Re: [ranchos] Slavery in Mexico: John Schmal

[Alberto Duarte <albertodua@...>]

A very good written article by John Schmal. 

I've been to Vera Cruz, Zacatecas, and Guanajuato, and
have seen Mexicans with negro features at these
locations.  Anyway you look at it, approximately
200,000 blacks had to have been absorbed into the
population.

Alberto. 

--- makas@... wrote:

> 
>   Abstract from SLAVERY IN COLONIAL MEXICO
> By John P. Schmal
> 
> The Marriages of Slaves in Mexico
> 
> The majority of slaves brought to the shores of
> Mexico were male. With a 
> lack of female Africans, most of these men
> eventually chose Indian or 
> mestizo women as spouses. The long-established Siete
> Partidas laws of 
> Spain granted slaves the right to select their
> spouses. Slave masters 
> were thus forbidden from intervening in this
> decision.
> 
> Professor Martha Menchaca, the author of Recovering
> History, 
> Reconstructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White
> Roots of Mexican 
> Americans, observed that "this legislation was of
> monumental importance 
> because it became the gateway for the children of
> slaves to gain their 
> freedom.
> 
> Due to the lobbying efforts of the Catholic Church
> the children of Black 
> male slaves and Indian women were declared free and
> given the right to 
> live with their mother." With laws that granted
> freedom to the children 
> of a slave who married into other racial
> classifications, it is very 
> obvious to see the motivation of this class to seek
> outside partners.
> 
> The Spanish practice of classifying people by race
> was utilized in the 
> Catholic Church records of Colonial Mexico. While
> doing extensive 
> genealogical research into Colonial Mexican church
> records from the 
> 1600s and 1700s, this author has spent a great deal
> of time exploring 
> the marriages of slaves in various parts of Mexico.
> In areas such as San 
> Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes and
> Guanajuato, I have frequently 
> seen church records that documented the marriages of
> males slaves to 
> mestizas, Indians, and mulatas. It is likely that
> the offspring of these 
> marriages would have been free individuals.
> 
> The Caste System in Mexico
> 
> While the Spaniards and Europeans living in Mexico
> "enjoyed the highest 
> social prestige and were accorded the most extensive
> legal and economic 
> privileges," those persons classified as Indians,
> mestizos and mulatos 
> brought up the other end of the social spectrum.
> 
> The social classification of afromestizos ? persons
> of mixed Indian, 
> African and Caucasian blood ? was allocated a
> position in the lowest 
> rungs of Mexican society. "Because they were of
> partially African 
> descent," states Professor Menchaca, "?they were
> stigmatized and 
> considered socially inferior to Indians and
> mestizos? afromestizos were 
> subjected to racist laws designed to distinguish
> them from mestizos and 
> to impose financial and social penalties upon them."
> 
> Eventually, the Wars of Liberation during the first
> three decades of the 
> Nineteenth Century brought an end to Spanish slavery
> of Africans in 
> Mexico. Dr. Palmer has estimated that the total
> number of African-born 
> slaves brought to Mexico from the earliest years of
> the Sixteenth 
> Century to the day that the institution was
> abolished (1827) numbered 
> about 200,000.
> 
> Although 200,000 individuals seems to be a large
> number, in comparison 
> to Mexico?s overall population through the colonial
> period, it is quite 
> small and statistics indicate that the African and
> Black population of 
> Mexico never reached more than two percent of the
> total population at 
> any given time. But in some portions of eastern
> Mexico, it is evident 
> that the African presence has left a cultural
> influence. Patrick James 
> Carroll, in Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race,
> Ethnicity, and Regional 
> Development, is one of the few authors who has
> discussed the African 
> influence in this context.
> 
> While exploring Mexican colonial census and church
> records, this author 
> has been given a better understanding of the genetic
> and economic 
> influence of the African in Mexico. In various
> cities throughout Mexico, 
> epidemics would wipe out large numbers of Indians.
> At times like these, 
> the percentage of the Black population would
> increase significantly. The 
> smaller pool of workers thus contained a greater
> number of Africans, who 
> moved into fill the labor vacancies created by the
> loss of the Indians.
> 
> As one example of a strong African presence, the
> City of Zacatecas in 
> 1803 had the following population numbers: 11,000
> Spaniards and 
> mestizos; 9,500 Indians; and 12,500 Negroes and
> mulattoes. Figures such 
> as these are a testament to the value of the African
> in providing 
> essential services (through labor) to the Mexican
> colonial economy.
> 
> Sources:
> 
> Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. La Población Negra de
> México, 1519-1810. 
> Mexico, 1972: 2nd edition.
> 
> Bennett, Herman L. Africans in Colonial Mexico:
> Absolutism, 
> Christianity, and the Afro-Creole Consciousness,
> 1570-1640 (Blacks in 
> the Disapora). Indiana University Press, 2003.
> 
> Carroll, Patrick James. Blacks in Colonial Veracruz:
> Race, Ethnicity, 
> and Regional Development. Austin: University of
> Texas Press, 1991.
> 
> Harring, Clarence H. The Spanish Empire in America.
> New York: Harbinger, 
> 1963.
> 
> Menchaca, Martha. Reconstructing History,
> Constructing Race: The Indian, 
> Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans. Austin:
> University of Texas 
> Press, 2001.
> 
> Mörner, Magnus. Race Mixture in the History of Latin
> America. Boston: 
> Little, Brown and Company, 1967.
> 
> Palmer, Colin A. Slaves of the White God: Blacks in
> Mexico, 1570-1650. 
> Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
> 1976.
> 
> About the Author: John Schmal is a student of
> Mexican history and a 
> specialist in Mexican genealogy. He has coauthored a
> book about the 
> indigenous and African roots of a Mexican-American
> family in The 
> Indigenous Roots of a Mexican-American Family,
> available through 
> Heritage books at:
> 
>
http://marketplacesolutions.net/secure/heritagebooks/merchant2/merchant.mvc
> ?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=HBI&Product_Code=M2469
> 
> 
> 
> 
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