes históricos de mi pueblo, recordando a Yanga: ayer y hoy (Mexico: Imprenta Unión, 1963), pp. 128. 476 Ibid., 264. 477 Ferrandón, Leonardo. “La Mulata de Corodba” in Apuntes históricos de mi pueblo, recordando a Yanga: ayer y hoy (Mexico: Imprenta Unión, 1963), pp. 129. 478 Ibid., 265-66 479 Ibid., 266.
184 big events, was found in the life, familiar and palpitating, of small events.”480 In the late
nineteenth century, González Obregón found the popular story of La Mulata particularly
telling of those “familiar and palpitating” events that gave meaning to Mexico’s history.
González Obregón himself symbolizes Mexico’s national history. He has been
called a nationalist, yet he represents that title in a unique way. According to Castro
Leal, González Obregón did not believe that Mexico, as a nation, began in the nineteenth
century, with independence from Spain. He believed it began in the sixteenth century
with the melding of the races that would lead to Mexican mestizaje. According to
Antonio Castro Leal, González Obregón discovered that since the sixteenth century there were “shouts of rebellion and independence, and that in the life and customs of the colonial centuries can be found antecedents of our psychology and statements of our nationality.”481 As opposed to focusing on La Mulata’s last days in the Inquisition’s jail
cell in Mexico City, by detailing the founding of Córdoba, González Obregón made a strong connection between colonialism and the new nation and Córdoba and Mexico
City. Moreover, by expanding on the role of Córdoba, the history of slavery and of racial
mixture in his version of “La Mulata,” González Obgregón was arguing for her place, and
the place of Blacks and of Black rebellion in the making of Mexico’s history.
In the last year of the nineteenth century, one last author rewrote La Mulata de
Córdoba. Originally published in 1899, Heriberto Frias’s version mentions that
according to Luis González Obregón, Córdoba was the birth home of La Mulata. He also
480 Ibid., X 481 Leal, Castro. “Prologue,” González Obregón, Luis. Leyendas de las calles de mexico. Ed. M. Aguilar (Mexico: Artes graficas ibermex, 1976), pp. 17.
185 credits Ramírez Aparicio for detailing La Mulata’s feats.482 Frias’s version takes the boldest stance against the Inquisition of all previous stories. Previous versions of the story do not mention how it is that La Mulata is captured. According to Frias, La Mulata it was because the Inquisition spared no expense or manpower in tracking her down.
Moreover, he adds, the people, though they feared her and her association with the devil, were on her side: “Large was the consternation that the apprehension of La Mulata caused among the inhabitants of the city, but no one dared murmur for fear of accompanying her, even though many had faith that, making use of the powerful faculties she had, from one moment to the other, she would flee the jail.”483 The real problem was the Inquisition and its abuse of authority. This version presents the strongest, or clearest, critique of colonial religious authority, setting off a narrative legacy of strong social critique that will develop throughout the next century.
LA MULATA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Various versions of La Mulata appeared in the twentieth century. Standing out among these is the version authored by Xavier Villaurrutia. Villaurritia’s 1945 interpretation of
La Mulata de Córdoba differs quite drastically from his 1948 collaboration with Agustín
Lazo and Pablo Moncayo on another celebrated version of the story. In his first attempt,
Villarrutia sets the story in Rincon Brujo (Witch Corner), a town near Córdoba. For the first time in history, the author gives La Mulata a name, Sara. Sara is rich and orphaned.
She is “a negra,” the product of a brutal father, the owner of a sugar plantation, who “had
482 Frias, Heriberto. Leyendas Historicas Mexicans y otros relatos (Prologue by Antonio Saborit) (Mexico: Editorial Porrua, 2002), pp. 313-314. 483 Ibid., 316
186 a black woman brought to his house, a black sensual woman, to have a son of her. That
son was a daughter: Sara.” Sara cultivates a bitterness against her paternal relatives, the
San Juan family, vowing to get revenge on the white family that refuses to acknowledge
their blood ties with her. The year is 1910, the start of the Mexican Revolution, and Sara
is twenty-five years old.484 The story ends with the death of Don Carlos San Juan, the
brother of her father, Luis San Juan, and the escape of Sara.
In addition to placing the story in the twentieth century, Villaurrutia completely
omits one of the most common features of the narrative tradition of La Mulata: the ship.
Furthermore, even though Villaurrutia refers to her as a “negra,” he continuously
describes her as the progeny of a “Mexican” man and a negra, as morena. Today the
term moreno, or bronze, is commonly used by Mexicans to describe their own “race” in an attempt to highlight a unique blend of racial mixture. At the same time, however, it erases particular, namely African, racial characteristics. The term “morena” supposedly conveys color in a “neutral” de-racialized way. Villaurrutia also seems conflicted by La
Mulata’s racial connotations—keeping her title and the title of the story, not shying from
giving her a Black mother, yet baptizing her with a Mexican name and describing her as
morena.
In his subsequent 1948 operetta, Villaurrutia gives La Mulata the name Soledad
and describes her as a woman whom men admire and women envy such that “everyone
wants the wind to take her away.”485 In this version, seven men fall in love with Soledad including the violent Aurelio. Soledad loves old Anselmo, who will, inexplicably, die if
484 Villaurrutia, Xavier. “La Mulata de Córdoba” in El Hijo Pródigo: Revista Literaria, vol. VII, no. 24 (Mexico, March 1945): 166. 485 Villaurrutia, Javier and Agustín Lazo. “La Mulata de Córdoba: Opera en un acto y tres cuadros” in Opera: Primera temporada de 1984, Teatro de Bellas artes (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Palacio de Bellas Artes, 1948), pp. 26.
187 she marries a “mortal,” implying that Soledad has some kind of treaty with mystical
forces. Aurelio kills Anselmo while Soledad is running away from Aurelio in an attempt
to avoid his advances. Aurelio asks for mercy from the town, claiming that innocent blood has been shed because he meant to strike Soledad. He manages to get support from the town because Soledad had spoken of a mystical image “that will never abandon her,” arousing suspicion that she is communicating with an unholy source. In an attempt to prove her innocence, Soledad runs to the doors of the church and pleas with the
Inquisitors for help. The Inquisitors offer to do so, but only if she tells them about the image or vision she has had. She claims that the image is of her father, whose identity has always been a secret, and she refuses to name him. The inquisitors put her on trial for blasphemy. At her trial, Anselmo appears dressed as a friar and asks the Inquisitor to be allowed to speak with the prisoner. Anselmo tells Soledad that if some oath forbids her from speaking her father’s name, then she can write it down. He hands her a piece of paper and disappears. Soledad does not write down the name, but she uses the paper to draw a ship, on which she sails away.486
La Mulata de Córdoba by Villaurrutia and Lazo was the last of three Mexican
operas written and performed in 1948 as a way to establish a Mexican opera tradition,
which had carried little cultural capital against the more prestigious Italian opera. An
attempt to create a truly Mexican national opera was considered a bold, or possible
“aberrant” enterprise by the cultural elite. The period of Mexican national music spans
from 1928-1950 during which the Mexican Orquestra launched a period of intense
486 Ibid.
188 musical activity.487 The National Institute for Fine Arts was founded in 1947 under the direction of José Vasconcelos, then Minister of Education.488 In 1948, the director of the
Institute, Carlos Chavez, ordered the creation of three Mexican operas, one of which was
“La Mulata de Córdoba.”489 All three were one act operettas and were scheduled to open together. Few people attended. Of the three works, though, “La Mulata” was considered the most successful both as a work of art and in terms of popularity.490 The operetta, with
Vullaurrutia’s script and Pablo Moncayo’s musical compositions, was a one act opera in three scenes. Scene I takes place in Córdoba; Scene II takes place in Mexico City; Scene
III takes place in the jail. According to Guadalupe Mejía Nuñez, “La Mulata de Córdoba is the Mexican opera of the highest transcendence that exists in our musical environment.” 491 Inaugurated on October 19, 1948, the operetta has since been presented twice in each of the years 1964, 1965, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1992, 1996, and
1997.492
Villaurrutia brings the ship back into the story in this version, leaving out a different critical detail of the story: Soledad’s race. Apart from the title, Villaurrutia omits any reference to her origin or status as a mulata, perhaps the most famous mulata in
Mexican folklore. The operetta, commissioned by The National Institute for Fine Arts, a powerful body created by José Vasconcelos, who argued for a Mexican national identity
487 Mejía Nuñez, Guadalupe. “La Mulata de Córdoba: Ópera mexicana del compositor jalisciense José Pablo Moncayo” in Aportaciones a las letras jaliscienses (Siglos XIX y XX) , edited by Wonfgang Vogt (Guadalajara, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, 1999), pp. 174. See footnote 5. 488 Ibid., 179. 489 Ibid., 180. 490 Ibid., 181. 491 Mejía Nuñez, Guadalupe. “La Mulata de Córdoba: Ópera mexicana del compositor jalisciense José Pablo Moncayo” in Aportaciones a las letras jaliscienses (Siglos XIX y XX) , edited by Wonfgang Vogt (Guadalajara, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, 1999), pp. 177. 492 Ibid., 184.
189 that would evolve beyond its African roots, would ensure the transformation of La
Mulata from a reoccurring character of popular folklore into a seminal figure of Mexico’s budding national culture. The question is why did these influential writers find this character so compelling a vehicle for a nation-building project? Guadalupe Mejía Nuñez argues that the figure of La Mulata in Villaurrutia’s operetta had a historically racialized meaning, one that “transcribed” the racial politics and conflicts of the modern era:
The text transcribes a vindication of identity. The title alludes to a feminine character whose name we can ignore, knowing only that she originates from Córdoba and that the color of her skin alludes to the active mestizaje that occurred during the colonial period between blacks, whites, and natives. On the other hand, the term mulata denotes the lack of integration of the two groups; she is white-black since she was not integrated into one or the other. The problem of marginalization is manifested across the work’s inclusion/exclusion structure.493
La Mulata signified a racial identity that could not be integrated into Mexican mestizaje,
and one that, in its inassimilable otherness, also carried the charge of dangerous sexuality,
“one associated with the diabolic,” notes Mejía Nuñez.494 And it is precisely her
“otherness” that, as Mejía Nuñez points out, is the most alluring quality for Mexican
readers and writers: “the fusion of two races, black and white, come consequently to
create a new stereotype of female beauty in which the rhythm, the magic and the
sexuality of the African tradition are mixed,” but never quite adapted to or within
493 Mejía Nuñez, Guadalupe. “La Mulata de Córdoba: Ópera mexicana del compositor jalisciense José Pablo Moncayo” in Aportaciones a las letras jaliscienses (Siglos XIX y XX) , edited by Wonfgang Vogt (Guadalajara, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, 1999), pp. 185. 494 Mejía Nuñez, Guadalupe, “La Mulata en la expresión artística” in Sincronía, E-Journal (Mexico: Departamento de Letras, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad de Guadalajara, Fall 2002, via http://sincronia.cucsh.udg.mx/lamulata.htm (accessed July 31, 2008).
190 Mexican culture or identity.495 Thus, La Mulata can never be judged an unequivocal
villain or heroine, neither submissive to authority, nor completely rebellious, but rather
something completely other, a disruptive mestizaje of character.
Guadalupe Mejía Nuñez places La Mulata within the context of a broader struggle
over the meaning of Blackness during the “Romantic” and “Modern” eras of Mexican culture during its formative years in the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century:
Under Romanticism, the theme of the Mulata acquired a different connotation. Poetry became the expression of a national conscience, in which the search for origins took place and a protest against the injustices of the colonial system was made. Within this context, the black theme began to become charged with importance and [La Mulata] was conceived as a member of a group that had suffered oppression of colonialism. The poems that speak of the Mulata approach her from an esthetic and sensual point of view, but at the same time they give continuity to a negative belief of society by considering her a hybrid lacking of identity.496
Part of her power was as a Mexican symbol of rebellion against unjust Spanish
colonialism, “a true rebellious symbol that can very well be reborn in any moment when
the social conditions may be similar to those of the colony.”497 The trope of her sailing
away on the ship, right out of her jail cell before the very eyes of her helpless, baffled
captors is a delightful fantasy of escape and triumph over oppression. But these tales never delight in the historical triumph of free Blacks or escaped slaves over slavery and persecution. Rather, the stories transform La Mulata into a “symbol” of a more universal
495 Ibid. 496 Mejía Nuñez, Guadalupe, “La Mulata en la expresión artística” in Sincronía, E-Journal (Mexico: Departamento de Letras, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad de Guadalajara, Fall 2002). http://sincronia.cucsh.udg.mx/lamulata.htm. 497 Couto, José Bernardo. La Mulata de Córdoba y la historia de un peso, Luis Martínez Morales, editor (Mexico, Veracruz: Callejon del diamante, 1998), pp. 11-12; Vargas, Margarita “Romanticism” in Mexican Literature: A History, ed. David William Foster (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1994), pp. 92.
191 form of rebellion, and sublimate the “Black theme” into one that spoke to Mexico’s struggle for liberation from the oppression of “the injustices of the colonial system.”
EL NEGRITO
El Negrito Poeta appears in three key works of Mexican literature in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The earliest written accounts of El Negrito can be traced to José
Joaquin Fernández de Lizardi’s now classic early nineteenth-century novel, El Periquillo
Sarniento. After these sketches, El Negrito surfaces again in 1856, when he becomes a
major figure in the Mexican consciousness through Simón Blanquel’s Calendarios.
Next, Nicolás León’s 1912 work is considered the most complete account of the life of El
Negrito, though it is based primarily on a compilation of Simón Blanquel’s
Calendarios.498
First published in 1816, El Periquillo Sarniento is today considered the first
“Latin American” novel, a powerful social satire and an important, founding text of
Mexican national literature.499 The story follows the corrupt and wasted life, from youth
to death bed, of Pedro Sarmiento, whose unkind classmates had nicknamed him
“Periquillo Sarniento” (Mangy Parrot). The novel is Perico’s death-bed testament, the
narrative of a repentant man whose imminent death lends authority to exposure of the
social ills that contributed to his wasted life. The narrator’s lessons, ostensibly directed at
498 León, Nicolás. El negrito poeta mexicano y sus populares versos : Contribución para el folk-lore nacional. Forward by Ernesto Higuera (Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico: Ediciones Culturales del Gobierno del Estado de Sinaloa, 1961), pp. 15. 499 Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín. Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniendo, Written by Himself for his Children, translated by David Frye (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), pp. XI.
192 his own children, are meant to instruct and entertain upcoming generations of future
Mexicans.500
The work was first published in February of 1816, in the midst of the war for
Independence under Fernández de Lizardi’s pseudonym, El Pensador Mexicano, a persona through whom he was able to attack Spanish Colonial authorities, their censorship policies and the institution of slavery.501 The novel appeared in installments
on Tuesdays and Fridays and became “immediately popular.”502 The fourth installment
dealt openly with slavery and was quickly suppressed by government authorities. The
piece would not be released until 1830-31, three years after Fernández de Lizardi’s death
and only after Mexico had abolished slavery.503
El Negrito first appears in a footnote in part II, where Fernández de Lizardi writes
that people in Mexico City remember El Negrito and his verses. The narrative provides
information about El Negrito in part III through a priest who tells Periquillo and a friend
more about El Negrito.504 The priest claims that an old man who had heard the verses straight from El Negrito related them to him.505 The priest notes that El Negrito was an
“utter commoner” and many people swore that he did not even know how to read or
500 Ibid., XVIII. 501 José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi also wrote a second act to Luciano Francisco Comella’s one act play, Melodrama en un acto titulado El Negro Sensible, that was first published in 1825 titled “El Negro Sensible.” This was another example of his firm anti-slavery beliefs. 502 Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín. Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniendo, Written by Himself for his Children, translated by David Frye (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), pp. XIX. 503 Ibid. For more information on the history of slavery in Mexico see chapter 1. 504 Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín. Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniendo, Written by Himself for his Children, translated by David Frye (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), pp. 223. Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín. El Periquillo Sarniento, por El Pensador Mexicano (4th edition, tomo II (Mexico: Librería de Galvan), 1842). chapter VIII of part II, Pg. 138. 505 Ibid., 291. Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín. El Periquillo Sarniento, por El Pensador Mexicano (4th edition, tomo III (Mexico: Librería de Galvan), 1842). Chapter II of part III, pg. 37-39.
193 write.506 Beyond his brief appearance in Parts II and III, El Negrito becomes a central
character of Part IV, which treats the institution and injustice of slavery in great detail.
The subsequent censorship of Part IV by government officials backfired, for rather than
obliterating the text, the act of censureship “extolled, in part and without intention, the
glory of El Pensador because by condemning slavery and by protesting against such
barbaric commerce, [Lizardi] was placed in a dignified and enviable pinnacle at which
only certain illustrious heroes are found.”507 Fernández de Lizardi is now remembered as
a writer who “…in the midst of full Spanish dominion, in the capital of the colonial
kingdom, and while our leaders disputed Independence in the fields of battle, […] dared
to defend the slaves, and to defend them with vigor, with entirety, and without fear to the
tyrants.”508
Although he managed to make a living from writing, Fernández de Lizardi was
scorned by many of the intellectuals of his time “for invading their territory and
vulgarizing their discussion of law, history, morals, and so forth, for consumption by
their class.”509 But even if his colleagues did not appreciate Fernández de Lizardi’s work,
the general population did. As already noted, El Periquillo Sarniento was not released as
a complete unit but in bi-weekly installments. This format made it more affordable and
therefore more accessible to the lower classes. Also, Fernández de Lizardi used a
colloquial language, a language of the pueblo. Even though many of his colleagues
506 Ibid., 293. In Part III, the narrator points out that El Negrito had no forma education, “sin gota de estudios ni erudición..” (Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín. El Periquillo Sarniento, por El Pensador Mexicano (4th edition, tomo III (Mexico: Librería de Galvan), 1842), pp. 39), 507 González Obregón, Luis. Novelistas Mexicanos: Don José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi (El Pensador Mexicano) (Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 1938), pp. 44. 508 Ibid. 509 Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín. Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniendo, Written by Himself for his Children, translated by David Frye (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), pp. XX.
194 disparaged his writing and his style, the public embraced his work and his ideas. Many
editions of the novel appeared after the initial 1816 publication, most of them in the nineteenth century: 1825, 1830-31, 1842, 1845, 1853, 1865, 1884 (two printings), 1892,
1897, 1900, 1903, 1908, 1909.510 In addition, in 1866 seven calendarios were printed featuring excerpts from El Periquillo and many of Lizardi’s other works.511
The first installment of Simón Blanquel’s Calendario, a series of thirty-two page small almanacs, appeared in 1856. Publication continued until 1872.512 Blanquel’s
Calendarios were accessible and affordable to ordinary people, and were widely
distributed. They often featured a barefoot vagabond Black poet on their covers.
Blanquel argues that he compiled the famous verses of El Negrito from people
who swore they had heard them straight from El Negrito’s mouth or from second, and
even third hand accounts. Each of the Calendarios followed a simple pattern: the
circumstance or context behind each verse is given, followed by the verse itself.
Sometimes the Calendario would provide an interpretation of the historical relevance of
the verse or some “biographical” information about El Negrito himself. According to
Blanquel’s Calendarios, El Negrito made a living in the first half of the eighteenth
century by selling his verses on the streets of Mexico City, and eventually died of
cholera.513 He was well-known in the years after independence between 1820-1833, as
510 González Obregón, Luis. Novelistas Mexicanos: Don José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi (El Pensador Mexicano) (Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 1938), pp. 67-72. 511 Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín. Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniendo, Written by Himself for his Children, translated by David Frye (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), pp. xxii. 512 Ibid., 113. 513 Blanquel, Simón. Calendario del Negrito Poeta para 1857, 2a parte, (Mexico), pp. 47-48, 55.
195 the nameless “El Negrito.”514 Blanquel’s Calendarios emphasize the fact that, like La
Mulata, El Negrito has no proper name of his own and, in fact, his literary power partly
derives from that very absence, which served to foreground his racial origins and history.
Nicolás León theorizes that the parents of El Negrito Poeta came from Congo,
Africa, “brought to Mexico to serve in the domestic or rural labors of some rich person in
the then New Spain.”515 Later, León will speculate whether or how El Negrito was able
to emancipate himself from the slavery that he would have been born into.516 Other
writers trace El Negrito back to Haiti or Havana.517 Blanquel makes the strongest case
for the Mexican-ness of El Negrito, quoting a verse in which the poet says, “Even though
I am of the Congo race/ I was not born African/ I am of the Mexican nation/ and born in
Almolonga.”518 Although León places Almolonga in the state of Puebla, Eduardo Matos
Moctezuma, another prominent scholar of El Negrito, says this Almolonga is a reference
to San Miguel de Almolonga, a sugar hacienda in the state of Veracruz. This theory
supports Blanquel’s version in which El Negrito reveals his racial identity. In another
verse, El Negrito confronts comments about his skin color, when a man says to him
“black man, your skin color does you wrong.”519 On another occasion, a woman boldly asks him “do you not warn that you are black?”520 Blanquel comments that in the past,
514 Simón Blanquel quoted in León, Nicolás. El negrito poeta mexicano y sus populares versos : Contribución para el folk-lore nacional. Forward by Ernesto Higuera (Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico: Ediciones Culturales del Gobierno del Estado de Sinaloa, 1961), pp. 16 515 León, Nicolás. El negrito poeta mexicano y sus populares versos : Contribución para el folk-lore nacional. Forward by Ernesto Higuera (Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico: Ediciones Culturales del Gobierno del Estado de Sinaloa, 1961), pp. 7. 516 Ibid. 517 Blanquel, Simón. Calendario del Negrito Poeta para 1858, 3a parte (Mexico), pp. 51 518 Ibid. 519 Blanquel, Simón. Calendario del Negrito Poeta para 1858, 3a parte (Mexico), pp. 63. 520 Blanquel, Simón. Calendario del Negrito Poeta para 1859, 4a parte (Mexico), front cover.
196 Blackness was reprehensible to the people of the aristocracy and highborn blue blood, as
if Mexicans of his own century had overcome those prejudices.521
In León’s 1912 version, El Negrito’s name is given as José Vasconcelos, a
coincidence with the chief architect of twentieth-century Mexico’s theory about the
inevitable erasure of all African elements from Mexican identity.522 León is
misinterpreting a section in Blanquel’s fourth Calendario for the year 1859, in which a
person who is “not very vulgar” reveals that El Negrito had a friend whose name was
Vasconcelos.523 In the subsequent verse, El Negrito refers to himself as José
Vasconcelos, but as a way to take on the character of his friend who also appears in various other verses.524 Based on his friend’s amorous adventures, El Negrito says, “the
idolized object/ that is cause of your vigilance/ when to see it you have tried/ you have
always gone and ‘Vas-con-celos’ (go-with-jealousy).”525 Blanquel’s Calendarios emphasize the fact that, like La Mulata, El Negrito has no proper name of his own and, in fact, his literary power partly derives from that very absence, which served to foreground his racial origins and history.
In the twentieth century, El Negrito finally gains the status he so longed for of one who is “of the Mexican nation” when he is transformed into a mestizo by the writers who celebrate him and his work. Daniel Moreno, for example, calls El Negrito a mestizo of mixed, rather than Black, heritage. Yet, he also refers to the poet as a mulatto: “the very
521 Blanquel, Simón. Calendario del Negrito Poeta para 1857, 2a parte (Mexico), pp. 40. 522 Moreno, Daniel. “Mito y realidad del Negrito Poeta” in Artes de Mexico, No. 147, Año XVIII (Mexico, 1971): 10. 523 Blanquel, Simón. Calendario del Negrito Poeta para 1859, 4a parte (Mexico), pp. 34. 524 León, Nicolás. El negrito poeta mexicano y sus populares versos : Contribución para el folk-lore nacional. Forward by Ernestro Higuera (Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico: Ediciones Culturales del Gobierno del Estado de Sinaloa, 1961), pp. 5, 16. 525 Blanquel, Simón. Calendario del Negrito Poeta para 1859, 4a parte (Mexico), pp. 34.
197 fact that he was a crafty and clever mulato makes him more representative of the
populace of that time, lost in the world of racial categories.”526 Moreno, therefore,
overlooks El Negrito’s African ancestry, and for that matter Mexico’s own African
history, under the guise of celebrating the poet’s Mexican-ness. Fernández de Lizardi
refers to him as “nuestro poeta,” highlighting not his Mexican-ness per sé, but rather his
culture meaning to Mexico.527
Perhaps in spite of his race, or because his marginal identity allowed him to say
what other writers could not or dared not to publish, what attracted people to El Negrito
were his verses, easily transmitted among a largely illiterate population.528 His verses
were in the form of the cuarteta, or copla, the classic form of lyric “found usually as a
variation of a binary, octo-syllabic stanza.”529 This form became emblematic of
Mexican popular culture between independence and the Mexican revolution, “the heyday
of the popular lyric in Mexico, as the relationship between history and culture evolved in
a clash of ideas and changing social perceptions.”530 El Negrito’s verses offered as sharp
and insightful social commentaries as Lizardi and Sor Juana de la Cruz did, even
venturing to expose the unjust social and economic situation of Indians in colonial
Mexico. As one scholar has recently noted, “the bitterness underlying [El Negrito’s]
lyrics is often interpreted as a sign of class consciousness and social unrest in the late
colonial period. As the eighteenth century witnessed the critical attitudes of the
526 Moreno, Daniel. “Mito y realidad del Negrito Poeta” in Artes de Mexico, No. 147, Año XVIII (Mexico, 1971): 10. 527 José Joaquín. El Periquillo Sarniento, por El Pensador Mexicano (4th edition, tomo III, party II (Mexico: Librería de Galvan), 1842). Pg. 37. 528 El Negrito never speaks outside of the cuarteta format. Everything we know about him is in reference to a verse and only that. 529 Schmidt, Henry C. “History, Society, and the Popular Lyric in Mexico: A Study in Cultural Continuity” in Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 4, No. 2. (Summer, 1988), pp. 297. 530 Ibid., 304-305.
198 Enlightenment and the stirrings of creole restlessness, the popular lyric exercised an ever
larger role in political and social commentary.”531 El Negrito’s commentaries are like
modern day folksongs, uniting the people against a common injustice: “We Mexicans
are/ in goods without participle/ everything is for the Spaniards/ and that is why in
Mexico we are/ sicut erant in principio (as [we] were in the beginning).”532 The point of
view is always that of “we Mexicans,” against the “Creoles (American Spaniards),
Yankees, Spaniards” who “govern who they may govern/ and win what they may
win.”533 El Negrito’s verses were forms of protest and unifying identity, pitting an
underdog Mexican people against unjust powers.534
More than for the political and social power of the cuarteta, El Negrito was able
to appeal to people across race and class. He interacted with common people and with
nobility and even the highest official in the colony, the Viceroy, by whom he was
commissioned to write verses. Schmidt finds El Negrito’s appeal across social classes to
be a kind of philosophy: “…it was a will that he would have adopted for his own
convenience, to live well-liked among the people, convinced that the social dealings with
all types of people was his only patrimony.”535 His interaction with different social
groups and individuals is what make El Negrito a national character. He could freely
incorporate entire phrases of Latin into his verses and mix them meaningfully with the
531 Schmidt, Henry C. “History, Society, and the Popular Lyric in Mexico: A Study in Cultural Continuity” in Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 4, No. 2. (Summer, 1988), pp. 303. 532 Blanquel, Simón. Calendario del Negrito Poeta para 1859, 4a parte (Mexico), pp. 45. 533 Ibid., 49. 534 Schmidt, Henry C. “History, Society, and the Popular Lyric in Mexico: A Study in Cultural Continuity” in Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 4, No. 2. (Summer, 1988), pp. 305. 535 Simón Blanquel quoted in León, Nicolás. El negrito poeta mexicano y sus populares versos : Contribución para el folk-lore nacional. Forward by Ernesto Higuera (Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico: Ediciones Culturales del Gobierno del Estado de Sinaloa, 1961), pp. 25.
199 everyday language of the pueblo. His verses crossed linguistic and formal boundaries just as he himself crossed social lines.
CONCLUSION
No single writer contributed to the development of La Mulata and El Negrito as national characters more than Luis González Obregón. In addition to serving as a literary scholar and historian and respected public figure, González Obregón plays an interesting role in bringing the two characters together. He was responsible for loaning some of Blanquel’s
Calendarios to León who was trying to complete his own study on El Negrito. Finally,
González Obregón wrote Fernández de Lizardi’s biography, the first author to write about El Negrito. In fact, he wrote the prologue to the thirteenth edition of El Periquillo in 1903.
Authors have adapted the story of El Negrito and La Mulata to reflect current sentiment thus making both characters capable of transcending time. By placing these characters in the colonial period, authors looked at the past in order to comment on the present. Authors were able to succeed in nationalizing these characters by publishing stories in newspapers and magazines and thus reaching larger audiences. La Mulata and
El Negrito facilitated an exchange between the elite and the lower classes in much the same way that the characters are said to have transcended class lines themselves..
Publication of their stories diffused oral tradition at the same time that oral folklore sparked a desire in authors to put national myths in writing.
La Mulata and El Negrito highlight Black themes as an integral part of popular culture in nineteenth-century Mexico. Both characters stand out as the mulata and the
200 negrito, both an affirmation of a history of racial mixture as well as a testament to the
idea that there were no more Blacks in Mexico. This trend becomes more apparent at the
end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Throughout the nineteenth century,
especially in the case of La Mulata, the race of the two characters would play an
increasingly important role. The twentieth century on the other hand would begin to
erase the same characteristic that gave them their name. During the Porfiriato’s “rigid
social stratification based on racial and cultural prejudices proper to a positivist
ideology,” there was room for one or two outstanding, exceptional Blacks.536 Ironically,
these two Black characters reinforce José Vasconcelos’s twentieth-century notion that the less desirable aspects of Mexico’s racially mixed people would simply fade away.
Moreover, an affirmation of Mexico’s present did not require a complete acceptance of the past. The permutations of both characters embody and reflect Mexico’s development of a racial national consciousness—a shift away from a racially mixed colonial past towards an ideology of mestizaje, or racial mixture indeed, but one that sought to erase the African presence.
536 Martín-Flores, Mario. “Nineteenth-Century Prose Fiction” in Mexican Literature: A History, ed. David William Foster (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1994), pp. 114.
201
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CHAPTER 6
YANGA: MEXICO’S FIRST REVOLUTIONARY
Jungles, dark jungles mountains, dark mountains shelter for wolves and serpents shelter also for freedom —Anonymous (1950) 537
As the bus takes you twenty kilometers from Córdoba to Yanga, in the state of Veracruz,
on the now famous Camino Real, you can see a large, green highway sign that reads,
“YANGA: First free town in the Americas.” A few meters away you can also see a mural
depicting a slave, breaking free from the chains of bondage. You can assume it is Yanga,
himself. The bus veers slightly left, and without knowing it, you have entered the town
itself. A couple of blocks down the road, the bus drops you off at the zócalo with its church on one side and municipal offices adjacent to that. The bus will continue on the
same road, on its way out. A few blocks from the zócalo it will pass the local elementary
school, a small, lonely, uncultivated park, and again, before you know it, the bus will be
back on the Camino Real. In town, you can walk for three small blocks in any direction
from the zócalo and you will have seen all there is to see in Yanga. Passing through, you
would never know that this small, unassuming town was the birthplace of so much fear
537 Archivo General de la Nación, Propiedad Artística y literaria, grupo 126, soporte, 911, exp. 8721, fj. 51, 1950. From here forth the Archivo General de la Nación will be denoted as AGN.
205 and angst; that this town is one of the oldest in the Americas; that its original founders
were runaway slaves and that the Spanish king granted them the freedom to establish
their own town; that its original name was San Lorenzo de los Negros; and that for two
centuries, it probably kept government officials up at night. Today, Yanga is finally the
quiet, unassuming town that it struggled for centuries to be.
During the tumultuous period of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), the
President of the office of Civil Administration of the town of San Lorenzo, Veracruz,
would faithfully sit down to write a note to his counterpart in nearby Córdoba, the head
of the county, to report on the local events of the day. “I have the honor of informing you
that during the previous day and night, nothing happened in this municipality.” Looking
back on these reports now, it is impossible to know whether it was with pride of chagrin
that the President of San Lorenzo would report that indeed nothing had happened that
day—for the entire month of February, 1915, in fact.538
It is tempting to speculate that the town officials of San Lorenzo wanted to convey to their colleagues in Córdoba—who were in fact much more than simple colleagues, as Córdoba enjoyed a political superiority and authority over San Lorenzo—
the image of a stable and trouble-free town. The daily notes were perhaps a way to
remind the Cordobeses that San Lorenzo did indeed exist, that it deserved to be reckoned
with politically and economically. But, as the chaos of the social revolution shook the
foundations of Mexican political life and threatened its very future, San Lorenzo sought
to enter modernity quietly.
538 Archivo Municipal de Córdoba, “Sección de gobernación: partes de novedades,” vol. 344, no. 49, 1915. From here forth the Archivo Municipal de Córdoba will be denoted as AMC.
206 Quietly is precisely not how San Lorenzo de Los Negros—the first name of the
contemporary town now known as Yanga—came to be, some four hundred years ago
during the colonial period. In this chapter I argue that the founding of San Lorenzo in the
early seventeenth century is one of the most significant events/developments in Mexico’s
colonial period, with wide-ranging political, economic, social, and historical impact on
New Spanish society and eventually Mexican nationalism and the Mexican state. Despite
efforts by the officials of San Lorenzo itself to minimize its revolutionary past and
potential, and of colonial authorities and later the Mexican state, to forget the specter of
Black violence, resistance and power, its legacy as the first successful challenge to
Spanish colonial rule and the institution of the enslavement of Blacks has survived
historical oblivion. While the national narrative has erased the history of San Lorenzo
and of Yanga, its founder, at the local level it has not been forgotten. Moreover, San
Lorenzo’s mere existence and founding history would serve as reminder of Mexico’s
Black history.
The significance of San Lorenzo has not yet been fully explored or understood by
historians because relatively soon after the Spanish Crown granted its charter in 1609,539
San Lorenzo is thought to simply have “disappeared” from the political, social, and economic landscape—as if an entire town and its inhabitants could literally fade back
539 Aguirre Beltran believes that San Lorenzo de los Negros was founded in 1608, rather than 1609 as evidenced by a document in the Archivo General de la Nacion, dated 1608 in which Yanga and his followers make demands to the viceroy. Moreover, Aguirre Beltran argues that there are discrepancies in the primary account of the town’s founding by Juan Laurencio. For more information on this issue see Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. El Negro Esclavo in nueva españa: la formación colonial, la medicina popular y otros ensayos (Mexico: Fondo de cultura económica, 1994), 179-186. For our purpose here I will use the date that most historians have designated as the founding of San Lorenzo: 1609.
207 into the selva.540 In fact, San Lorenzo was a mere twenty kilometers from the famous
Villa of Córdoba—one of the most important colonial centers—which, as we shall see,
was initially founded because of the existence of San Lorenzo. More than mere
semantics is at stake when arguing that the Heroic City of Córdoba541 was founded
because of San Lorenzo, and not simply afterwards. As I will show, the histories of San
Lorenzo and Córdoba are so intricately tied that to tell the story of one town is to have to tell the story of the other, and together they reveal the context of racial ideologies within which a “Mexican” identity would be forged after Independence. Their inextricable relationship would continue throughout the nineteenth century, which proves to be a paradoxical period for San Lorenzo, as well as for Mexican writers, politicians and intellectuals trying to theorize into being a new nation from the ashes of a colonial past built on the foundations of Black slavery.
Córdoba and San Lorenzo are an important case in the history of mestizaje.
Córdoba would become one of the most important producers of tobacco and sugar in the colonial period, all with the use of slave labor. In fact, Córdoba would continue to rely on slave labor even as other colonial cities were making the transition to wage labor.
Slavery in this region did not take into consideration race mixture and was therefore intricately tied to Blackness as slaves were more likely to be African and free “Blacks”
540 Writing in 1826 Vicente Segura writes that San Lorenzo is a town only in name since it had virtually disappeared. (Segura, Vicente. Apuntes para la estadística del departamento de Orizaba (Jalapa: Oficina del gobierno por Aburto y Blanco, 1831), 116). Fernando Casas Alemán, governor of the state of Veracruz from 1939-1940, stated in an interview in 1944 that up to that date few people had ever heard of Yanga. (Imperial, Francisco. “Una página épica de nuestra historia: san Lorenzo de los negros” in Hoy, #398 (October 7, 1944), 40-43). 541 The title “Heroic” was a title give to cities for their participation and defense of the nation. Córdoba was given that title in 1880 for its role in the war against France during the French Intervention . It was also not uncommon for towns to have multiple “Heroic” titles. AMC, “Decretos del Estado,” vol. 185 (1880)
208 were more likely to be mulatto, or any other afro-casta. Herman Bennett states that in the
early seventeenth century, the free Black labor began to outnumber the slave
population.542 Moreover, in the mid-seventeenth century the free Black population, mostly mulatto, constituted seventy percent of the Black population.543 Because slavery
lasted longer in the Córdoba region, race mixture, though still rapid, was less so than in
other areas of the country, as the introduction of slaves continued to replenish the Black
population. Consequently, the archives can be scrutinized more closely in search of the role of Black Mexicans in the development of mestizaje.
Self-designated as the “first free town in the Americas,” Yanga is the oldest town
in the Americas to be founded and governed by free Blacks. In that vein, San Lorenzo is
important not so much as a community of slaves, but as one of the earliest communities
of free people of color in the Americas—one that had defied authorities and managed to
establish a legitimate maroon community in a society that thrived on slavery.
Consequently, so long as slavery and racial distinctions existed, San Lorenzo would prove to be a constant threat to Córdoba. This threat would be responsible for their
antagonistic relationship. Ironically, it was Córdoba’s obsession and preoccupation, in
part, that would not allow Cordobeses, San Lorenzoans or Veracruz state officials to
forget San Lorenzo’s unique founding history. San Lorenzo, perhaps, could have faded
into history like many other colonial towns, but Córdoba’s watchful eye of suspicion
served as a reminder of the town’s revolutionary history. In other words, it was its
history that made San Lorenzo different from other towns, and oftentimes problematic.
542 Bennett, Herman L. Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640. (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003), pp. 19. 543 Bennett, Herman L. Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640. (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003), pp. 23.
209 Interestingly, in the post-Independence era, Cordobeses would distinguish
between San Lorenzo, the town, and Yanga, its primary founder. They would come to
celebrate Yanga’s history by invoking, and to a certain degree appropriating, his memory
as that of a revolutionary; Mexico’s first revolutionary hero. However, when Yanga
became worthy of being idolized, he was seen as a Mexican hero, representative of
Mexican values of freedom, and not as an African slave, representative of Mexico’s
history of slavery, or worst, a complex racial heritage that included Africans. According
to Córdoba, San Lorenzo would be the first place in Mexico to witness the abolition of
slavery in the same way that Mexico freed itself from the chains of colonialism.544
Instead of reminding people that slavery existed in Mexico, San Lorenzo reminded them
that this was the place where abolition first began. After all, slavery was a Spanish,
colonial institution. Instead of reminding Mexicans that there was perhaps African blood
running through their veins, Yanga reminded them that Mexico had always had heroes.
In the nineteenth century, Cordobeses made a clear distinction between the town and the
man. Yet, in keeping with other nineteenth-century trends, they did not depart from
celebrating a Black figure that had long ago disappeared while giving limited attention to
the town of San Lorenzo which still existed.
THE HISTORY OF YANGA
Several accounts have been written about the founding of San Lorenzo, nearly all based on the only existing first-hand account of the event by Juan Laurencio. In keeping with the general trend in Mexican history, the only two known book-length studies of the town
544 For more information on this trend see chapter 3 of this work. For more information on the founding of Córdoba visit the official website of the town: http://www.mpiocordoba.gob.mx/
210 and founding of Yanga, Veracruz, focus on the colonial period and the twentieth century,
respectively. In 1609 Father Juan Laurencio wrote about the events that led to the
founding of the town in a report to his superiors. Laurencio, a Jesuit priest, was assigned to accompany Captain Pedro González de Herrera on the expedition to quell the run away slaves. Laurencio’s role was to serve as spiritual guide to the troops and to the runaway slaves once they were captured. What David M. Davidson has called “the only surviving detailed account of an encounter between Spanish troops and ex-slaves in the colony” proves to be a challenging source since the original has not survived. Laurencio related
the details of the events in a letter addressed to a colleague, Padre Rodrigo de Cabredo.
The first time that Laurencio’s account appears in print is in Andrés Pérez de Ribas’s
Corónica in 1654. According to Davidson, Pérez de Ribas, also a priest, managed to produce a copy from the original letter.545 Laurencio’s account would not be edited and published on its own until 1974 under the title, Campaña contra Yanga en 1608. Later, through various other reproductions, including those by Jesuit Francisco Javier Alegre
(1764), Vicente Segura (1831), Vicente Riva Palacio (1869) and Enrique Herrera Moreno
(1892), Laurencio’s account has morphed through many interpretations and
reinterpretations. In the twentieth century authors include Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran
(1946), Octaviano Corro (1951), Colin Palmer (1964), David M. Davidson (1966), Edgar
Love (1967), Colin Palmer (1976), Adriana Naveda Chavez-Hita (1987), Patrick Carroll
(1991). For his part Laurencio does not comment whether he speaks directly with any of the cimarrones. He does lead the reader to believe that he was simply to observe and perform his religious duties as a priest. Laurencio provides information that suggests that
545 Davidson, 247. See footnote 65.
211 he had some insight into the lives of the cimarrones. For example, he states that they
were called “Yanguicos,” signifying that they were followers of Yanga.546
The second book, Mis recuerdos: historia de yanga, by Leonardo Ferrandon, provides a history of the founding of the town, some geographical as well as geological information, and anecdotes about particular individuals, mostly from the twentieth century. Ferrandon, does, however, provide one of the few glimpses of the post- independence period. Aside from these two works, little else is known about the town’s history, especially during the nineteenth century.
Ultimately, without Laurencio’s original source the true founding of the town of
San Lorenzo will remain uncertain. Yet, an even bigger problem in capturing that history is the fact that the town archives were burned in 1915, during the Revolution, and little remains of the town’s records.547 However, using all of the sources available to me, I
will attempt to present the most complete account of this story.
THE ROAD TO SAN LORENZO
Very early on in the colonial period Mexico experienced slave revolts and cimarronaje.
“Cimarrón” was the name given to those slaves who ran away and established palenques,
or campgrounds, in the mountains, where they could not easily be captured. Already in
1537 there were reports of slave revolts.548 Those slaves who were captured were
546 Laurencio, Juan Florencio. Campaña contra Yanga en 1608 (Mexico: Editorial Citlaltepetl, 1974), 9. 547 Archivo General del Estado de Veracruz, Comision Agraria Mixta, “San Lorenzo de Cerralvo,” exp. 161, 1928. From here forth the Archivo General del Estado de Veracruz will be denoted as AGEV 548 Pasquel, Leonardo. “La heróica ciudad de Córdoba” in Revista Jarocha, #4 (December, 1959), 12-25, 36.
212 quartered and salted and presented to the viceroy as evidence of their execution.549
Threats of this kind, however, were not enough to stop slaves from seeking freedom.
Cimarronaje was more common in certain areas like Veracruz where the terrain of the land was conducive to hiding and where the mistreatment of slaves was common. These two variables combined produced an invitation to flee.550 The topography of the
mountains made it difficult for authorities to capture, or even find cimarrones, and the
tropical climate allowed the latter to survive with limited shelter. In the late sixteenth
century, that area that is today Córdoba, was no more than a valley. Yet, many slaves,
most of whom entered through the port of Veracruz, had already proven their
disobedience and would continue to do so as long as slavery existed.
Cimarronaje was a major threat to the colonial establishment for various reasons.
First, runaway slaves would often raid haciendas and help other slaves run away. This
not only posed a financial problem, but had the potential to inspire slave revolts. Second,
slaves were expensive and the loss of such valuable property proved difficult to replace.
And third, in order to sustain themselves while hiding up in the mountains, cimarrones
would come down to the Camino Real, the road between Mexico City and Veracruz,
where they often found travelers they could rob, or more importantly, carriages
transporting goods between these two cities. The goods going to and fro were often
either on their way into Mexico City from Spain, or vice versa. Thus, cimarrones became
the concern of all elites who had much to lose by having their goods confiscated.
Moreover, people had their lives to fear for, as sometimes the cimarrones killed in order
549 Herrera Moreno, Enrique. El Cantón de Córdoba (Córdoba, Veracruz: Prensa de R. Valdecilla y Comp., 1892), 82; Maceda, Andres. Yanga: una historia compartida, Unpublished manuscript, 18. 550 Alegre, Javier. Memorias para la historia de la provincial que tuvo la compañia de Jesús en nueva España (Mexico: Talleres tipográficos modelo, 1940), 204-205.
213 to obtain what they wanted. Most of the slaves entering New Spain were male. Not only
that, they tended to be tall and physically strong.551 If attacked, travelers might give the
cimarrones all of their material possessions, including wine and salt in order to have their
lives spared.552
In spite of our limited knowledge of Gaspar Yanga, he is perhaps Mexico’s most
well known cimarrón.553 Yanga arrived into New Spain in 1579 and soon thereafter managed to escape into the area that is today Córdoba.554 Vicente Riva Palacio states that
Yanga, whose name means “prince,” was a Bran from the Yang-bara tribe in western
Africa, and heir to the crown in his village.555 Upon arriving into New Spain, his fellow
tribesmen and a few women offered their lives for his freedom. Even though this tactic
did not work, the Spaniards recognized his power and Yanga was bought for almost twice
the price of a normal male slave.556 After making his way into the mountains, he became the leader of a group of cimarrones. Most accounts describe him as tall, strong, good looking, and intelligent. Yanga is said to have possessed the energy and charisma to lead and manage his followers without sacrificing any of their interests.557
551 Pasquel, Leonardo. “Prólogo” in Campaña contra Yanga en 1608 (Mexico, 1974): XIII. 552 AMC, vol. 5, fj. 84, 1618. 553 There are other variations of this name, including “Ñanga” and “Nyanga”. However, the most accepted version is “Yanga.” 554 Velazquez, Manuel. “La última Victoria del rey Yanga” in Contenido, #74 (July 1969): 66. According to Krauss, Yanga did serve some time as a slave. (Krauss, Miguel Duhalt. “Yanga,” Part I in Mañana, vol. LXVI, #662 (Mexico, May 5, 1956): 21). On the other hand, Salazar Paez argues that Yanga escaped within twenty-four hours of his arrival to New Spain. (Salazar Paez, Antonio. “Ruta libertaria de los negros” in Cronos: Revista de difusión cultural, año 9, #52, (Xalapa, 1988): 25). 555Other variations of the word Bran include Bron, Bram, Brang. Riva Palacio, Vicente. México a través de los siglos: historia general y completa del desenvolvimiento social, político, religioso, militar, artístico, científico y literario de México: desde la antigüedad más remota hasta la época actual. Vol. I (Barcelona, Espasa y compañía, 1888-89), pp. 549. Salazar Paez, 25. 556 Salazar Paez, 25. 557 Magdaleno, Vicente. Paisaje y Celaje (Mexico: Editorial de Mexico Stylo, 1952), 52.
214 The chosen site for Yanga’s village was the mountainous and nearly inaccessible
but extremely fertile lands between Citlaltépetl and el Cofre de Perote.558 Yet, to survive,
the cimarrones were forced to leave their havens for the insecurity of the roads and the
prospects of food, clothing, gold, and anything else of value they could rob from
travelers.559 According to Enrique Herrera Moreno, Córdoba’s famous historian and politician of the late nineteenth century, “these raids, however criminal they may have been, are nothing but the necessary consequence of circumstances that surrounded
Yanga, living in the midst of an enemy country, without any weapons and without any
other elements of defense than the ones that he himself created…”560 Herrera’s rare level
of understanding and empathy for the plight of runaway slaves would later motivate him
to undertake extraordinary measures on behalf of the leader of the cimarrones.
At the time, though, these incidental raids frightened Spaniards who complained loudly that slaves were wreaking havoc in the area.561 Between 1602 and 1606, the levels
of fear skyrocketed until 1606 when the viceroy finally had to act. Viceroy Juan de
Mendoza appointed Pedro de Bahena and Antón de Parada to lead a mission to destroy
the cimarrones.562 The 1606 expedition, like many to follow, utterly failed. The
following year the viceroy ordered the alcalde mayor of Veracruz to stamp out the palenques within fifteen days. 563 However, as Colin Pamer points out, it is not clear if he
558 It is not clear where exactly Yanga’s palenque was located. Most historians agree that it was somewhere between the Pico de Orizaba and the Cofre de Perote in the state of Veracruz (González R., Luis Albert. “Textos sobre Yanga” in Voces Libres, año 2, no. 13 (Yanga: January-February, 2005): 4. 559 Krauss, 22. 560 Herrera Moreno, 85. Alegre points out that the cimarrones had never raided or robbed churches. (Alegre, 204-205). 561 AGN, General de Parte, vol. 6, exp. 83, fj. 42v, March 21, 1602. 562 Davidson, David M.. “Negro Slave Control and Resistance in Colonial Mexico, 1519-1650 in Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 46 (1966): 246. 563 The alcalde mayor was the head of the entire municipality, as opposed to the alcalde ordinario who was the ruling head of the locality. The alcalde mayor is akin to a deputy governor. The municipio was a
215 followed through on the orders, or tried and failed, as many already had. The very next
year, on March 9, 1608 in a letter to the Spanish king, Viceroy Velasco expressed the
difficulty of capturing the runaway slaves and mentioned that he had sent “trustworthy”
people to speak with the cimarrones.564 Three months later, on June 23, 1608 Viceroy
Velasco reported that the emissaries who met with the cimarrones were instructed to
combine peacemaking efforts with espionage. They were told to find the palenques and
assess their numbers. One of the emissaries, a friar, spent thirty days with the cimarrones
but was unable to establish how many there were since they inhabited several campgrounds.565 Upon his return to New Spanish society, the friar reported that the
leader was a “man of reason.” The cimarrones asked for the friar to return on December
17, 1608, and as before, he was ordered by his superiors to spy on the cimarrones.
During this last stay with the cimarrones robberies on the Camino Real had ceased.
However, by May of 1609 the cimarrones had taken up their former strategies. Palmer
suggests that the cimarrones discovered the espionage.566 The friar too, had failed. It
was not only difficult to find the palenques but the fact that cimarrones could not be
caught in the act of robbing people on the Camino Real is an indication of the sparsely
populated area as well as lack of military organization in this region.
Yet another incident occurred in 1609 that could potentially be tied to Yanga and
his comrades. At about one in the morning in early 1609 Alonso de la Mota y Escobar,
conglomeration of people, usually from different towns, who fell under the jurisdiction of one governing body, also known as a cabildo or Ayuntamiento. The municipio is akin to a county. 564 Palmer, Colin. Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650 (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976), 126-127. 565 The acceptance of the friar could be indicative of two things: first, that he was Black since whites would presumably have no reason to live in palenques, or second, that the cimarrones were tolerant of religious figures. 566 Palmer, pp. 127-128.
216 diocese of Puebla on a visit to Jalapa, was woken up by two men who were on their way
from Veracruz when they were assaulted by cimarrones. The cimarrones, armed with
machetes and harquebuses, had taken all of the travelers’ money, over one hundred pesos,
as well as clothing that had been sent from Spain. They had also killed the twelve-year-
old brother of one of the drivers and kidnapped two Indian women. Once morning
arrived, Mota y Escobar armed his servants and put them on watch. Then he headed out
with the two men to the site of the event. There, he found the boy laying on the ground
with his head cut off and his intestines spilling out of his stomach along with the
husbands of the two Indian women who would not stop crying. Mota y Escobar had the
boy’s body sent to the home of his friend Rivadeneyra and had him buried there in the
church. 567 Once this was taken care of, Mota y Escobar returned to his home where he
proceeded to write a letter to the viceroy, recounting the night’s events.568
In addition to Mota y Escobar’s letter relating the above incident, there were
others of a similar nature. A rumor ran rampant in early 1609 that on January 6, día de
Reyes (Three Kings Day), a large group of Blacks would revolt by killing all European
authorities and name a king among them. Understanding the urgency of the matter,
Viceroy Luis de Velasco ordered the public execution of all of the Black people in the
Mexico City jail as a way to indicate that the plans had been discovered and its leaders
killed.569
567 Rivadeneyra’s first name is not mentioned. 568 de la Mota y Escobar. Memoriales del Obispado de Tlaxcala, Archivo del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, siglo XVII, vol. 1-3; Davidson, 246; Velazquez, 64-69, Carroll, Patrick James. Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity, and Regional Development. (Texas: University of Texas Press, 1991), pp. 90. 569 Herrera Moreno, 85-86; Velazquez, 66.
217 Though it is difficult to assess if there is a connection between these rumors and
Yanga’s followers, Riva Palacio and Vicente Magdaleno both suggest that there was.570
It is also not clear how the rumor of the mass uprising got started, or whether there was any truth to it. Velazquez suggests that Yanga was the proposed king.571 However,
implying that Yanga was involved suggests not only that his followers were many, but
also that any slaves who had run away somehow managed to find their way to Yanga’s
campgrounds, as if it was the only one. Moreover, it suggest that Yanga’s people were
well-known since the rumor reached Mexico City, which, in 1609 was over four hundred
kilometers away on the Camino Real. What is certain is that authorities could neither
control rumors about slave revolts, nor the activities of the cimarrones and the persistence
of the palenques.
THE FOUNDING OF SAN LORENZO DE LOS NEGROS
Yanga had among his followers not only other Blacks but also many castas, who, for one
reason or another, ran from the authorities.572 The village of “fugitive slaves” included
100 families who lived in wooden and grass huts.573 Revered by followers as “Father
Yanga” the leader of the cimarrones was probably between the age of 45 and 60 in 1609,
the pivotal year in the history of the town that bears his name.574 It is not surprising,
570 Riva Palacio, Vicente. “Los treinta y tres negros” in El Libro Rojo: 1520-1867 (Mexico: editorial del Valle, 1976), 238; Magdaleno, 53. 571 Velazquez, 66. 572 Herrera Moreno, 84. 573 Krauss, 22. 574 Assuming that Yanga had met the age requirements of all slaves, in 1579, when he is believed to have arrived as a slave and escaped immediately thereafter, he would have been as young as fifteen and as old as thirty. In other words, by 1609 Yanga would have been between forty-five and sixty years of age. (González Rosas, Luis Alberto. “¿Derrotaron los Españoles a Yanga?” in Voces Libres, año 1, no. 6 (Yanga: May, 2004): 3).
218 then, that he would leave military matters in the hands of a younger man while he tended
to civil and political affairs. Francisco de la Matosa is named by multiple chroniclers as
Yanga’s military leader.575 With a well organized army, the cimarrones were able to evade the authorities’ efforts to capture them. It was not until 1609, thirty years after
Yanga’s escape, that a colonial army would finally manage to break through the seemingly impenetrable lands of the former slaves.
In January, 1609, viceroy Velasco sent an armed expedition in search of the runaway slaves, with Pedro González de Herrera as captain. Coincidently, this date corresponds with the supposed Three Kings Day uprising. In the meantime, the viceroy also ordered that no “men of color” be allowed beyond the city limits so that news of the expedition would not reach Yanga.576 Riva Palacio suggests that this tactic failed and
that a fellow Angolan man spoke to Francisco de la Matosa, alerting him of González de
Herrera’s mission.577 On January 26, 1609, González de Herrera set out from Veracruz
with one hundred paid soldiers, one hundred volunteers and one hundred and fifty
Indians, armed with bows and arrows. Along the way the captain recruited two hundred
more men, reaching a total of almost six hundred.578 Only then did González de Herrera
feel confident enough to confront the Yanguicos who numbered between four and five
hundred.579
As González de Herrera’s troops approached, the Yanguicos raided a local
hacienda and set it on fire. From there they moved on to a pasture where they found two
575 Perez de Ribas, Andrés. Crónica y historia religiosa de la provincia de la compañía de Jesús de México en nueva España (Mexico: Impr. Del sagrado corazón de Jesús, 1896) , 285; Velazquez, Manuel. “La última Victoria del rey Yanga” in Contenido, #74 (July 1969): 67. 576 Laurencio, 8; Herrera Moreno, 87. 577 Riva Palacio, El Libro Rojo, 232. 578 Laurencio, 8; Herrera Moreno, 87. 579 Alegre, 204; Riva Palacio, El Libro Rojo, 233.
219 Spaniards and a few Indian women. The Yanguicos asked the men about their
knowledge of the captain’s advancements, to which they replied that they knew nothing.
According to Laurencio, the Yanguicos killed one of the Spaniards with such violence that the killer’s arms dripped with the blood of the victim. The Yanguico is then described as licking the blood off his hands while other Yanguicos drank blood that dripped from the Spaniard’s head. Finally, they took the other Spaniard and six women with them as captives.580
At some distance up the mountain, the cimarrones stopped with the Spaniard and were soon joined by Yanga and a few military men. Laurencio mentions that as Yanga
descended to the meeting place, he walked to the beat of drums.581 The Yanguicos
handed over the Spaniard, whom Yanga greeted with “the pride of a monarch,” saying,
“Spaniard, do not fear, for you shall not die since you have seen my face.”582 The
Spaniard was fed and ordered to write a letter to González de Herrera. Later, he was
freed and sent on his way with the specific instructions to deliver the letter and lead
González de Herrera’s troops to that spot, but not any further up the mountain, by penalty
of death.
The Spaniard reached González de Herrera on February 21. The letter explained
that the slaves had run away from the cruelty of the Spaniards, who, without any right,
pretended to be owners of their liberty; that God had favored them enough to grant them
victory against the Spaniards who had tried to stop them; that they attacked haciendas and
property owned by Spaniards, only as a form of compensation for what they were being
580Laurencio, 8-9; Segura, 284. 581 Laurencio, 9. 582 Ibid., 10; Herrera Moreno, 87
220 denied; that they did not need to think about a means of peace and that they had spared
the life of the Spaniard because he would serve as a guide to their campground.583
The next day the captain set out with two squads. Along the way they stumbled upon a group of Yanguicos saddling their horses, who ran away so quickly they left behind their horses as well as some valuable possessions, including some weapons. As they ran away they yelled, “Spaniards on our land, Spaniards on our land…”584 The
terrain was so dense that the troops could not make out the exact trail that the Yanguicos took.585 They could, however, see that the palenque was a short distance away, and
content to know that and to have captured some horses, the troops rested for the night.586
The following day, González de Herrera split his troops into two factions and set
out to investigate if there was a way to reach the campground by surprise. Having found
no other way, the captain decided to continue the next day through the path that the
cimarrones had appeared to have taken the day before. Fearing a possible ambush, the
captain, this time, split his troops into three factions and on February 24 set out once
again. Along the way they found the water supply that the Yanguicos used for drinking and watering their crops, surrounded by tobacco, corn, and squash crops. The troops
proceeded to destroy the water supply as well as the crops.587 Having done this,
González de Herrera asked one of his troops to go on ahead. It happened that the soldier carried a small dog who took it upon itself to lead the way. Soon the dog barked and
quickly returned to its master. The dog was able to find the campground, but
coincidentally, his barking alerted the cimarrones that the troops were approaching. The
583 Laurencio, 10; Herrera Moreno, 88; Krauss, 83. 584 Segura, 286; Laurencio, 12. 585 Segura, 286. 586 Laurencio, 13. 587 Ibid., 16-17; Segura, 287; Velazquez, 68.
221 troops continued towards the campground and found a wall of trees and bushes hiding
and protecting the village. Upon reaching the wall, the troops were attacked with rocks,
arrows and pieces of tree trunks and tree limbs. “And amidst everything, they had the
time to reject the attacks of the vice royal troops with rounded rocks and loose gravel.”588
Laurencio was hit in the leg with an arrow, his companion, also a priest, was hit in the jaw by a rock and González de Herrera suffered some injuries. Laurencio mentions that considering the organization and ferocity with which the cimarrones attacked, it was a surprise that the captain and all of the troops were not killed.589 Eventually the two other
factions reached the captain and with their attack, forced the cimarrones to flee. Even
though the terrain was difficult to navigate the troops pursued the cimarrones, following
the trail of blood the injured left behind.590 The captain had to have his men open the
way with machetes because the terrain was so dense that there was no visible path to
follow. They were forced to cross a rotting log bridge and then a door that was set up in
the forest, locked and tied with weeds, followed by another larger and narrower door a
short distance ahead and finally another.591 The areas surrounding the doors were so
dense that the troops had no choice but to follow this path, dodging arrows, as they
worked their way from campground to campground.592 By the time that the troops
reached the village, the Yanguicos had fled once again, leaving behind clothing,
weapons, and even the night’s dinner. The soldiers arrived there tired and injured.
Within a few hours they had burned the huts and destroyed the crops, including the
tobacco, banana, cotton, squash, maize, legumes, beans, and sugar crops, sparing only the
588 Denegri, Carlos. “Yanga” in Revista de Revistas (June 15, 1958): 2. 589 Laurencio, 17-19; Segura, 288; Herrera Moreno, 89; Riva Palacio, in El Libro Rojo, 64. 590 Laurencio, 19. 591 Segura, 288. 592 Laurencio, 20.
222 church. They also took possession of the livestock, clothing, and money that the
cimarrones had left behind.593
What had allowed the Yanguicos to survive this long was their organization. Half
of the Yanguicos were used in agriculture and half in military tactics. Starving the
cimmarones out of the jungle had clearly not been a viable option since they had grown
their own crops and had their own livestock. Laurencio mentions that there were about
sixty five huts, built as if to remain there forever.594 With the few provisions that they
stole from passers-by on the Camino Real, the cimarrones were self-sustaining.
Anxious to end the war, and seeing no ending to it, González de Herrera posted decrees on the trees, in the name of the viceroy, offering a pardon to the cimarrones.
Yanga did not agree to the peace treaty.595 In fact, there is nothing to suggest that the
Yanguicos would have been defeated. Even though Yanga had lost many men in the
previous skirmishes, so had González de Herrera. Moreover, in the thirty years they had
spent in the jungle, the Yanguicos had become familiar with the area and had apparently
established various villages throughout the region.
Seeing that Yanga would not accept his peace offering, González de Herrera set
out again, with some of his troops, in search of the cimarrones.596 Along the way he
founds some Yanguicos, and another bloody battle ensued, causing losses for both sides.
Most of the cimarrones escaped but one Yanguico captain was wounded by two bullets.
He died saying nothing more than, “this is how the devil wants it.” Here the captain
593 Segura, 287, 289, 290; Herrera Moreno, 90, 92; Velazquez, 68.. 594 Segura, 290; Alegre, 204-205; Laurencio, 24. 595 Segura, 290. Velazquez mentions that five days had passed between the arrival of the troops into the village and the raising of the white flag. (Velazquez, 68). 596 Even as González de Herrera makes a peace offering by raising the white flag, he does not cease in his pursuit of the cimarrones.
223 raised a white flag. Again, Yanga, who was said to be working his way to another
village, did not accept the feeble peace offering. The captain and his troops continued to
follow those who fled through terrain so dense and steep that they found themselves
crawling on the ground, unable to even see the sky. They managed to reach another
village but found it abandoned. At this site, however, the troops found two Indian
women and a little girl who, according to Laurencio, had refused to go with the
Yanguicos. These women told the troops that Yanga was moving the people to yet
another site in the Mixteca, an area more dense and difficult to navigate than the one they
were already in. Knowing that nothing more could be done for that day, González de
Herrera returned with his troops to the first cimarron campsite where he and his soldiers
had spent the night. After being there a few days they headed out again. This time they
ran into a much older Yanguico who had escaped from slavery many years earlier. He
was interrogated but did not utter a word. Consequently, he captain left him hanging
from a tree.597 Here, unfortunately, is where Laurencio’s testimony ends.
Historians have claimed that at some point during the skirmishes, Yanga sent a
letter to the viceroy demanding that he and the cimarrones be allowed to establish their
own town, to live in as free people. Included in their demands were the following: 1)
That all who had escaped be free; 2) That the town elect its own town leaders, none of whom should be mestizo or criollo; 3) That no Spaniard be allowed to live in the town or own a house in the town, and only be allowed to go and sell their wares on market days;
4)That the town have their own cabildo (town hall and governing body); 5) That the
captain, “Naga,” be governor and be succeeded by his children and descendents; 6) That
597 Laurencio, 28-30; Segura, 290-292.
224 all future runaway slaves be captured and exchanged for 12 pesos; 7) That the town have its own church and that the king pay for the construction of it.598 Provision six also stated that in addition to helping to capture runaway slaves, the Yanguicos would be penalized for harboring slaves equal to the value of the latter.
Ultimately, for one reason or another, Viceroy Luis de Velasco was persuaded to agree to the terms laid out by the cimarrones.599 The new town, with its three hundred residents, received the name of San Lorenzo de los Negros.600 It is important to point out that because no Spaniards were allowed to live in the town, San Lorenzo would not only become a town of former slaves, but also a town of free people of color. “That is how a black man brought to life the first free town in New Spain; a black man of noble
598 AGN, Inquisición, vol. 283, part 1, exp. 26, fj. 186-187, 1608. 599 According to Alegre, it is likely that the cimarrones would have never been captured since on at least two occasions, the Spanish troops were forced to gather more soldiers and gather more weapons. (Alegre, 204-205). 600 Laurencio, 32. Interestingly, Alegre tells a different ending. According to him, a Yanguico had been captured by González Herrera’s troops. The Yanguico spoke with Laurencio and asked if he wanted to meet personally with Yanga; that this was the only way and that as a Jesuit, he would be respected. In spite of González Herrera’s initial refusal, he allowed Laurencio to visit Yanga. The priest was amazed by the unnavigable roads leading up to the village as well as by the beauty and cleanliness and orderliness of the homes. He was impressed by Yanga, who spoke Spanish perfectly and was gentle and intelligent. In spite of his leadership role, Yanga was no different from the other people, neither in dress nor in housing. Upon meeting Padre Laurencio, Yanga kneeled and kissed the priest’s hand, as did all those present. Yanga then explained their motives for establishing a home in the mountains and that they had no desire to continue to live this way. He asked Laurencio to send a notice to González Herrera explaining that 1) that they would like to come down and establish their own town; 2) that they should not be punished for their actions and that the past should be forgotten; 3) that all those living in the village shall remain free, either by a general decree of the viceroy or by a signed letter from their former owners. That in no time in the future shall the people be enslaved or forced to do labor; 4) that the viceroy provide them with a place to form their town as well as lands, commensurate with the number of families in the village; 5) that the people shall have the right to govern themselves without interference of whites or Spaniards, save for a priest and a minister of justice; and 6) that no whites be allowed to live in the town, except in cases of dire need, in which, after twenty-four hours, the village residents would provide the person with money for the voyage. Padre Laurencio asked that these terms be agreed upon by the viceroy and that they be put in writing. There was, as to be expected, dissent from the slave owners who did not believe in having to follow the law of their own slaves. Moreover, they feared that this would set a bad example. In spite of their protests, the viceroy agreed to the request, adding that they should honor the king with a small tribute. The Yanguinos scratched this request and added that they would honor the king by offering, in times of need, a set number of weapons and horses and to always side with Spain in any future slave uprising and help in the construction of public structures. Thus, according to Alegre, San Lorenzo de los Negros was established. (Alegre, 206- 209).
225 sentiments, of enlightened ideas and also of high character.”601 Thus, Yanga accomplished what he had spent thirty years fighting for: freedom from slavery and a measure of political independence.
Yet, the story does not end here. Some questions remain unanswered. Firstly, when Yanga met with the Spaniard, why did he send him with a letter for González
Herrera and instruct the Spaniard to lead the captain to that area? What could he possibly
accomplish by getting the captain there? Why would Yanga take such a risk? Secondly,
in Yanga’s letter to the captain, he expresses a lack of desire for declaring peace. Was he hoping for autonomy even though there had been no clear precedent established between runaway slaves and the king? It is not clear whether Yanga in fact wrote a letter to the viceroy, or if he did, whether he wrote it himself. If Yanga had escaped soon after arriving into New Spain he would not have had time to learn to read, at least not in
Spanish, or unless one of the other run away slaves had taught him, which is not likely.
Finally, the last two provision stand out as particularly noteworthy. Provision six made concessions that the Yanguicos did not have to make. Was it merely an attempt at pacifying authorities and lulling them into a sense of security? Likewise, provision seven could have had the same goal, especially considering that Yanga himself was not likely
Christianized since he escaped soon after his arrival to New Spain. On the other hand, it could mean that the later followers were Christianized slaves. Unfortunately, for now these questions will remain unanswered. While there are many uncertainties, there are many facts that can be verified and while historians have ignored the history of San
Lorenzo in the period after its founding, but it does continue to appear in the records.
601 García H., Gerardo. “Síntesis de evocaciones provinciales” in Xalapa, #21, año 2 (Xalapa, May 15, 1954): 58
226
MORE SLAVE REVOLTS
One thing is certain: the founding of San Lorenzo did not put an end to slave
insurrections. In fact, it is possible that the founding of the town inspired them. The
town of Yanga, due to the history of its founding, had a spirit of rebellion, and it would
become Córdoba’s job to contain it. After all, here was proof of what slaves could
accomplish, if they managed to hold out long enough. In fact, slaves continued to run
away and, in 1612, an inflammatory rumor broke out that a mass uprising of slaves was
to take place on Jueves Santo. Religious processions were cancelled in Mexico City
during that holy week, and the streets were completely cleared. No one dared leave their
home. According to Herrera Moreno and Riva Palacio, at midnight of the night of Jueves
Santo a pack of pigs entered the city and the first person to hear them rang the alarm, assuming that the uprising was taking place outside their doors. Everyone was so overtaken by fear that not even authorities dared to leave their homes to investigate until the next morning.602 In the meantime, Viceroy Luis de Velasco had been called to Spain.
He was replaced by García Herrera who died within a few months of his arrival and was
in turn replaced by an Audiencia.603 In order to bring peace to the city, on Easter Sunday, the Audiencia had twenty nine Black men and four Black women publicly hanged.
People took it upon themselves to bring the bodies down and cut their heads off, place
them on spikes, and line them up in the central plaza. The heads remained there until the
602 Riva Palacio, El Libro Rojo, 239; Herrera Moreno, 95. 603 The Audiencia was the high court representing the Spanish crown.
227 Ayuntamiento was forced to remove them, due to the smell.604 Again, it is difficult to
assess what impact San Lorenzo might have had on this event. However, in Paisaje y
Celaje, Vicente Magdaleno suggests that the 1612 rumors were a direct result of the founding of San Lorenzo.605 In 1617 more revolts occurred.606 Certainly the news of San
Lorenzo de los Negros could have reached the ears of citizens in Mexico City and
instilled fear of the possibility of free, former slaves governing themselves and
encouraging other slaves to join them or follow in their footsteps.
Serious efforts had to be made. Nine years after the founding of San Lorenzo
authorities would take extreme measures to quell the perceived power of San Lorenzo:
the founding of a town that would be charged with enforcing peace and obedience from the former slaves.
THE FOUNDING OF CÓRDOBA
Perhaps wary of giving San Lorenzo too much power, many historians deny San Lorenzo credit for the founding of the town of Córdoba. But in reality San Lorenzo posed a tremendous threat to the institution of slavery in that region. Here was a town founded by former slaves who fled and not only managed to gain their freedom, but established their own town as well. Moreover, after eight or more years of harassment by Spanish authorities, the town refused to fold or disintegrate. The area’s preoccupation with
604 Riva Palacio, El Libro Rojo, 238, 240-241; Herrera Moreno, 95-96; Ferrandón, Leonardo. Apuntes históricos de mi pueblo, recordando a Yanga: ayer y hoy (Mexico: Imprenta Unión, 1963), 15; Riva Palacio, Vicente. México a través de los siglos: historia general y completa del desenvolvimiento social, político, religioso, militar, artístico, científico y literario de México: desde la antigüedad más remota hasta la época actual. Vol. I (Barcelona, Espasa y compañía, 1888-89), pg. 564. The Ayuntamiento, also known as cabildo, was the governing body. 605 Magdaleno, 63. 606 Herrera Moreno, 96.
228 cimarrones stemmed from the advantages it gained from its large slave population, on which it thrived. So, at twenty kilometers’ distance from San Lorenzo and in the path of the Camino Real, situated snuggly between Veracruz and Mexico City, Córdoba took it upon itself to keep a watchful eye on the former runaway slaves, the only ones it could keep an eye on since most other cimarrones were so difficult to capture. Therefore, to tell the story of the founding of Córdoba is to tell the story of San Lorenzo.
Contrary to current histories, documents in the archives describing the establishing of Córdoba mention that the primary reason for its founding was specifically to guard against the Black cimarrones who, before San Lorenzo, had rebelled and lived in the mountains, implying that it was the residents of San Lorenzo who had to be guarded against. The documents also emphasize the need for a war captain and militia to be ready for any uprising from San Lorenzo because they could not be trusted.607 Afraid that the
Blacks of San Lorenzo might go back on their word, Javier Alegre argues that the viceroy established the town of Córdoba as a weapon against them.608 Therefore, “the first battle against slavery in the continent determined the founding of Córdoba by the thirty gentlemen.”609 San Lorenzo represented an attack on slavery, while Córdoba represented an institutionalized political defense of slavery.
Córdoba would protect and support slavery by eliminating cimarronaje and containing the influence of San Lorenzo. In essence, Córdoba would reassure slave owners that their slaves would do their work.610 There was, for example, a two hundred gold peso prize for every cimarrón captured, so long as the runaway had been gone from
607 AMC, vol. 10, fjs. 73va-74, 1640-1687. 608 Alegre, Javier, 206-209. 609 AGEV, Fondo Leonardo Pasquel, caja 49, fj. 4. 610 AMC, vol. 5, fj. 84, 1618.
229 his master more than a year. A slave who had been gone less than a year was worth one hundred pesos to any Spaniard, Indian, or mestizo who captured him.611 Córdoba would
serve as a safeguard against cimarrones, who were not only a threat to Spanish lives but
more significantly, the institution of slavery.612
In 2000 José González Sierra, a Cordobés, published, Córdoba: Imagenes de su
historia. Though relatively new, González Sierra’s book is widely regarded as an
authoritative account of the history of the city and the region. While he does mention
Yanga and San Lorenzo, González Sierra argues that Córdoba was simply founded to
take advantage of the rich and fertile land—an logical agricultural motive. This idea is
very comforting to contemporary Cordobeses who are uncomfortable with the argument
that Córdoba was founded to keep a watchful eye on San Lorenzo de los Negros, which
implies that Córdoba was a consequence of San Lorenzo. There is strong evidence that
Córdoba was established for precisely this purpose, for though there is no indication that
San Lorenzoans613 would not follow through on their vow to help capture runaway
slaves, nor any proof that they were harboring runaway slaves,614 they were still
considered a threat to the institution of slavery, upon which the region continued to
depend. San Lorenzo was a threat by its mere existence.
611 AMC, vol. 7, fjs. 159va-160, 1619. 612 AMC, vol. 2, fj. 5, 1618. The value of slaves to the total value of a hacienda was sometimes as high as fifty percent. (González Sierra, José. Córdoba: Imagenes de su historia (Mexico: Ediciones el naranjo, 2000), 17). 613 It would not be accurate to continue to call the San Lorenzo residents Yanguicos, since, with the naming of their town, the identity of Yanga was somewhat erased. From here on I will use the term San Lorenzoan, until otherwise noted. 614 Indeed there is no evidence that in 1618 the residents of San Lorenzo were harboring slaves, but there is evidence that they were doing it in 1640. Gaspar Ñanga, alleged son of Yanga and head of the governing body of San Lorenzo, was accused of harboring runaway slaves. (Cruz Carretero, 50)
230 One is struck today while reading both historical and contemporary accounts of
the founding of Córdoba by the glaring absence of the story of San Lorenzo as well as of
the role of slavery in the life of the city of Córdoba. An 1886 article commemorating the celebration of the anniversary of the founding of Córdoba makes no mention whatsoever of Yanga or of the constant slave uprisings.615 The “clean” founding story of Córdoba
goes something like this: “In 1618 the viceroy granted a charter to “thirty gentlemen”
and their families to establish the Villa de Córdoba, named after the viceroy himself,
Diego Fernández de Córdoba. The area popularly called the land of the “thirty
gentlemen” grew in prosperity and importance to the history of Mexico by virtue of its
fertile lands, enterprising haciendas, and heroic generals.” A closer look, however,
renders a different and much more captivating story.
In 1617, after a series of uprisings, four residents of Huatusco petitioned the
viceroy Diego Fernández de Córdoba, to establish a town with thirty families. The
viceroy approved and in 1618 the Villa de Córdoba was established. Initially, however,
there were only seventeen families. The remaining thirteen were incorporated later, in accordance with the charter agreement.616 On April 26, 1618, the first families gathered and attended mass in Amatlán as a way to inaugurate the town. Election of officials followed mass. The next day they headed to the new site of Córdoba. The families were each granted a piece of land and the right to name a captain of war who would lead expeditions and apprehend cimarrones.617 The town members also had permission to
615 El Combate, #15, año 3, (Orizaba, May 2, 1886): 2. 616 Ferrandón, 17-18. In Yanga people are often heard saying, “ni eran treinta, ni eran caballeros.” (Nor were they thirty, nor were they gentlemen) 617 Herrera Moreno, 101-102.
231 gather eighty Indians from neighboring towns, armed with bows and arrows, to cooperate
when needed, against the cimarrones.618
A TALE OF TWO TOWNS
It is not surprising that throughout the colonial period, San Lorenzo would have to defend
itself against Córdoba, which constantly sought to limit its power and growth. Córdoba
persistently exercised power over San Lorenzo, including strategically harassing its
landowners. In 1640, a landowner from San Lorenzo sought the intervention of the
Audiencia. After further investigation and the discovery of abuse by Córdoba officials,
the entire town of San Lorenzo was placed under the jurisdiction of the mayor of
neighboring Huatusco.619 Though the race of the landowner is not described, he was likely an afro-casta since whites were not allowed to live in the town. Therefore, San
Lorenzo became an avenue for non-whites to challenge Spanish authority. Eventually
Córdoda regained jurisdiction over San Lorenzo, but more disputes arose in 1661 and
again in 1664. It was in the latter year that Córdoba’s jurisdiction over San Lorenzo was
again suspended and not reinstituted until 1749.620
A ban on alcohol became the cause for many disputes between the two towns.
The residents of San Lorenzo filed complaints against Córdoba in 1672, 1673, and again
in 1748, arguing that Córdoba officials were destroying their trapiches.621 Officials in
San Lorenzo cited the original records of the founding of the town that allowed them
freedom to govern themselves and asked that the alcalde mayor of Córdoba, Miguel
618 AMC, vol 5, fj. 2, 1618. 619 González Sierra, 21. 620 AMC, vol. 24, fjs. 17-42, 1749-1756; AMC, vol. 23, fj. 333, 1745-1748. 621 Herrera Moreno, 133-134. A “trapiche” was a sugar cane mill.
232 Álvarez, be arrested for terrorizing their residents. In a 1749 document, then mayor of
San Lorenzo, Joaquín María de Vidaburu, argued that the people of his town were frightened of the Córdoba sheriff and town leaders. Vidaburu argued that these officials had no right to arrest people in San Lorenzo, or to search their homes because their jurisdiction was limited to the villa of Córdoba. He cited a law passed on June 27, 1748, in a previous dispute, which stated that the government officials should not, in any way, go beyond the parameters of the Villa under penalty of a fine of five hundred pesos.622 In response, the alcarde ordinario of Córdoba wrote a letter to the king, arguing that San
Lorenzo was located within the limits of the jurisdiction of Córdoba and asked that the jurisdiction of the town be honored and the sheriff be allowed to do his duty. He argued that, by order of the king, his officials were attempting to do away with drinking by limiting the use and production of alcoholic beverages. The viceroy in 1725 had ordered that all aguardiente factories be destroyed. However, the trapiches were one of the main sources of employment for San Lorenzoans.623 Alvarez argued that Albary and Phelipe
Dias, residents of San Lorenzo, were trying to limit the powers of Córdoba officials so that they would not get caught producing alcohol in their trapiche.624 Córdoba was able to win this battle when their jurisdiction over San Lorenzo was reinstituted in 1749. In spite of San Lorenzo’s authority to govern itself, Córdoba would continue to challenge that right.
Córdoba was not the only entity who put into question San Lorenzo’s special status as an independent town. In 1794 the superintendent of Veracruz wrote a letter to
622 AMC, vol. 24, fjs. 17-42, 1749-1756; AMC, vol. 23, fj. 333, 1745-1748. 623 Pasquel, 12-25, 36; Herrera Moreno, 123. 624 AMC, vol. 23, fjs, 341-343va, 1745-1748.
233 the mayor of Córdoba contesting the election of local officials in San Lorenzo, including
a sheriff. He wanted information on the history of elections in that town for the previous
four years, what type of people made up the town and with what permission did the town
name their own officers.625 In a follow-up letter the superintendent related to the mayor
of Córdoba that the viceroy wanted the people of San Lorenzo to send documentation
proving that they indeed were allowed to have their own elected officials.626 After receiving the appropriate documentation the viceroy reported that San Lorenzo did have the right to these elections and could continue exercising it.627 The records show that on
various occasions San Lorenzo had to provide copies of the official documents that
granted them the freedom to establish their town and their own governing body. Its
history made it a target for attacks from government officials who sought to limit the
power of all non-whites, especially Blacks. San Lorenzo stood in the path between
Veracruz, Mexico City and Córdoba; between slavery and freedom.
SLAVE REVOLTS, AGAIN
Perhaps Córdoba’s hostility towards San Lorenzo stemmed from the fact that neither the
founding of San Lorenzo nor of Córdoba put a stop to slave fugitives or insurrections, as was planned. In spite of its efforts, Córdoba was not able to quell San Lorenzo’s lure of rebelliousness. In fact, in 1622, just four years after Córdoba was established, the viceroy ordered the persecution of runaway slaves who were causing trouble in the area.628
Interestingly, two years later, San Lorenzo de los Negros had its name changed to San
625 AMC, vol. 44, fj. 90, 1794. 626 AMC, vol. 44, fj. 127, 1794. 627 AMC, vol. 44, fj. 145, 1794. 628 Pasquel, 12-25, 36.
234 Lorenzo de Cerralvo, after the viceroy himself, Rodrigo Pacheco y Osorio, Marqués de
Cerralvo. The name change implies an attempt to erase the history of the town’s founding. Considering the town’s history it is not likely that the Viceroy considered San
Lorenzo to be an important enough town (much like Córdoba which also bore the name of a former Viceroy) to bestow his name upon it. Leonardo Ferrandón, resident of San
Lorenzo beginning in the late nineteenth century, suggests that the name change was deliberate on the part of Cerralvo to erase from history the primitive name of the town and the justice that viceroy Velasco had bestowed upon Yanga and his people in granting
them permission to establish their own town.629 This could likely be the case since insurrections had not ceased and the original name was a clear sign of hope for slaves seeking to escape and find refuge.
In 1643 Córdoba again found itself organizing a militia specifically to defend against cimarrones.630 The town’s name change had not proved beneficial. Neither did
its relocation. In 1650, the inhabitants of San Lorenzo asked that their town be moved
since the land that they were on was not hospitable, being too small and with few grazing
areas. The place that they chose for their new location, to the chagrin of authorities, was
closer to the camino real. In January of 1655 the town was granted permission to move to the region of Palmillas, its current location.631 The move, closer to the main road,
629 Ferrandón, 20. Already in 1952 Ferrandón was considered a chronicler of San Lorenzo (Magdaleno, Vicente. Paisaje y Celaje (Mexico: Editorial de Mexico Stylo, 1952): 65. See Footnote). At the time of the publishing of his book, Apuntes históricos de mi pueblo, recordando a Yanga: ayer y hoy, Ferrandón was eighty-two years old. 630 Pasquel, 12-25, 36. 631 Cruz Carretero, Sagrario del Carmen. Identidad en una comunidad afromestiza del centro de Veracruz: la población de Mata Clara (Thesis, Puebla, Universidad de las Americas, 1989), 49. Forty-five years after the relocation, the parameters of San Lorenzo were put into question. Dr. Garpar Carlos de Rivadeneyra claimed in 1695 that San Lorenzo was founded on his land and that he allowed it because he wanted to serve his majesty. Thus, he had allowed them to stay and live and grow crops. All was well until 1695 when the people of San Lorenzo began to acquire horses with the pretext of protecting themselves from
235 made the town more open to contact from non-Blacks in addition to making them more vulnerable to intruders. At the same time, the move made it easier for Córdoba to keep a watchful eye on their Black neighbors. In spite of its more visible location, more often than not, efforts to quell the revolts proved futile. In 1709 local officials were asking for donations to be collected to organize against the cimarrones.632 There was another revolt that year and again in 1740.633
But Córdoba was also to blame. It was not long before the Villa became an important town in the colonial kingdom. With its many haciendas, it became a leading producer of sugar and tobacco, two industries that required the incorporation of heavy slave labor. Córdoba became a “slave-worked, white-controlled plantation center.”634
Already in 1640 various hacendados in the area were granted permission to establish sugar mills and thus began the growth of a slave labor force, just as slavery was declining elsewhere in the colony.635 Throughout the period of Spanish rule, Córdoba would have more Black people—free and enslaved—than any other area in the state of Veracruz.636
enemy invasions. Unfortunately, the horses began to move into Rivadeneyra’s land and trample the grass. Consequently, some of his 2000 cattle were dying. Rivadeneyra asked that the town of San Lorenzo be measured and contained (AGN, Archivo de Buscas y Traslado de Tierras, vol. 1963, tomo 93, exp. 23; AGN, Mercedes, vol. 63, fj. 108, 1695). In 1699 it was assessed that, indeed, the town had overstepped its boundary and it was then re-measured. In 1714 Rivadeneyra sold some of his land to Antonio Brito Lomelin who then sold it to Juan de Ávila. At this time, the residents of San Lorenzo asked for the town to be measured once more with the rationale that Ávila was attempting to cross into their land. Interestingly, de Avila lost the battle and was forced to move his small business from San Lorenzo, due to the fact that he was Spanish and the town was only for blacks. (AGEV, Ramo de Mercedes, vol. 63, foja 108). The town of Mata Clara is currently situated in the former location of San Lorenzo. 632 AMC, vol 13, fj. 211va, 1701-1713. 633 AGN, General de Parte, vol. 19, exp. 217, fj. 166, 1709; AGN, General de Parte, vol. 32, exp. 543, fj. 325 (October 1, 1740). These statistics only include revolts and not escape by individual slaves. Doubtless, there were many more slave runaways than there were organized revolts or mass uprisings. 634 Carroll, Patrick J.. Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity and Regional Development (Texas: University of Texas Press, 1991), 92. 635 González Sierra, 18-19. 636 Winfield Capitaine, Fernando. “La sublevación de esclavos en Córdoba en 1735” in La palabra e el hombre, no. 50 (April-June 1984): 26.
236 In other words, Córdoba was among the few towns dependent on slave labor throughout
the entire colonial period.
It is therefore not surprising that the most well-known slave revolt took place in
that region. In 1735, slaves from various haciendas revolted, well over a century after the
founding of San Lorenzo, but just as Córdoba was growing as a producer of goods,
harvested by slaves. The event was so impressive that it managed to put fear in whites
from other areas. The incident began on June 18, 1734 when a priest asked the colonial
government to allow cimarrones to establish a town or to grant them freedom because
they were dying in the mountains without receiving the sacraments.637 Several
landowners protested, claiming that to do so would send a bad message to other slaves.
The authorities sided with the landowners and decrees were posted in the area stating
their decision. According to Fernando Winfield Capitaine this news incited the anger of
the cimarrones who then spread the rumor that all slaves had been declared free.638
Herrera Moreno states that it was a mulato named Miguel de Salamanca who spread the news that the king had ordered all of the slaves freed.639 The news quickly spread and by
June 19 over five hundred slaves had gathered, including three hundred from “El
Potrero,” armed with food and weapons.640 Led by bozales—African-born slaves—José
Pérez and José Tadeo, also known as “El carpintero,” the rebels were rumored to not only seek freedom, but also the deaths of their masters and other whites.641
637 Winfield Capitaine, Fernando. “La sublevación de esclavos en Córdoba en 1735” in La palabra y el hombre, no. 50 (April-June 1984): 27. 638 Ibid., 26 639 Herrera Moreno, 125. 640 Ibid.; Winfield Capitaine, 27, 28. 641 AMC, vol. 21, fjs. 3-5, 1735-1738. The importance of the bozales is that as late as 1735 Córdoba had African-born slaves.
237 Officials in Orizaba and Veracruz sent in hundreds of reinforcements to help
defeat the slaves and the Córdoba militia took to arms, headed by Captain Manuel de
Arroyo. Liberty was offered by the alcalde mayor of Córdoba, Félix Chacón de Medina,
to any runaway slave who turned in the leaders of the rebellion. The rebel leaders took
advantage of this opportunity to put a prize on the heads of Arroyo and Chacón.642 The
panic among Cordobeses was so rampant that the entire town armed itself and remained
that way for several months. With help from the reinforcements the Córdoba militia
numbered six hundred and managed to quell some of the rebels. On July 27, a traitor to
the rebels, Antonio Fermín, turned in thirty slaves who had been under his leadership in exchange for his freedom.643 Though Fermín helped pacify the rebels, Arroyo’s men
remained in Córdoba until January, 1736. Already in jail since January, Pérez and Tadeo
would have to wait another eight months for their sentencing. In October they were both
hanged in the Córdoba plaza.644 The punishment of the two leaders was so harsh that the
king allowed some of the less guilty rebels to go free, to the chagrin of the town council,
who felt that to let the rebels go was to put citizens in danger of retaliation.
The 1735 rebellion proved to be costly in more than one way. On a practical
level, fighting slave insurrections was not only time-consuming but also expensive. All
slave owners covered the cost of the effort. Each paid 15 pesos for each male slave that
642 Herrera Moreno, 126. 643 Winfield Capitaine, 29. 644 Ibid.; González Sierra, 22-23; Herrera Moreno, 128-129; Pasquel, 12-25, 36. The slaves that did manage to escape settled in the state of Oaxaca in a town called Mandinga. For more information on this topic see Carroll, Patrick J. “Mandinga: The Evolution of a Mexican Runaway Slave Community, 1735- 1827” in Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 19, no. 4 (Oct., 1977): 488-505.
238 they owned.645 The 1735 revolt would remain in the minds of Cordobeses, always fearful
that the incident might be repeated.
Rebellions would continue throughout the entire colonial period. So long as there
were rebellions, Córdoba would continue to fight them, most often, without success. In
1744 Córdoba’s alcalde municipal asked for troops to quell more cimmarones.646 Again in 1747 action was taken against runaway slaves. A group of militia men headed into the mountains, figuring that if they caught some of the fugitives, they would be able to placate the remaining slaves and discourage future getaways. The troops went into the mountains firing their weapons and in the process managed to kill some escapees and return the rest to their owners. The leader of this particular palenque, Ignacio, was publicly hanged in Córdoba.647 A year later, more troops were sent out on an expedition.
Claims that the cimarrones were going down to the haciendas and inciting the slaves
triggered the fear that this would be the biggest flight of slaves yet. Still feeling the
success of their previous expedition, another assembly of troops set out to capture the
runaways. However, the mission was not so lucky. Along the way the troops lost sight
of the fugitives. Not only that, they ran out of food and lost their way out. They
wandered about, able to survive off of fruit from trees, until they eventually found their
way home again.648 The troops returned embarrassed and proved once again that they were defenseless against cimarrones. Many other expeditions would follow and they too would fail. Whites had also tried to gain control over slaves and to discourage running
645 Herrera Moreno, 128-129. 646 Gerhard, Peter. A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 85. 647 Rodriguez y Valero, Jose Antonio, ed.. Cartilla Historica de Córdoba (Mexico: Editorial Citlaltéptl, 1984), 46; Herrera Moreno, 132-133. 648 Rodriguez y Valero, 46; Herrera Moreno, 132-133.
239 away by periodically performing public hangings, torture and quartering of slaves, all to
no avail.649
As expeditions had consistently failed, authorities sought other ways. The
founding of San Lorenzo, for example, had represented an attempt, though a weak one, to coexist with the cimarrones. Other, similar efforts were made. In 1762, fearing a war
with Britain, the king granted cimarrones their freedom in exchange for their services in
the war. Although the war never came to fruition, the king kept his word. Unfortunately
for them, many Cordobeses attempted to ignore it.650 It was also through this agreement
that the viceroy granted a pardon to those Blacks who had rebelled in 1748 and had
peacefully settled in San Lorenzo.651 Thus, what Cordobeses had feared had indeed
become a reality. Primarily, San Lorenzo had become a haven for rebellious slaves.
Even though there is no indication as to how San Lorenzoans felt about their town’s
status, one thing is certain, its founding history had all but been forgotten.
In spite of the name change, San Lorenzo’s reputation and history preceded it.
The 1762 decree by the king implied that San Lorenzo was a place where runaway slaves could go to settle. A document in the Archivo General del Estado de Veracruz, dated
1928, mentions that San Lorenzo was founded for the habitation of Blacks who would gain their freedom, implying that other recently-freed slaves were allowed to live there.652
In addition, it was common to solicit all of the founding records of a town and all documents related to it when land disputes arouse. Records like this one from 1928 are
649 González Sierra, 22. 650 González Sierra, 24. 651 Pasquel, 12-25, 36; Herrera Moreno, 133. 652 AGEV, Comisión Agraria Mixta, “San Lorenzo de Cerralvo,” Exp. 161, año 1928.
240 found for San Lorenzo throughout the colonial period and served to remind people of the
unique founding history of the town.
The nineteenth century would lay witness to its share of slave rebellions. The “El
Potrero” hacienda, located a few kilometers from San Lorenzo, was the home of an
uprising in 1805. The same town had contributed the largest portion of rebel slaves in the
1735 rebellion. Unfortunately for the rebels, Viceroy José de Iturrigaray was passing by,
on his way from Veracruz and was able to use his 3000 forces to pacify them. Troops
remained in Córdoba until 1808 when the new viceroy, Pedro Garibay, forced them to
leave. The town council petitioned for them to stay but Garibay argued that in case of an
emergency the town should contact the neighboring settlements. More importantly, he
mentioned that if the town officials made sure that land owners treated their slaves
humanely then the rebellions would stop.653 Four years later, in 1812, “El Potrero”
would suffer another insurrection against colonial authorities. This time many of the
rebels were executed, including their leader, Francisco Severiano.654
In spite of its many efforts, Córdoba did not manage to instill enough fear in slaves to stop them from escaping or rebelling, though not for lack of trying. After all,
Córdoba’s success was fundamentally based on slave labor and therefore had a great stake in maintaining order. The 1788 census showed that thirty-five per cent of the population on Córdoba’s haciendas was made up of slaves, comprising the largest population of any one racial group.655 One of the consequences of slavery was
insurgency. As a result, the elites lived for centuries with the very real fear of revolts and
653 Herrera Moreno, 148; Pasquel, 12-25, 36. 654 Maceda, Andres. “Yanga: una historia compartida” Unpublished manuscript. 655 Cruz Carretero, 27; Rodriguez y Valero, 47-48.
241 uprisings. As the number of sugar fields increased so did the number of slaves and with
that came an increase in the number of cimarrones and rebellions. Thus, one of the
consequences of Córdoba’s booming economy was a dual process of slavery and cimarronaje. So long as the former existed so would the latter.
SAN LORENZO IN THE NEW NATION
By 1810 the struggle for national independence was already well underway. According to Hidalgo and José María Morelos y Pavón, independence for the colony meant independence for all, including slaves. It is not surprising that the establishment in
Córdoba would not actually join the movement until its success was practically inevitable. After all, its economy was intrinsically tied to slavery, a colonial structure.
Hidalgo’s proclamations abolishing slavery posed a tremendous threat to the elite society of Córdoba and local officials would publicly burn Hidalgo’s “seditious” papers abolishing slavery and proclaiming freedom from Spain.656 On the other hand, slaves felt
differently about the issue: “…from the time of Yanga, the blacks, with whom the
haciendas were filled, had not ceased fighting for their freedom, so they saw the war with
jubilee, like a promise sure to break their chains.”657 From 1817 to 1821 Córdoba would
remain in the hands of those loyal to the king. The last stronghold of Spanish loyalty,
Córdoba was finally taken by the insurgent army in 1821 and, ironically, would become a major symbol of Mexican independence as the site where viceroy Juan O’Donojú and
656 AMC, vol. 56, fj. 2va, 1811-1812. 657 AGEV, Fondo Leonardo Pasquel, Manuscritos de “Historia de Córdoba,” c. 35, fj. 146.
242 Agustín Iturbide signed the “Tratados de Córdoba” declaring New Spain an independent
nation at last.658
Still, slavery persisted in the new nation. Not until 1825, four years after national
independence was declared, would President Victoria take it upon himself to free slaves
in Córdoba. In exchange for their freedom, he paid slave owners a nominal fee.659 Yet,
writing in 1826 Segura noted that “the hacendados own the most scandalous form of
property: human slaves.”660 Finally, in 1829, President Vicente Guerrero proclaimed
slavery abolished.661 However, it was not until 1857 that the abolition of slavery was
actually written into Mexico’s constitution.662 Only then, quite late into the nineteenth
century, would San Lorenzo finally stop being seen as a threat to Córdoba. It had been
the threat of slave uprisings that had forced Córdoba to bring down the iron arm of the
law upon San Lorenzo. With slavery finally abolished, San Lorenzo would become
another one of many small towns. San Lorenzo would finally be free from Córdoba and
its many affronts and abuses.
For the most part, San Lorenzo was one of many similar towns in Mexico that
could have easily been forgotten, which is perhaps how the residents would have wanted
it. Yet, San Lorenzo’s proximity to Córdoba and the Veracruz-Mexico City road made it
the location for many important events. In fact, the nineteenth century would prove to be,
658 González Sierra, 27, 28. 659 Pasquel, 12-25, 36. In 1854 Córdoba was experiencing difficulty finishing the construction of a school for girls. The owner of the Hacienda de Guadalupe was willing to make a donation, were it not for a delay in her reimbursement from the freeing of her slaves. (AGEV, Fondo Leornardo Pasquel. “Estadistica del partido de Córdoba, formado eb 1840 en el cumplimiento de las ordenes del excelentísimo sr. Gobernador del Veracruz D. Antonio Maria Salonio, por D. Mariano Ramirez, prefecto del distrito de Córdoba y Cosamaloapan” c. 47, fj. 7). 660 Segura, 108. 661 Vicente Guerrero had fought to include the abolition of slavery as a condition of independence from Spain, but failed. 662 Pasquel, Leonardo. “Prólogo” in Campaña contra Yanga en 1608 (Mexico, 1974), XIV.
243 if nothing else, an exiting time for the town. What is more, in the nineteenth century
Yanga would get on the good graces of the Cordobeses.
By 1854, 388 people lived in San Lorenzo, most of whom made a living from producing tobacco, maize, and sugar cane.663 The town was dreadfully poor. The roofs of most homes and of the town church were made out of hay.664 The nineteenth century,
however, brought many changes to San Lorenzo. The year 1886 witnessed the
construction of a cemetery for the town. Unfortunately, it was put on hold that same year
due to lack of funding, though it was being built by the townspeople themselves.665 In
1888 construction began on a new school, also built by the townspeople. Up until that date, children had attended class in a small room made of wood, already in ruins by
1888.666 In that same year the construction of a jail was begun, as well as the establishment of a phone line from Córdoba to San Lorenzo and the construction of a bridge across the Rio Seco.667 By 1890 the streets of the entire town had been graveled and there was an increase in street lighting, a sure sign of modernity.668
663 AGEV, Fondo Leornardo Pasquel, “Estadistica del partido de Córdoba, formado en 1840 en el cumplimiento de las ordenes del excelentísimo sr. Gobernador del Veracruz D. Antonio Maria Salonio, por D. Mariano Ramirez, prefecto del distrito de Córdoba y Cosamalopana” c. 47, fj. 34. 664 Estadística del estado libre y soberano de Veracruz: Cuaderno primero que comprende los departamentos de Orizaba y Veracruz y la memoria del gobierno (Xalapa: Impreso en blanco y aburto, 1831). 665 Estado de Veracruz: Informes de sus gobernadores, 1826-1986, Tomo 5 (Xalapa, Talleres Gráficos de la nación, 1986). 666 Ibid., 4035. 667 In June of 1894 Carlos Herrera wrote to the Ayuntamiento of Córdoba asking to be allowed to expand the bridge over the Rio Seco in order to be able to connect it to his estate. Herrera pointed out that the river had changed direction due to the increasing tide. Consequently, part of the old bridge was covered by the water. Understanding that the new construction would be costly, Herrera offered to pay for the work (AMC, Vol. 232, 1894). He was allowed to do so, with the condition that he make it accessible to the public (Estado de Veracruz: Informes de sus gobernadores, 1826-1986, Tomo 6 (Xalapa, Talleres Gráficos de la nación, 1986). 668 Estado de Veracruz: Informes de sus gobernadores, 1826-1986, Tomo 6 & 7 (Xalapa, Talleres Gráficos de la nación, 1986); AMC, vol. 235, 1894; Encyclopedia municipal veracruzana: yanga, vol 203 (Gobierno del estado de veracruz, Secretaria Técnica:1998): 77
244 But the town’s proximity to Córdoba would soon become more of a hindrance to
San Lorenzoans than to Cordobeses. The total number of police officers in San Lorenzo in 1871 was three, in addition to twelve assistants, a large number for a town so small.669
As in the colonial period, San Lorenzo was constantly forced to protect itself, often with arms. A key example is that of Faustino Mora’s agrarian revolt.
In 1884 Faustino Mora, whom Ferrandón describes as a well-read forty-five-year- old man with a mild temperament, moved with his family to one of the hills in area and was often seen at Ferrandón’s father’s store.670 Mora was considered a “communist” because of his willingness to discuss with people issues of discontent with the
government and land owners. At that time, the majority of the land belonged to only a
few select people, to whom farmers were forced to pay dues for use of the land,
sometimes as high as half of the profits of each crop. Discontent increased as did the
threat of an agrarian revolt. On the morning of September 5, 1885, Mora and a squad of
several hundred armed men entered San Lorenzo.671 According to the Veracruz
Governor’s report, the “Comunista” Faustino Mora attacked the town of San Lorenzo and
committed “the most atrocious crimes” due to the resistance he met from the residents.
According to Ferrandón, the citizens of the town took up arms and shot from inside their homes against the rebels.672 Mora and his two hundred men ransacked homes, wounded
twelve people, including two women and one child, and set fire to the municipal
669 Estado de Veracruz: Informes de sus gobernadores, 1826-1986, Tomo 2 (Xalapa, Talleres Gráficos de la nación, 1986. 670 Ferrandón, 83. 671 Ibid., 83-85. 672 Ibid., 87-88.
245 treasurer, Simón del Toro.673 They also set fire to a local store but in a moment of
humanity, they put it out, persuaded by the pleading of a woman, who, while dragging a
little girl with her, begged them, screaming, because there were children living in the
houses adjacent to it. Mora and his men remained in San Lorenzo until four o’clock in
the afternoon.674
It was not until early December that the Córdoba police were able to find Mora at his house, along with his second-in-command, Miguel Rodriguez and his assistant, Elías
Conde. According to the governor’s report, the men begged not to be killed. Still,
fearing confrontation, the police tied them up. Mora had swollen feet and was so visibly
sick and weak, that the police men had to hold him up. Mora had said that it had been four days since his last meal. Taking pity on him, the police allowed Mora to sit and rest under a tree, where he soon died.675 Ferrandón’s account of the story differs slightly.
According to Ferrandón, Mora was tied to a tree, but was visibly sick and had asked for a glass of water. The police untied him and allowed him to go into the house to get a drink.
After adding poison to his own glass, Mora drank the water and died. His body was thrown over a horse and taken to Córdoba.676
Today, Mora’s rebellion is considered important for being the first rural agrarian
movement in Mexico. Though Córdoba is often credited as the site of this event, the
renown belongs to San Lorenzo. More importantly, this incident highlights the changing
relationship between the two towns. Now it was perhaps in the best interest of San
673 Estado de Veracruz: Informes de sus gobernadores,1826-1986, Tomo 5 (Xalapa, Talleres Gráficos de la nación, 1986; Ferrandón, 87-88. 674 Ferrandón, 89. 675 Estado de Veracruz: Informes de sus gobernadores, 1826-1986, Tomo 5 (Xalapa, Talleres Gráficos de la nación, 1986; González Sierra, José. Córdoba: Imagenes de su historia (Mexico: Ediciones el naranjo, 2000), 51. 676 Ferrandón, 92.
246 Lorenzo to remain under the watchful eye of its neighbor. After all, the town’s location
made it susceptible to intrusion and invasion by new forms of rebels. In a twist of irony,
San Lorenzo now needed Córdoba’s protection.
The relationship between the two towns had indeed changed. Córdoba no longer
had a reason to see San Lorenzo as a threat. In fact, Yanga could now be someone to
honor and claim as a hero. In 1892 Enrique Herrera Moreno, a historian and politician as
well as a Cordobés, published a history of Córdoba titled, El Cantón de Córdoba. The
book is today considered an authoritative source for the history of that town. A large
portion of that story included Yanga and the settlement of San Lorenzo. Herrera Moreno
had become fascinated by Yanga and saw him as a Mexican hero. That is why it is not surprising that as early as 1893 there was a masonic lodge in Córdoba bearing the name of “Yanga.”677 Though there is no proof that Herrera Moreno suggested the name for the
lodge, it is likely that he either founded the lodge himself or had enough power to influence his colleagues to choose it.678 In fact, Herrera Moreno was such an influential
man that in 1895 he was elected alcalde mayor of Córdoba.679 It is also not surprising
that one year later, the Córdoba general hospital was founded and received the name
“Yanga,” “in memory of that illustrious negro who had fought there against slavery,
centuries before.”680 The name was approved for the hospital on March 5, 1895.681 The
inauguration was such an important event that the governor of the state was invited to
677 It is not clear when the Yanga lodge was founded, or when Córdoba instituted its first Masonic lodge. According to a current member of the Yanga lodge, the name for a lodge is chosen based on a person who did something for the good of humanity (Interview with Odilón Mayolo García Rojas on April 2, 2005, Córdoba, Mexico) 678 AMC, “Hospitales y Cárceles,” vol. 228, 1893. 679 AMC, vol. 240, 1895. 680 AGEV, Fondo Leonardo Pasquel, c. 49, fj. 4. 681 AMC, “1896 Ayuntamiento de Córdoba minutes,” vol. 243, 1896; AMC, vol. 244, 1896.
247 launch the grand opening, which took place on December 6, 1896.682 According to the receipts for the event, 250 tickets were purchased for the ceremony.683
Indeed, it was in the nineteenth century that Yanga’s image changed from that of a rebel to that of a hero. Herrera Moreno was instrumental in reviving the history of
Yanga. In addition to the Masonic lodge, his book on the history of Córdoba, and the hospital, he helped bring about the construction of a monument to commemorate the heroic participation of Córdoba in the battle for independence. In 1895, Herrera Moreno wrote a letter to Santiago Shirley, superintendent of the Mexican Railroad, proposing the levying of import taxes for the transportation of the material for the monument, which was already proving to be costly. The payment of the taxes had delayed the arrival of the marble. In his letter Herrera Moreno equated Yanga’s battle for freedom from slavery with that of Córdoba’s battle for Independence from Spain, “Córdoba could not, would not sustain that movement, had they not been fired up with the militaristic memory of the accent of Yanga.”684 In other words, the image of Yanga was conjured to express the notion of a revolutionary. Not only that, Yanga is seen as a liberator, in much the same way as Hidalgo and Morelos. Furthermore, Yanga is spoken of as if the Shirley would have heard of Yanga. This implies that in the nineteenth, at least in the state of Veracruz, people had knowledge of the history of Yanga. In this sense, then, this was the first time that Yanga was seen as Mexico’s first Revolutionary, a true representative of Mexico’s history of rebellion and freedom.
682 AMC, vol. 244, no. 18, 1896; AMC, vol. 244, no. 14, 1896. 683 AMC, vol. 244, “Boletín municipal: órgano oficial del H. ayuntamiento de Córdoba,” 1896. 684 AMC, vol. 240, “Fomento no. 49,” 1895.
248 In 1910, Mariano Talavera, the then alcalde mayor of San Lorenzo, had the idea
of adding a clock to the Church tower. Paying homage to the centenary anniversary of
national independence on the night of September 15, 1910, the town performed a
ceremony at 11pm to inaugurate the clock, which in 1910, was a powerful symbol of
modernity and progress to the townspeople.685 The celebration of the clock came at the
cusp of the Mexican Revolution.
By 1911 The Revolution was underway and Yanga had long ago died, but his
memory lived on. This time, in a pro-Madero686 speech made in Córdoba in 1911, Yanga
was being invoked as a symbol of freedom. “Yanga is colossal…it is the first time that in
our native country the servant confronts the master and it is the first time that the master
bows to the servant.”687 Yanga became an individual worthy of mention. To mention
Yanga was to mention his struggle to settle San Lorenzo. San Lorenzo’s image,
therefore, changed from a town of runaway slaves to the home of Mexico’s first
Revolutionary. Interestingly enough, Cordobeses were reminiscing about Yanga’s
rebellion, almost with a sense of nostalgia
Yet, Yanga was not conjured as a symbol of slavery, or worst yet, a class of
people who contributed to Mexico’s idealized notion of mestizaje, two things that
Mexico would, it seems, like to forget. While Yanga was seen as a hero, the town of San
Lorenzo was largely overlooked. But this is not surprising, as was the case with El
685 Ferrandón, Leonardo. 36. In spite of the strong reception of the clock, which can still be seen today, San Lorenzo was slow to enter modernity. As of 1944 the town still did not have any running water, forcing people to fetch water from a well (Imperial, Francisco. “San lorenzo de los negros: la epopeya del Yanga” in Hoy, #399 (October 14, 1944): 44-47). This proved particularly difficult in times of draught (Ferrandón, Leonardo. Apuntes históricos de mi pueblo, recordando a Yanga: ayer y hoy (Mexico: Imprenta Unión, 1963), 30). 686 Francisco I. Madero was president of Mexico between 1911 and 1913. He was a revolutionary leader who helped overthrow Dictator Porfirio Diaz who had ruled Mexico from 1876-1911. 687 Verbo, #1, (Córdoba: September 23, 1911): 2.
249 Negrito and La Mulata de Córdoba,688 a focus on Yanga posed no threat since he was a
colonial figure, whereas a focus on San Lorenzo begged an acceptance, perhaps, of
Mexico’s current Black presence.
A RETURN TO THE PAST
Just as the nineteenth century would bring much excitement to San Lorenzo, the
twentieth century would shape, (re)define, and exalt the town’s history. In fact, the
twentieth century took San Lorenzo back to its roots. On November 5, 1932 the name of
San Lorenzo de Cerralvo was officially changed to Yanga.689 Today, a sign on the
Mexico-Veracruz road, entering into the district, reads “YANGA: the first free town in
America.” Also, in 1976 the members of the social club Yang-Bara inaugurated its first
carnival. Today the carnival takes place every year in August and commemorates the
founding of the town by runaway slaves. In 1982, town officials created a coat of arms
for the town depicting, among other things, a slave holding his arms in the air, breaking
the chains of slavery.690 In 1956, a statue was erected, bearing the title, “El Yanga” in honor of the town’s founder and leader.691 In the park, on the outskirts of the town,
stands a statue of a slave; the only statue in all of Mexico that memorializes its history,
and legacy, of slavery. Yanga stands in a small square, a lean but muscular man; his
muscles showing through his bare shoulder, veins bulging through his arms. From his
left wrist hangs a broken chain; the chain of slavery. His right arm is raised in the air,
688 For more information in these two figures, see chapter 5 of this work. 689 Enciclopedia Municipal Veracruzana: Yanga, vol 203 (Veracruz: Secretaría Técnica, 1998). 690 Querol Ortiz, Erik. “El escudo de Yanga” in Voces Libres, año 1, no. 9 (Yanga: September, 2004): 3. 691 Encyclopedia municipal veracruzana: Yanga, vol 203 (Gobierno del estado de veracruz, Secretaria Técnica:1998): 85, 86; Cruz Carretero, Sagrario. El carnaval en yanga: notas y comentarios sobre una fiesta de la negritud (Mexico: Dirección general de culturas populares, 1990), 21.
250 machete in hand ready to defend. His face is strong; a furled brow reveals no fear or
hatred but the necessity to persevere.
CONCLUSION
No one knows with certainty what became of Gaspar Yanga after the settling of San
Lorenzo. Two possibilities have been posed. Ferrandón suggests that in 1612, Yanga
was called to Mexico City to meet with government officials to discuss the institution of slavery. Suspicious, Yanga asked the advice of a priest, who, with good intentions, recommended that he head to Mexico City during holy week in which no punishments could be carried out against anyone, including the former rebel leader. He arrived into the capital just as the Audiencia was preparing to hang the “treinta y tres negros.”
Ferrandón suggests that Yanga could have been one of those men.692
Another theory claims that Yanga must have died a mysterious and violent death
at the doors of the San Lorenzo church. Ferrandón agrees that there might be some truth
to this story as well. His assertion that these two versions are probable reveals how little
we know about Yanga’s fate. Ferrandón states that when his parents arrived in San
Lorenzo, around 1878, there was an obelisk, two meters high and with tiles that had some faded writing on them. It could well have been the epitaph to Yanga’s tomb. Soon after
1878, the obelisk was removed by a local official, taking with it all clues.693
Even though Yanga has received some attention by scholars, the story has largely
remained ignored. One reason is that even though the town was founded by run away
slaves, it soon adopted the local cultural norms, perhaps in an attempt to be accepted by
692 Ferrandón, 21. 693 Ibid., 21-22; Krauss, 83.
251 the larger society as an equal. Today their history is not any more visible in their skin
than in any other resident of Veracruz. Initially, no Spaniards were allowed to live in San
Lorenzo, but by the eighteenth century they had begun to move in.694 At the same time,
Ferrandón states that in 1882, during his adolescence, the majority of the residents of San
Lorenzo were Black and lived in huts with roofs made of grass and palm leaves. The few
whites and mestizos who lived in town lived in the central area that surrounds the present park in homes made of wood and tiled roofs.695 Ferrandón’s account not only speaks to
racial segregation within the town, clearly a symbol of class, but also how quickly the
town’s population changed. By 1910, San Lorenzo had increased its population to 5,612,
yet it is difficult to assess their racial background since race was not determined in any
official documents.696 As already noted, San Lorenzo was susceptible to people’s
comings and goings. It is likely that people of different backgrounds would have settled
there. In a 1794 letter the superintendent of Veracruz refers to the citizens of San
Lorenzo as “pardos libres,” a label that was to some degree accurate since Indians
comprised a large portion of the neighboring towns.697 In fact, one of the observations
made today about Yanga is that it has become a town of mestizos, an interesting
observation since residents of Veracruz are known for their complex racial mixture.
Indeed, today’s Yanguicos, are simply mestizo. Yet they are different. The people of
694 Cruz Carretero, Sagrario del Carmen. Identidad en una comunidad afromestiza del centro de Veracruz: la población de Mata Clara (Thesis, Puebla, Universidad de las Americas, 1989): 52. 695 Ferrandón, 143, 35. The park was not built until 1925-1926 (Rueda Gomez, Angelica. “Conociendo el parquet de Yanga” in Voces Libres, año 1, no. 11 (Yanga: November 2004): 8). 696 AMC, Censo General del Cantón de Córdoba, vol. 321, 1910. 697 AMC, vol. 44, fj. 90, 1794. Laura Lewis cautions that racial mixture aside, “morenos [were forced] to become ‘indians’ in order to nationalize themselves.” Lewis, Laura A. “Blacks, Black Indians, Afromexicans: The Dynamics of Race, Nation, and Identity in a Mexican Moreno Community (Guerrero)” in American Ethnologist, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2000): 899.
252 Yanga not only honor their slave/Black ancestry every year with their festival, they are
helping to enter the town’s history into the Mexican consciousness.698
Just as important, especially in the last half of the twentieth century, Yanga has begun to be seen by other Mexicans as a hero, not only for slaves, but also as a proponent of freedom for humankind. “Yanga was the name of the town and spontaneous, collective movement for the liberty of man,” wrote Carlos Denegri in 1958.699 Years
earlier, in 1944, Francisco Imperial wrote that Yanga could be seen as “the first town
founded by the good judgment of man and consecrated to human freedom.”700 Yanga’s
memory has survived through the retelling of his story and the story of San Lorenzo by prominent authors such as Vicente Riva Palacio and Enrique Herrera Moreno who were able to reach larger, natural audiences in the nineteenth century. Interestingly, it was in the nineteenth century, as Mexico was forming its identity as a mestizo nation, exclusive of Blacks, that Yanga’s image as a revolutionary for freedom was first introduced. Since then, Yanga has grown in the consciousness, if not of the entire nation, of Córdobeses, who went from seeing San Lorenzo as a threat to promoting the image of its founder, and
to some degree, taking proprietorship of it. Córdoba had fought for two centuries to erase
the memory of Yanga, only to help bring it back to life in the nineteenth and twentieth.
Once the threat of slave insurrections ceased, elites were able to accept Yanga as an
important figure in Mexico’s history—so much so that Córdoba named one of its
Masonic lodges after the Revolutionary and today some Cordobeses even bare his
698 In December, 2003 Erik Querol Ortiz, resident of Yanga, began the publication of Voces Libres, an independent magazine that seeks to promote and expose Yanga’s history and culture. 699 Denegri, 2. 700 Imperial, Francisco. “San Lorenzo de los negros: la epopeya del Yanga” in Hoy, #399 (October 14, 1944): 44-47.
253 name.701 On the other hand, Yanga’s life could be celebrated because he, unlike the
town he helped found, which still existed, was a colonial figure.
Francisco Imperial aptly wrote in 1944 that “Yanga has a history that is singularly
beautiful and exemplary. It should be Mexico’s pride.”702 Yanga’s rebellion was not the first in the Americas, but it was the first to successfully challenge colonial authorities.
Yanquicos managed to obtain what few others, before or after, would obtain: the founding of a town and the guarantee of their freedom and liberty. The last lines of a
1979 song read: “Forever your name in history remained/ And today to say Yanga is to speak of courage/ Yanga the grand cimarron/ Yanga, the example of rebellion.”703 Yanga
(both the man and the town) is a symbol of Mexican slavery and freedom. Yanga is the story of a people who notoriously fought for their freedom and not only won, but also survived.
701 While conducting research on the “Yanga” lodge, I met a young woman whose father is a Mason and whose name was Yanga. 702 Imperial. 703 “Yanga,” Lyrics and music by Pancho Cataneo (Mexico: Promotora Hispano Americana de Música, 1979).
254
BIBLIOGRAPHY—CHAPTER 6
ARCHIVES
Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City—AGN
Archivo Municipal de Córdoba, Córdoba, Veracruz, Mexico—AMC
Archivo General del Estado de Veracruz, Japala, Veracruz, Mexico—AGEV
Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City—INAH
BOOKS AND ARTICLES
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Alegre, Javier. Memorias para la historia de la provincial que tuvo la compañia de Jesús en nueva España. México: Talleres tipográficos modelo, 1940.
Bennett, Herman L. Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro- Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003.
Carroll, Patrick J.. Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity and Regional Development. Texas: University of Texas Press, 1991.
Carroll, Patrick J. “Mandinga: The Evolution of a Mexican Runaway Slave Community, 1735-1827” in Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 19, no. 4 (Oct., 1977).
Cruz Carretero, Sagrario del Carmen. Identidad en una comunidad afromestiza del centro de Veracruz: la población de Mata Clara. Masters Thesis. Puebla, Universidad de las Américas, 1989.
Cruz Carretero, Sagrario. El carnaval en yanga: notas y comentarios sobre una fiesta de la negritud. México: Dirección general de culturas populares, 1990.
Davidson, David M.. “Negro Slave Control and Resistance in Colonial Mexico, 1519- 1650 in Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 46 (1966).
255 Denegri, Carlos. “Yanga” in Revista de Revistas (June 15, 1958).
El Combate, #15, año 3, (Orizaba, May 2, 1886).
Enciclopédia municipal veracruzana: yanga, vol 203. Gobierno del estado de Veracruz, Secretaria Técnica: 1998.
Estadística del estado libre y soberano de Veracruz: Cuaderno primero que comprende los departamentos de Orizaba y Veracruz y la memoria del gobierno. Xalapa: Impreso en blanco y aburto, 1831.
Estado de Veracruz: Informes de sus gobernadores, 1826-1986, Tomo 5-7. Xalapa, Talleres Gráficos de la nación, 1986.
Ferrandón, Leonardo. Apuntes históricos de mi pueblo, recordando a Yanga: ayer y hoy. México: Imprenta Unión, 1963.
García H., Gerardo. “Síntesis de evocaciones provinciales” in Xalapa, #21, año 2 (Xalapa, May 15, 1954).
García Rojas, Odilón Manolo. Interview by Marisela Ramos (April 2, 2005).
Gerhard, Peter. A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.
Gonzalez Sierra, José. Córdoba: Imágenes de su historia. México: Ediciones el naranjo, 2000.
Gonzalez R., Luis Albert. “Textos sobre Yanga” in Voces Libres, año 2, no. 13 (Yanga: January-February, 2005).
Gonzalez Rosas, Luis Alberto. “¿Derrotaron los Españoles a Yanga?” in Voces Libres, año 1, no. 6 (Yanga: May, 2004).
Herrera Moreno, Enrique. El Cantón de Córdoba. Córdoba, Veracruz: Prensa de R. Valdecilla y Comp., 1892.
Imperial, Francisco. “Una página épica de nuestra historia: san Lorenzo de los negros” in Hoy, #398 (October 7, 1944).
Imperial, Francisco. “San lorenzo de los negros: la epopeya del Yanga” in Hoy, #399 (October 14, 1944).
Krauss, Miguel Duhalt. “Yanga,” Part I in Mañana, vol. LXVI, #662 (Mexico, May 5, 1956).
256 Laurencio, Juan Florencio. Campaña contra Yanga en 1608. Ed., Leonardo Pasquel. México: Editorial Citlaltepetl, 1974.
Maceda, Andrés. Yanga: una historia compartida. Unpublished manuscript.
Magdaleno, Vicente. Paisaje y Celaje. Mexico: Editorial de Mexico Stylo, 1952.
Mota y Escobar de la. Memoriales del Obispado de Tlaxcala, siglo XVII, vol. 1-3.
Palmer, Colin. Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976.
Pasquel, Leonardo. “La heróica ciudad de Córdoba” in Revista Jarocha, #4 (December, 1959).
Perez de Ribas, Andrés. Crónica y historia religiosa de la provincia de la compañía de Jesús de México en nueva España. México: Impr. Del sagrado corazón de Jesús, 1896.
Querol Ortiz, Erik. “El escudo de Yanga” in Voces Libres, año 1, no. 9 (Yanga: September, 2004).
Riva Palacio, Vicente. México a través de los siglos: historia general y completa del desenvolvimiento social, político, religioso, militar, artístico, científico y literario de México: desde la antigüedad más remota hasta la época actual. Barcelona, Espasa y compañía, 1888-89.
Riva Palacio, Vicente. “Los treinta y tres negros” in El Libro Rojo: 1520-1867. México: editorial del Valle, 1976.
Rodríguez y Valero, José Antonio, ed.. Cartilla Histórica de Córdoba. México: Editorial Citlaltéptl, 1984.
Rueda Gomez, Angelica. “Conociendo el parquet de Yanga” in Voces Libres, año 1, no. 11 (Yanga: November 2004).
Salazar Paez, Antonio. “Ruta libertaria de los negros” in Cronos: Revista de difusión cultural, año 9, #52, (Xalapa, 1988).
Segura, Vicente. Apuntes para la estadística del departamento de Orizaba. Jalapa: Oficina del gobierno por Aburto y Blanco, 1831.
Velázquez, Manuel. “La última Victoria del rey Yanga” in Contenido, #74 (Julio, 1969).
Verbo, #1, (Córdoba: Septiembre 23, 1911).
257 Winfield Capitaine, Fernando. “La sublevación de esclavos en Córdoba en 1735” in La palabra e el hombre, no. 50 (April-June 1984).
“Yanga,” Lyrics and music by Pancho Cataneo. Mexico: Promotora Hispano Americana de Música, 1979.
CONCLUSION
“WHERE DID THE BLACKS GO?”704
The 2006 exhibit, The African Presence in Mexico, curated by the National Museum of
Mexican Art in Chicago, claims to be “the most comprehensive project ever organized
about African contributions to Mexican culture.” The exhibit asserts that there is a very
real Black presence in Mexico today.705 Yet, even as The African Presence in Mexico
sheds light on Mexico’s Black history, through no fault of the curators, the exhibit is lacking in its coverage of the nineteenth century. Scholars have traced the history of
Blacks in colonial Mexico through documents that reveal their casta. Likewise, our knowledge of contemporary Black Mexicans relies in part on an understanding of
Blackness as something physical and cultural. These two factors pose tremendous problems since in order to identify physical and cultural traits as of African origin, we must isolate them from the Indian and Spanish traits. Not only does this process exclude those people who do not “look” Black, it also forces a strict understanding of mixture or
fusion. As with mestizaje, we can attempt to subtract the Spanish elements from the
Indian elements, but in doing so, the end product is no longer mestizaje. It is precisely
the fusion inherent in mestizaje that makes it what it is.
704 Panel title: "WHERE DID THE BLACKS GO?": Post-Slavery Mexico. Conference: “The African Presence in Mexico,” sponsored by Callaloo Journal, Texas A & M University and The Center for Africana Studies, Johns Hopkins University, October 2008. 705 The exhibit is currently on tour and scheduled to remain so until 2009. http://www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org/af/africanpresence.html
259 One of the difficulties of uncovering Mexico’s nineteenth-century Black history
lies in the fact that racial categories were abolished at that point. The only Blacks who
are mentioned in documents or that era are those who are phenotipically Black.
Therefore, in the absence of racial categories, scholars have been unable to locate
“Blacks” in the period after independence. In this manuscript I have attempted to shed
light on the process of nation-building in nineteenth-century Mexico and more
specifically the process that led to the “disappearance” of Blackness. I have argued that it
was discourse rather than any physical disappearance that led to what I have called the
“Black exception.” The ideology of mestizaje was a historical process that demanded
negotiation. As such, the “Black exception” was not inevitable.
As current scholars of Black Mexico have expressed, earlier scholars who sought
to understand “Afromexican” studies had the difficult task of covering all areas and
topics.706 It is only now that there is a substantial collection of scholarly work on the
subject that we can begin to focus on more detailed aspects of Black Mexican life. In the absence of other scholarship that focuses on Blackness in nineteenth-century Mexico, I
hope that this work will serve as a point of departure.
In chapter 1 I explained the role of slavery and the casta system in aiding the
decrease of the numbers of individuals who were classified as purely Black. In chapter 2 I
revealed the irony of independence: as Blacks (and castas) sought equality through the
abolition of racial categories the loss of such labels made it difficult to maintain identities
that were distinctly Afro-Mexican. Both, castas and insurgents, relied on a discourse of
706 Conference: “The African Presence in Mexico,” sponsored by Callaloo Journal, Texas A & M University and The Center for Africana Studies, Johns Hopkins University, October 2008.
260 equality to advance their own interests. Through a close analysis of national histories written by politico-scholars, in chapter 3 I showed that the ideology of mestizaje was a result of a process of negotiation that took place in the nineteenth century. These discourses of national history led to the “Black exception.” Chapter 4 focused on the presence of foreign Blacks where I showed that the presence of these individuals gave
Mexican officials the opportunity to advance an ideology of equality. At the same time, these Blacks were important in reminding the population that there were no Mexican
Blacks. I make use of discourses of La Mulata de Córdoba and El Negrito Poeta in chapter 5 to shed light on different conceptualizations of Blackness in nineteenth-century
Mexico. I showed that although Mexico had a rich history of slavery, Blacks, like these two characters, existed solely in the past. Finally, in chapter 6 I attempt to expand on what is already known of the founding of the town of Yanga. I look closely at discourses of the town as well as of Yanga the man through the nineteenth century to show that at the local level there was room for a celebration of Mexico’s Black history.
Even though these six chapters can stand on their own, the sum of their parts reveals a vital facet of Mexico’s process of nation-building. Primarily, with the abolition of racial categories the only people who were considered to be Black were those who were identified as such based on phenotype. Yet, since this evolving process was manifested through discourse, the omission of Blackness from twentieth-century notions of mestizaje was not inevitable. This work is not simply an attempt to uncover an obscured past, but rather an attempt to peel away the layers of a current national ideology that is by no means fixed or predetermined.
261 Scholars have experienced difficulty locating Blacks in nineteenth-century
Mexican sources because we have not taken into account that nation’s own shifting definition of race and of itself as a new nation. Scholars cannot find Blacks in nineteenth-century sources because they are hoping to find them by looking for traditional racial qualifiers. Just as definitions of identity shift historically, we must come to a new understanding of Blackness and of Mexicanness. Our current definitions of
Blackness, as I have shown, are not applicable to Mexico’s nineteenth-century definition of Blackness. I hope that this work will aid in a reconceptualization of ethnic relations in the nineteenth-century Mexico. It is only through this process that we will be able to locate Blacks in the history of that period. Scholars interested in women’s history can attest to this. It is not that historians have suddenly uncovered sources left behind by women, but rather that scholars have found them in the sources because they have closely scrutinized gender relations. Where did the Blacks go? While Blacks never physically disappeared, they have also not vanished from the records. We simply cannot find them because we have not learned to “see” them in a nineteenth-century context. Only by gaining a new theoretical understanding of what it meant to be Black in post- independence Mexico as well as how a definition of “Mexicaness” led to the omission of a Black Mexican identity can we get at, not just a history of Black Mexicans but also a history of Mexico’s process of nation-building.
Perhaps we can better understand this phenomenon by looking more closely at one of Mexico’s clear symbols of slavery. It is telling that the Statue of Yanga stands not in the zócalo, in the center of the town that bears the man’s name, but in the outskirts, in a small square surrounded by parched grass, adjacent to an old basketball court. Mexico’s
262 Black history is very much like this statue of Yanga: it remains at the periphery of mestizaje. But like the strong slave who fiercely defended his freedom, Mexico’s Black
history will supersede its current restraints.