Dear Joseph:
Saludos. Although you will have many people of color (Arabs, Blacks
(yes, believe it or not), Hispanics, Asians, Indians, and
Aborigines) admit their mixed racial background (identifying with
anyone or cominbation of Indian, Semite, Oriental, and White groups),
not too many embrace, let alone acknowledge their Black heritage. Good
for you and your group.
I would be honored if you post the article I wrote entitled
"Miscegenation and Racism" on your website as long as you give me full
copyright and authorship credits of it.
Buenas Suerte,
Elena
============================
we are studying our heritage through genealogy. a lot of baptism
records from Mexico Identify us as Mixed Race people. I have both DNA
and baptism records to show my black heritage. others in the group also
Identify with being of black ethnicity.
thanks,
Joseph Puentes
Ellen Simms wrote:
Dear Joseph:
I have poste other articles on the
blacklist.net/Afro-Mexicans.htm. However, this article "Miscegenation
and Racism: The Afro-Mexican in Colonial Mexico" seems to be the one
that people like the most and contact me about. I wonder why?
It must have touch some responsive chord with
people...
I just looked at your website, and just need to make
the link of why you need my article which may/may not be relevant to
your ranchos groups which seems interesting.
Ellen
==========================================
Miscegenagtion and Racism: The
Afro-Mexican
in Colonial Mexico
by Ellen Simms ellensimms@...
Most students of Mexican history
would be surprised to know
that an extensive Black population, which will be referred to as
Afro-Mexican,
existed during the colonial period. However, Afro-Mexicans, both slave
and free
at one time outnumbered the current domination Mestizo population and
the
Whites. Mexico had an extensive Black population, which eventually
assimilated
into the dominant majority Mestizo population by the eighteenth
century. This
paper will concentrate on the factors that caused the decline of the
Afro-Mexican population in Mexico during the colonial period, from the
sixteenth
century to the eighteenth century. It will not focus of the
Afro-Mexican
population, slave or free, but only explain their disappearance.
Although the
Afro-Mexicans were an extensive dominant population during the colonial
period,
by the eighteenth century, they became a negligible population that the
Indians,
Whites and Mestizos supplanted. What accounted form their demographic
decline in
colonial society. The prevalent mestijaze ethos and pernicious racism
caused the
Afro-Mexican gradual population decline in colonial Mexican society.
Nobody knows when the first African
slaves came to Mexico, or
New Spain as it was called, but their numbers grew in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. 1501 marked the earliest date of the Black
slaves
arriving in the Americas from Spain. Blacks served as companions,
servants,
auxiliaries to the Spanish explorers and conquistadors.1
Not till 1519, when Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec empire did Blacks
come to
New Spain. Cortes brought two slaves with him, Juan Cortes and Juan
Garrido.2
Hernan Cortes was the first Spaniard to introduce Blacks to the region.3
Though most Blacks that came to New Spain were slaves, some arrived as
free men.
A few plagued active roles in the Conquest of 1519.4
Cortes, himself, used Black slaves not only in the Conquest but also on
his
plantations.5
1 .Richard
Wright. "Negro Companions of the Spanish Explorers," American
Anthropologist,
vol.4, no.2 (April-June 1902), pp.218-221.
2 .Gerald,
Cardoso. Negro Slavery in the Sugar Plantations of Veracruz and
Pernambucco
1550-1680, (Washington: University Press of America, 1983),pp.10-11.
3 .Bernal
Del Castillo. The True History of the Conquest of Mexico, (New
York:
Robert M. McBride, 1927), pp.78,292.
4 .Peter
Emhart. "A Black Conquistador in Mexico." Hispanic American
Historical Review vol.58 (Nov 1978), p.45.
5 .Ward
Barrett. The Sugar Hacienda of the Marques del Valle,
(Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1970), p.78.
The Conquest of the \Aztec empire
caused the demographic
collapse of the indigenous population (misnomer Indian). The Spaniards
destroyed
the native population of Central Mexico through ruthless means. In
1519,
Mexico had an estimated Indian population of 27,650,000, but by 1532,
it was
reduced to 16,800,600. In 1580, the Indian population had decline
rapidly to
1,900,000. In 1595, it dwindled to 1,375,000. By 1605, the Indians had
reached
1,075,000. Epidemics, diseases, and hard work caused the demographic
collapse of
the Indians. They had no immunity against such European diseases as
smallpox,
measles, yellow fever, malaria, and typhus.
Epidemics destroyed major Indian
population in 1520, 1548,
1576-1579, and 1595-1598.6 The
average Indian family was reduced to only four people, mother-father
and two
children. Other reasons for the native population decline included poor
living
conditions, low birth rates, destructive wars, mass suicides, and so on.7
As a result of the demographic
collapse of the Indian
population, the Spanish Crown progged on by clerics enacted the New
Laws in
1542-1543 to protect Indians form exploitation. Spanish intellectuals
and
clerics, most notably Bartholome de Las Casas, attacked Spanish abuse
of the
Indians. The New Laws, a series of decrees, banned the use of Indians
to engage
in dangerous labor. In 1601, Philip IV barred the use of Indians in
textiles and
sugar mills because the Indians suffered high mortality rates.8
It also sought to prevent whom the total Indian genocide that occurred
in the
West Indies through disease, slaughter and slavery. The Spaniards
regard the
Indians as inferior and too weak to meet the long and arduous labor.9
The Spaniards regarded the Indians as inferior even though they enacted
many
laws to "protect" them. In reality, the Indians fared no better than
the Black slaves. The avaricious Spaniards always found reasons to
enslave the
natives.10
Ironically, the demographic collapse
of the Indians caused
African slavery to be introduced in Mexico. Las Casas was the first
advocate of
African slavery because he was concerned at the genocide of the Indian
population. At the time, he genuinely believed that Black slaves would
serve as
better sources of labor than the Indians. However before his death, Las
Casas
realized that "it was as unjust to enslave Negroes as Indians and for
the
same reasons."11 In addition,
the Spanish Crown abolished Indian slavery in 1542. Indians could not
be sold as
chattel. The Spanish colonists and officials needed a reliable source
of labor
to meet the demands of a nascent colonial society.12
Spanish planters needed labor to work their sugar plantations and
mines, which
required strenuous and patent labor. The Indians could not do this
exacting
labor and the New Laws forbade them from working. However, Black slaves
could
perform this labor-boilers, presses, the sugar refining process.
Spaniards used
them in many ways. Black slaves cost a great deal of money, 200-500
pesos.13
6 .Colin
Palmer, Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1560-1650
(Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1976), p.2.
7 .Sherburne
Cook and Lesley Bryd Simpson, The population of Central Mexico in
Sixteenth
Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1948),
pp.18,46.
8 .Cardoso,p.5,
8 .Oriol
Pi-Sunyer. "Historical Background to the Negro in Mexico." The
Journal of Negro History, vol 42 (October 1957), p.239.
8 .William
H. Dusenberry. "Discriminatory Aspects of Legislation in Colonial
Mexico." The Journal of Negro History, vol. 33, (July 1948),
pp.288-289.
11 .Daniel
P. Mannix and Malcolm Crowley, Black Cargoes: A History of the
Atlantic Slave
Trade, 1518-1865, (New York: Viking Press, 1962), p.5.
12 .Palmer,
p.2.
13 .Francis
Chevalier, Land and Society in Colonial Mexico (Berkeley:
University of
California Press, 1963), pp.79-80, 293.
The introduction, growth, and
development of slavery in
Mexico can be divided in three main periods. The first from 1519 to
1580, lasted
from 1580-1650, and 1650-1827. The first period 1519 to 1780 saw the
slaves
brought with the conquistadors and ended with the typhus epidemic. The
slave
population increased but the Indian declined. The second period,
1580-1650, saw
a strong rise in the demand for slaves. From 1570-1650 the annual slave
averaged
30, 000 to 45,000. After 1580, the African slave trade expansion of the
slave
trade, especially between the years 1595 and 1640. The third period,
1650 to
1827, saw the decline of both the slave trade and the slave population.
During
this period, the Indian population had recovered and the Mestizo
population
grew. Thus, the Spanish officials had people other than Blacks to
fulfill their
labor demands. By its abolition, about 200,000 African born slaves had
been
imported to Mexico.14
Between 1576-1650, the greater part
of this total slave trade
was brought in supplant the native demographic collapse. The total
African slave
imports into Spanish America was approximately 1,552,000 over the slave
trade.15
The average slave came from many parts in Africa, but most of them came
from
West Africa, the areas known as Senegambia and Guinea-Bissau. In the
seventeenth
century, the ethnic composition of the Afro-Mexican slaves changed with
most of
them coming from Central Africa, particularly form Angola and the
Congo. This
ethnic shift occurred because of the English, Dutch and French
challenges to the
Portuguese monopoly of the African slave trade in the Guinea coast.16
Black slaves born in colonial Mexico were called criollos. Those born
in Africa
were called Bozales. A large percentage of the African slaves in
colonial Mexico
came from Angola. Most of the bozales married Black slave women.17
A few Blacks came to Mexico as
freedmen, but the vast
majority arrived as slaves. The Spanish crown and individuals companies
who
granted them the monopoly called the asiento of transporting Black
slaves to the
New World. The Asiento regulated every part of the slave trade,
including age,
sex, number and origins of slaves, parts of which they land and duty
paid on
each Black that entered Mexico. According to the Asiento agreement,
slaves had
to be between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. In addition, a
ratio of two
to three males slaves to every on female slaves was common in the
colonial
period. The Spaniards justified the mistreatment of Black slaves
because they
regard them of mala raza-an inferior, race. Spaniards viewed Blacks as
possessing superhuman strength. The average life of the male slave was
calculated as fifteen working years from the time they arrived in
Mexico.
Spaniards believed that it was cheaper to work African slaves to death
in a few
years and replace them to keep the original slave in a good state of
health.18
Slaves worked in many parts of
Mexican colonial society. They
worked in sugar plantations, silver mines, and obrajes. In the urban
centers,
they worked as domestics, servants, teamsters, gilders, meat cutters,
dyers,
blacksmiths, etc.19 the urban
centers received a greater proportion of Black slaves than the rural
areas. They
littered the towns. A large number of Black slaves in urban areas
existed as
early as 1570. In Mexico city alone, 50, 000- Blacks and mulattos,
slave and
free, lived there. Black slaves performed the most onerous and
demanding work.
They endured the brunt of hard labor and physical punishment. Two
principal
groups of slaves existed: the house slave and the field slave. The
house slaves,
so called "elites" work in the household or artisans. The plantation
slaves or non-elite slaves worked on the plantation and unskilled jobs
in the
mines and obrajes. The Black slaves an unenviable position in society.
Blacks
slaves spent their lives being exploited. Not surprisingly,
Afro-Mexican slaves
suffered high mortality rates. Spaniards had no consciences and
exploited both
the Blacks and Indians.20
Black slaves suffered form high
mortality rates. The
Spaniards oppressed the Black slaves. The Spaniards controlled the
Black slaves.21
Black slaves suffered many diseases, such as occupational. Those that
worked on
the plantations and mines suffered the highest death rates because of
hard,
rigorous work. Blacks slaves suffered form a variety of diseases such
as
syphilis, tuberculosis, measles, yellow fever and dysentery. Domestic
slaves had
a longer life span than plantation slaves. Also, the high mortality and
sex
ratio imbalance of three men to one female prevented the growth of the
Afro-Mexican population.22
In the sixteenth century, the Black
population flourished. As
estimated 104,205 Black slaves went to the Indies, 50,525 or 48.48
percent went
to Mexico. The peak years of slave presence were 1606,1608,1609,1610
and
1616-1621. Up to 1640, Mexico received the largest number of slaves
sent to
Spanish America. Mexico and Peru became the two largest importers of
African
slaves during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.23
The economy of colonial Mexico relied heavily on Black slaves:
The economy
of the Kingdom of New
Spain
relied
extensively on slave labor. It
was primarily
the wealth extracted at
the
expense of
the Negro that made pre-
Independence
Mexico one of the richest
countries in
the world and filled the
coffers of
the King of Spain. The
lodes
of precious
metals, the crash crops,
and what
industry there was, were
dependent on
the Negro for their
labor force.24
14 .Palmer,
p.3,311.
15 .Philip
Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press,
1969), pp.44,123.
16 .Palmer,
p.20.
17 .Edgar
F. Love. "Marriage Patters of Persons of African Descent in a Colonial
Mexico Parish." Hispanic American Historical Review, vol 51,
(February 1971), p.90.
18 .Pi-Sunyer,
pp. 237-238,240-243.
19 .Palmer,
p.43.
20 .Ibid.,pp.37-38,40,45,50,64.
21 .William
H. Dusenberry. "Discriminatory Aspects of Legislation in Colonial
Mexico." The Journal of Negro History, vol. 33, (July 1948),
pp.297.
22 .Palmer,
p.47,49.
23 .Palmer,
pp.1-2,14.
24 .Pi-Sunyer,
p.243.
The gradual decline of the
Afro-Mexican population in
colonial Mexico can also be explain by miscegenation, or mestijaze.
Colonial New
Spain was a society socially stratified along race, class and property.
Each
group in the social hierarchy had rights and duties.25
Morner states that three main types of social stratification existed in
colonial
Mexico: A caste system was a society in which membership was fixed at
birth. The
estate system was an hierarchic society in which the strata was
strictly
determined by laws and customs. They system of classes was based mainly
on
economic differences without legal restrictions in vertical social
mobility. In
addition, classes interact in two main ways: acculturation meant the
mixture of
cultural elements. Assimilation meant the absorption of an individual
people
into another culture. Miscegenation became an important tool in
acculturation
and assimilation.26 Colonial
Mexican society was racially stratified. A clearly defined social and
racial
structure existed of three distinct groups: a white Spanish minority
exercising
economic and political control, a large Indian vanquished population
and a mass
of Black slaves that remained at the lowest rung of the hierarchy.27
The Spaniards arranged a racially
stratified society. Whites
erected a society based on race. Limpieza de Sangre, a Spanish
doctrine,
that discriminated against anyone without pure blood descent form Old
Christian
stock, free of Moorish and Jewish blood, Anyone else with this blood
was viewed
as inferior.28 "Purity of
Blood" meant the absence of Jewish, Muslim or Black ancestors or Blood.
Spaniards used this racial concept based on racism to structure
colonial New
World societies.29 The American
born
Spaniards established an elaborate, contradictory system of racial
classification based on race and color. White blood was held in high
prestige.
Success in colonial Spanish society was depended upon one's Whiteness.30
This racially determined society
encouraged miscegenation or
racial mixture. Crown and Church encouraged miscegenation. Few Spanish
women
accompanied White males, so there existed an imbalance in the
male-female sex
ratio. A few Spaniards marred the daughters of Indian nobility to
facilitate the
Conquest of New Spain.31
White men easily sexually exploit and abused Black and Indian women, so
colonial
Spanish America became miscegenated. Whites treated these women of
color as mere
sexual objects instead of human beings.32
The Spanish conquest of Mexico was a conquest of the women of color.
The
Spaniards obtained these women through force or peaceful means. First,
through
force, they acquired them in wars in economiendas, etc. By peaceful
means, the
Spaniards acquired Indian women in the form of "gifts" as tokens of
friendship, or through labor exploitation in the econmienda.33
After the Conquest of Mexico, the
Spanish always a minority
grew in population. They and their fair skinned descendants enjoyed
privileged
position in the political, societal, and economic echelons in society.34
Alexander Von Humboldt, a contemporary, remarked that Whites had the
greatest
power and privileges in New Spain. However, the society divided whites
into two
groups: Whites born in Europe (called the peninsulars) and descendants
of
Europeans born in the Spanish colonies of America/Asiatic island,
called the
criollos. The Spanish ruled government in colonial Mexico gave all the
privileges to the both the peninsulars and criollos, but the latter
enjoyed less
privileges. Whites ruled Mexico and those inhabitants of New Spain that
did not
have any Black or mulatto blood were most honored in the
race-determined
society. In Spain, not to descent from Jewish or Moorish blood , earned
one a
title of nobility. In America, one's skin color governed what one
status would
have in society. Race and origin served as the basis of Mexican
colonial
society.35
The Spaniards enacted elaborate
racial categories to
distinguish racial categories because thy were a small minority in a
hostile
colonial society filled with hostile majority Blacks and Indians.
Whites their
society according to racial groups:
Peninsular
Creole
Castizo
Mestizo
Mulatto
Negro
Indian36
25 .John
Chance, Race and Class in Colonial Oaxaca. (Stanford University
Press,
1978), pp.174-175.
26 .Magnus
Morner, Race Mixture in Latin America, p.7,5.
27 .Orlando
MetLife. Negro Slavery in Latin America. Berkeley: University
of
California Press, 1975.
28 .Ibid.,p.112.
29 .Chance,
p.98
30 .Stanley
Stein and Stein, Barbara. The Colonial Heritage of Latin America.
(New
York: W.W. Norton, 1970), p.59.
31 .Lesley,
Rout B. The African Experience in Spanish America. (London:
Cambridge
University Press, 1976), pp.127-128,132.
32 .Rout,
p.145.
33 .Morner,
pp.22-25.
34 .Nicolas
Sanchez-Albornoz, The Population of Latin America: A History
(Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), p.70.
35 .Alexander
Von Humboldt. Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (New
York:
Riley, 1811), pp.71,87.
36 .Chance,
p.129
Pi-Sunyer explicates the racial
hierarchy, which delineated
the racial composition, economic and political privileges. First the
peninsular
Spaniards and criollos (elites)., Criollos American born descendants
form
Spaniards colonists with a little Indian and Black. People described
them as
"castizos" having casta and "espanoles americanos."
Peninsular born in Spain and emigrated to Mexico. they enjoyed the best
economic
political and civil offices and controlled commerce industry. Mestizos
were less
hispanized than the criollos culturally and racially more Indian.
Economically
less privileged than criollos and Spaniards. They worked as artisans
and skilled
non-professionals. Casta mobility occurred. Mulattos and Black-Indian
mixed
bloods were free and others slave. By the end of the colonial period a
free
group. They enjoyed little opportunity to cross into the castas. Most
of the
proletariat of the towns came from this group. Blacks suffered severe
racial
discrimination. Most belonged to the slave class and got the most
menial jobs.
Indians were aloof from the colonial society. Whites relegated them to
their
villages, where they worked the land and kept to themselves.37
Whites highly encouraged race mixture
to control the races.
One of the few means of social mobility and still is was to "whiten"
up. As the mixed bloods became in color more "white" and less African
or Indian Mestizo and more white, they passed into the White group. The
peninsular Spaniard belied that the American born White(criollos) had
Black and
Indian blood and ranked them a second-class member of the elite.38
The Spaniards subordinated the
Indians who had suffered a
demographic collapse.
1519 25,200,000
1532 16,800,000
1548 6,300,000
1568 2,650,000
1580 1,900,000
1595 1,375,000
1605 1,075,000 39
In the caste system, the Spaniards
subordinated the Indians,
who maintained their culture and resisted colonial integration. They
remained
into separate ethnic groups because colonial society forced them to
have
corporate communities that were endogamous and subordinate. Indian
communities
remained agrarian similar to pre-Columbian social organization.40
Spanish men sexually exploited Indian
women. Indians and
Whites intermarried. The majority of Spanish men came to New World
alone by
themselves. Spanish men kept Indian mistresses and produced numerous
illegitimate children of mixed raced called mestizos. As a result, many
people
of mixed blood developed in the colony. The legitimate or children of
the
conquistadors (elites) were sometimes considered Spanish in dress,
customs and
education. Spaniards accepted a substantial number of mestizo as apart
of their
group.41 At first the Spanish
Crown and Churches favored mixed marriages, initially favor\ the
Spanish
conquistadors to marry into the Aztec and Inca nobility. Concubinage
became the
rule in Latin America, which remains still true. The result was the
creation of
a large group of mestizo population initially accepted as White.42
Mestizos as a rule strongly
identified with the Spanish
heritage. At the beginning, Mestizos inherited property from their
White
fathers. During the early years, mestizos were recognized by the
Spaniards even
considered Spaniards themselves. Some even took part in the latter
states of the
Conquest.43 White society
regarded
Mestizos as superior to other mixed groups. However, Spaniards
restricted them
as well, they could not join the military or guilds in many towns.
White
regarded many mestizos as dangerous, vicious while others who gained
special
privileges carried guns, and were regarded as Spaniards.44
Another racial caste existed called
castas. The mixed blood.
These consisted of mestizos, mulattos, and zambos into a single
category.45
The Spaniards erected many racial classifications to describe this
group:
Negro pure Black
Mulatto Blanco Spanish and Negro
Mulato Prieto Negro and Pardo
Mulato Lobo Pardo and Indian
Morisco Spanish and Mulato
Mestizo Spanish and Indian
Castizo Spanish and Mestizo
Indians Indians
Indian Ladino Indians who adopted
Spanish language and
customs
Lobo Same as Mulato Lobo
Coyote Mestizo
Chino Negro and Indian
Pardo Negro and Indian
Moreno African descent person
Espanol White 46
Chance observes that the Spaniards
regarded the castas as a
threat. But used them for political ends. Racial assimilation occurred
and
accounted for the small size of the castas. Mestizos, castizos, and
mulattos
assimilated into the creole groups. These groups assimilated through
"marrying up" that is strategic marital alliance. The rising rate of
legitimacy challenge the system of castas. This resulted in a shift
from descent
as a determinant of a social status on phenotype alone.47
Blacks, Mestizos, and mulattos constituted the second largest group.
Their
number and marginal existence made them easy to became integrated into
colonial
society.48 Chance and Taylor
studied the marriage records of Oaxaca between 1793 and 1797. They
found that
creoles and Indians preferred to marry within their own groups whereas
mulattos
and mestizo married outside their groups.49
The Church maintained marriages of people, the Church recorded all
marriages,
births, and baptismal in two separate parochial books: one for
Spaniards and the
other for the castas (persons of mixed blood). The colonial priest was
the one
that listed the ethnic race of couples.50
37 .Pi-Sunyer,
pp.240-242.
38 .Stein,
p.64.
39 .Morner,
p.311.
40 .Aguirre
Beltran, Gonzalo. "The Integration of the Negro into the National
Society
of Mexico." in Race and Class in Latin America by Magnus
Morner.
(New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1970),pp.26-27.
41 .Sherburne
Cook and Woodrow Boreal. Essays in Population History: Mexico and
the
Caribbean), Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979),
pp.181-182.
42 .Sanchez,
p.67.
43 .Morner,
pp.27-28.
44 .Chance,
p.99.
45 .Rout,
p.126.
46 .Love,
p.81.
47 .Chance,
pp.97,175,180.
48 .Beltran,
p.27.
49 .Patricia
Seed and Philip Rust. "Estate and Class in Colonial Oaxaca Revisited."
Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol.25, (October
1983),
p.704.
50 .Love,
pp.80-81.
Afro-Mexican slaves also assimilated
by marrying Indians.
Black male took Indian females because of the unequal male-female sex
ratio
among the Afro-Mexican population. For every three Afro-Mexican males,
only one
Black female existed. Black slaves turned to Indian females. Second,
Black
slaves married Indians , so their children would be free. Because
children born
of free women and
slave fathers were free. The status
followed the mother, and
would pass Indian casta.51 In
Mexico few Black women were imported. Blacks found mates among the
large Indian
population. Black slaves saw the advantages of Having children by
Indian women
who would be free at birth. Frequent intermarriage occurred between
mestizos and
mulattos.52 Similarly, many
Indian
women would marry Black males than their fellow Indian males. Morner
purports
that Indians women were sexually attracted to Black men. Black men had
a
reputation of being "boundless voluptuous." Indian women preferred
Black male slaves over their own Indian husbands.53
The Afro-Mexican Slave sought to
improve his children by
taking Indians as his wife. He knew that his children would be free
occurrent
the so called zambos. Children of Afro-Indians unions could live with
their
parent in become Indian and live in the Indian villages. Mulattos/Black
who both
land could not live in the Indian villages nor could Spaniards or
Mestizos for
that matter. The Spanish Crown became alarmed at the growing zambo
population.
Viceroy Martin Enriquez of New Spain sought to end Afro-Indian unions
and
freedom of the zambos.54
The Spaniards attempted with little
success to restrict
Indian-Afro unions. In the seventeenth century, Blacks could not reside
in the
Indians town. The Spaniards feared an alliance between Indians and
Blacks and
African influences on Indians. The earliest measure to control
relations between
the Indians and Afro-Mexicans occurred in 1547, 1563, 1568, 1607, 1626,
1632,
and 1654. The colonial records contained hostile actions between
Afro-Mexicans,
slaves and free. Spaniards accused them of everything including theft,
abduction, murder, disorder., and so on. Afro-Mexicans had a reputation
of
abusing Indians. Spaniards used Afro-Mexicans as supervisors for over
Indian
laborers. Blacks unleashed their hostility on the weaker Indians.
Indians and
Blacks never could unite in a common rebellion against Spanish society
because
of the Spaniard divide and rule. Tow of the most despised groups Blacks
and
Indians would unleash their violence at each other instead of their
oppressors.55
The Spaniards treated the Indians and
Blacks differently.
They considered Blacks as great laborers but the Indians as too weak.
Whites
stigmatized both Blacks and Indians and pitted them against each other.56
The Spaniards maintained divine and rule among the Indians and Blacks.
The
Spaniards used the Black against the Indians and played upon their
differences
not their commonalities. They used Blacks to exploit the Indians and
vice versa.57
Spanish colonial authorities discouraged Afro-Indian unions and viewed
Blacks
and Indians as inferior to them. They despised the zambos.58
.Some Blacks hated Indians. Many had contempt for them Indians who they
regarded
as weak.59
The Spanish officials came up with a
plan to keep the Indians
apart form the Spaniards, Blacks and castas. The Crow issued decrees to
force
the Indians to live in their villages. The Whites wanted to maintain
their White
enclave of cities. Spaniards feared Black and Indian unions and a
rebellion and
that they would join forces against them. Both of these groups
outnumbered
Whites. Spanish officials believed that the Blacks bad influence on the
Indians
population. Whites viewed them as corruptible and vices on the Indians.
The
Spaniards viewed the Blacks and Indians as ignorant, superstitions, etc.60
Blacks always participated in Indians rebellions. Blacks formed
alliance with
the Indians from the very beginning. Royal forces proved disastrous and
could
never control the uprisings that continued to played Mexico until
Independence.61
White officials devised ploys and
schemes to limit
Afro-Indians contacts. In 1563, the king barred Blacks and mulattoes
from living
in India villages. Indian rulers had to be punishes and expel Blacks
from living
in their villages. They could not trade with Indians nor dress in
Indian
clothes. The Crown forbade Afro-Indian marriages and they could not
associate
with each other.62
The most crucial caste for this study
was the Blacks. White
males sexually abused Black females often worked as upper domestics in
upper
White homes. White males used them as concubines and mistress. The
children born
of these sexual unions became slaves.63
White males sexually exploited Black females keeping them as
concubines, and
mistresses. Spanish colonial society condoned the sexual exploitation
of Black
females whether slave or free.64
Despite their attraction for Black females, rarely would a White male
marry some
person of Africa descent.65
Rarely
did they recognize their Black illegitimate children. The mixed bloods
were
called mulattos.66
51 .Pi-Sunyer,
p.243.
52 .Stein,
p.63.
53 .Orlando
MetLife. Negro Slavery in Latin America. (Berkeley: University
of
California Press, 1975 pp.30-31.
54 .Love,
pp.132,135.
55 .Palmer,
pp.60-64.
56 .Montiel,
Martinez, Luz Maria. "Integration Pattern and the Assimilation Process
of
Negro Slaves in Mexico." In Comparative Perspectives on Slavery in
New
World Plantation Societies, ed. Vera Rubin and Arthur Tuden. New
York: New
York Academy of Sciences, 1977, p.447.
57 .Jonathan
Israel, Race, Class and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 1610-1670.
(London:
Oxford University Press, 1975), p.73.
58 .Rout,
p.144.
59 .Israel,
p.67.
60 .Edgar
Love.” Legal Restrictions on Afro-Indian relations in Colonial Mexico, The
Journal of Negro History, vol 55, no.2 (April 1970), pp.131-132.
61 .Motile,
p.453.
62 .Love,
pp.132-133.
63 .Pi-Sunyer,
p.243.
64 .Palmer,
pp.184-185.
65 .Love,
1971, p.90.
66 .Chance,
p.66.
White males sexually abused Black
females throughout the
colonial period. Travelers remarked how Spanish males preferred Blacks
females
over their own White women. White males had a great attraction for
Black
females. The result was a large creation of Afro-Spaniard.67
Spanish males sometimes free their mulatto children. Slave mothers
found
godfathers to free their mixed blood. If Afro-Spaniards appeared White,
mostly
they would be free. Many Afro-Spaniards became free, but suffered from
other
forms of invidious discrimination such as illegitimacy and racism. Few
Spaniards
males married a Black female, which they regarded, and inferior. Both
parents
might abandoned the mulatto. Rarely if ever, did Afro- Spaniards
inherit their
White fathers estate.68 Whites
regarded the mulattos, or mixed Afro-Spaniards negatively, attributing
them
negative qualities such as adulterous, illegitimacy. The taint of Black
blood
mad them inferior to Whites and mestizos. The colonial government
viewed
mulattos as a separate class antagonistic to the government. Whites
ranked
mulattos below mestizos in the late sixteenth and rarely seventeenth
centuries
despite them coming from similar social and economic backgrounds.
Mulattos had
to pay tribute separate form the Indians . The Spaniards restricted
them in
dress, movement and weapons. Viceroyal decrees forbade mulattos and
Blacks to
form religious confraternities, assemble in large groups, own their
homes. Women
of color could not wear dress in silk or jewelry form gold, silver or
peals.
Unemployed mulattos had to works as household servants if they "known
masters,: or pain of 200 lashes and five years of forced labor in the
Philippine. Only tow Blacks could be with a Spaniard in public.69
Mulatto slaves married free women and avoided slave women. They refused
to marry
Black women instead. Mulatto females married into the other free case.70
The data on the freedmen population
is scant, but the mulatto
component of the at group continually increased throughout that period.
Most
freemen lived in Mexico city, puebla and Vera Cruz having the largest
population
estimated at 8,000 Afro-Mexicans. By 1650, freedmen numbered between
15,000 and
20,000 because of natural increase. and Whites fearing their mulatto
children
and mistresses. After 1600, the slave expanded with a rise in free
population.
Evidence indicated that the free population was predominantly female
and
mulattos. whites feared the mulattos less than Blacks. As a result,
they freed
them because they believed the mulatto to be genetically superior to
his pure
African descent brother. Spanish racism fostered mulattos upward social
mobility. Mulattos identified with Whites and their Spanish ancestry
and negated
their African roots. The Spaniards employed a pernicious racism aimed
at
rejecting people of African descent and pitting lighter Skinned Blacks
against
darker skinned ones.71
The caste system based on race
restricted and discourage
Blacks from developing a viable separate race:
This pattern also implies an
assimilation
process, as Negroes lost almost all
their
original culture, retaining only some
physical characteristics, which were
greatly
diluted by their mixing. The
assimilation of
Negroes is due, among other reasons,
to their compulsory role
of mixing with others to create
the colonial caste system.72
Free Blacks sometimes got married .
Many Blacks and mulattoes
could not afford the expense of marriage. A large percentage of people
of
African descent did not get married. The increase of the Black
population
resulted from many mixed illegitimate children.73
The Afro-Mexican obtained their
freedom through other ways.
Many obtained their freedom through purchase, military prowess,
military
service, faithful service. Blacks could obtained their manumission in
three
ways: 1) manumission by the owner; 2) various forms of purchase; 3)
continuing
process of racial mixture. Manumission was obtained in many ways. Slave
gave
along and faith serves, owners free them in las will and testament, or
a letter
of manumission.74 Still other
slaves obtained their freedom through running away. Urban slaves found
refuge in
large cities where thy could pass as freemen. The rural slaves went to
mountains
where they started palenques and fought for their freedom, called
cimarones.
Maroons fought against the colonial authorities. Their existence defied
the
colonial order, which enslave Black people. they served as "bad
examples" to the slave s. Neither the maroons or the Spanish
authorities
could destroy each other, so a compromise was reached the signing of
treaties
throughout the colonial period to establish maroon towns.75
Some slaves were freed conditionally
by their owners and
others had condition attached to them. Whites freed elderly or crippled
class
who could no longer work for them. However. Humanitarian reasons did
not drive
whites to free them only economic ones that relieve them of supporting
these
useless slaves.76 Most rural
slaves were in no position to raise enough money to buy their freedom.
The free
colored population found its origins and the urban areas in the
sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.77 By
the
1600,000, a large part of the Black population was creole, born in
Mexico.
Mulattos outnumbered the Blacks three to one. Estimates of their
numbers was
140,09000.78
67 .Frederick
Bowser, "The Free Persons of Color in Mexico City and Lima: Manumission
and
Opportunity, 1580-1650." In Race and Slavery in the Western
Hemisphere,
ed. Stanley Engerman and Eugene Genovese. Princeton: Princeton
University Press,
1975, p.347.
68 .Bowser,
pp.348-349.
69 .Chance,
pp.101-102,124.
70 .Love,
1971, pp.88-89.
71 .Palmer,
pp.179,186.
72 .Mantel,
p.448.
73 .Love,
1971., p.83.
74 .Bowswer,
pp.338,340,345.
75 .Beltran
in Morner, pp.15-16,20-21.
76 .Palmer,
pp.173-174.
77 .Bowser,
p.334.
78 .Israel,
p.68.
Estimates motives played the crucial
role in fostering
miscegenation. Whites had all the advantages on the in the colonial
society.
Mixed races bribed officials to declare them "whites" on baptismal
records.79 Many mixed Blood
families often petitioned from court to be declared they belong to
"whites." Very dark skinned mulattos declared with a problematical
statement" "that such and such individual may consider themselves as
whites."80 Because of the
many whites enjoyed, many Blacks destined to be Whites. Miscegenation
served as
a tool of social and racial mobility. Successive racial intermixture
generation
after generation with Whites and Indians transformed the Black
population into
mixed bloods, zambos, castas,. Blacks preferred to be mestizos or
Whites. They
tried to approximate the White ideal.81
The Afro-Mexican escaped discrimination and oppression by passing the
color line
from Afro-Mexican caste to a Euro-Mexican one. It was one of the
general
integration patterns during the colonial period. Blacks became
assimilated into
the caste system of compulsory mixing.82
However, a few scholars claim that barriers existed to Blacks
assimilating into
White society. In the racial hierarchy, Blacks could never become
whites though
miscegenation no mater how many White blood coursed through their
views.
Mestizos could become white though racial intermixture but not Black,
mulattos,
octoroons.83
Race mixture fostered the growth of
the free Black and
mulatto populations. The populated Latin America with separate races.:
the
European, the African the and the Indian. In colonial times, the
Spanish crown
assimilated the free colored population. The Spanish officials
organized
mulattos into guilds, tributes militia and societies. The free colored
associated with others of their racial origin. Forces caused the racial
absorption of the free colored community into the mixed blood
population. By
1650, extensive racial mixture occurred. Free Afro-Mexicans realized
the great
advantages to "whitening" themselves. The mulattos enjoyed advantages
excluded to the Black slaves. the colonial Mexican society absorbed the
free
colored population. As a result of their explosion, Whites mixed with
the free
colored population generation after generation. Whites absorbed mixed
groups.
The free colored remained at the bottom of the societal latter
gradually
"whitening" through miscegenation to improve their status in society.84
Gradual miscegenation among the
dominant Whites resulted in
the absorption of many Blacks and Indian genes into the Spanish White
segment of
society. By the 18th century, there occurred a gradual change in
phenotypic
lighting of dark, mulattoes, blacks persons of white. Dark skinned
group
(castas, Indians and Blacks) tried to approximate the White somatic
norm to
achieve social security and mobility. Discrimination dark phenotypes
experience
the most discrimination as opposed to the lightest skin group Social
mobility
mean "bleaching" or racial upgrading important of the sistema de
castas.85 Beltran contends
that
Blacks integrated into Mexican society during the formation of the
national
society. Blacks became caught up in the process of racial mixing which
accounted
for the population decline:
The integration of the Negro
population
into the national society is, in fact,
a process, which began with the
transfer
of Negroes to the European colonies in
America. This process continued during
the three centuries of foreign
domination
and the first century of the national
era,
and today it is in its final stage.
It took
place in three centuries where
Negroes were
an important segment of the total
population
and in certain other countries, such
as Mexico,
where miscegenation has blurred the
original
difference, but where a few isolated
nuclei
of Negroes can still be identified by
their
racial characteristics.86
Because of miscegenation of the
Afro-Mexican population never
formed more than two (2 percent of the total Mexican population during
the
colonial period.87
In order for a group to remain
separate, two conditions most
exist for any ethnic group or minority to remain racially distinct: 1)
the
minority must have a set of different characteristics that call for
cohesion; 2)
the set of obstacles that force it to remain separate.88
Factors contributed to the immersion of the Afro-Mexican into the large
casta
population. Miscegenation and slaver were interrelated. In fact,
slavery
fostered miscegenation. Spaniards found the power, opportunity and
means to
sexually abuse women of color.89
The basic function of the sistema de
castas was the maintain
the power base of the Spanish white elite. The elite defined the
sistema de
castas represent the principal social strata in colonial Mexican
society. White
skin served as the prerequisite to many prestigious jobs. Race served
as an
ascriptive characteristics that could not be changed. In reality many
mixed
groups did pass as "white." Elite racist view of society reflected in
the sistema de castas. Socioeconomic factors became important and
slowly
threaten the racial system. by the late seventeenth century, Whites
viewed mixed
groups as a threat. Many of the castas merged into the White population.90
79 .Mellafe,
p.118.
80 .Von
Humboldt, p.88.
81 .Mellafe,
p.118.
82 .Montiel,
p.448.
83 .Rout,
p.131.
84 .Bowser,
pp.346,360-362.
85 .Chance,
p.176.
86 .Beltran
in Morner, pp.11-12.
87 .Palmer,
pp.38-39.
88 .Beltran
in Morner, p.22.
89 .Marvin
Harris, Patterns of Race in the Americas, (New York: Walker and
Company,
1967), pp.68-69.
90 .John
Chance and William Taylor. "Estate and Class in Colonial City: Oaxaca
in
1792" Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol 19.
(october1977), pp.437-439.
The Afro-Mexican population declined
by the eighteenth
century. Though a large number of African slaves had been imported, by
the
1709s, they numbered at the most ten thousand, most of whom lived in
Acapulco
and Veracruz.*91 The most
renown
expert on the Afro-Mexican, Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran, states that
the
disappearance of the Afro-Mexican was through race mixture "the
majority
(negroes had diluted their blood by union with the aborigines and
Whites, thus
giving rise to the mixture of bloods that form the biological basis of
Mexican
nationality."92
Many Afro-Mexicans fought to pass as
Whites. Many
fair-skinned mulattos passed for Whites, moving from a lower to a
higher social
position. In the latter part of the colonial period, miscegenation had
official
sanction and support. If Afro-Mexican could not pass for White, they
could buy
the title of Blanco (white) gracias al sacar to pass the color bar, or
have the
audiencia declare them "que se tengan por blancos" (they may be rear
themselves as whites. It served as the legal means to denote legal
White
washing. Their economic circumstances and inferior social status
limited the
number of Afro-Mexicans to by "whiteness." Dark skinned mulatto
experienced obstacles to passing as White or had to be audacious to
challenge
"la linea de color."93
Diggs observes that color determined
entre into colonial
Mexican society. It determined if one would be admitted into
prestigious jobs or
university. Mexican society was based on race and skin color. It
created a
pigmentocractic society. The racial classification considered also
other
criteria to determine race, such as texture, hair color, eye color,
body
structure, face width, nose for . An inordinate account of racial
nomenclature
occurred of ethic types, such as castizos, moriscos, albinos, chinos,
torno-atras, coyoites, ahi te estas, no te entiendo, zabos, mulattos,
and o on.
>From generation to generation, the ethnic composition and hence
description
became more and more complex. Precise description and classification
became
difficult if not impossible. The Spaniards applied names to describe
mixed
bloods out of mockery, scorn, and contempt. Some of their names had
zoological
origins that mean mule , coyote, work cow, . For example
1) el salta-atras un tornas atras (
person with rear
characteristics born to a white family)
2) el tente en el aire (neither
progress nor retrogression in
color)
3) no te entiendo (I do not
understand you)
4) ahi te estas (here you are)
5) gibarro (wild)
6) albarrazado (affected with White
leprosy)
7) cambuyo (a term to insult to dark
people)
8) zambo ( a very fierce African
Monkey with a dog like
head). .94
Afro-Mexican women contributed to the
growth of the horros,
free Blacks, who by the eighteenth century became more numerous than
the
Afro-Mexican slaves population. In 1563, the Spanish king recognized
the unions
between Black women and Whites males. He
declared it acceptable for White
fathers to buy their mulatto
slave children by Black slave women. For the Afro-Mexican population ,
racial
mixture the escape route into a racist and pigmentocratic society.
Though the
Church and Crown proved of interracial marriages and concubinage, they
recognized these unions. Free Blacks merged into the hombre mezclado.95
Pernicious racism also accounted for
the decline of the
Afro-Mexican population in the colonial period in Mexico. The
Afro-Mexican
experience an hostile Spanish colonial society. The Spaniard viewed
Afro-Mexicans as inferior evil ones of mala raza (bad race, mala casta
(gad
caste) and a bad influence for the Indian. The Spaniards constantly
referred to
them as vile, vicious, arrogant, bold bestial:
By thinking of the Afro-Mexicans as
inherently evil, and by ascribing to
them all manner of negative
characteristics, Spaniards could
avoid thinking of them
as men deserving of equal rights.
Furthermore, by embracing such beliefs
about the Africa, Spaniards and a
ready
made rationalization for Black
enslavement,
and one, which simultaneously
assuaged their consciences.96
Because of this racist view of Black
people, the Spaniards
erect many legal restriction on the Afro-Mexican population both slave
and free.
The Spaniards reflected their racism and antagonism towards
Afro-Mexicans in
their laws. The Spaniards regarded themselves as gente de razon (people
of
reason) establish a social system geared at maintain their alleged
"purity
of blood" to protect their elitist positions and relegate people of
color
at the lowest rung of the social ladder. The Spaniards erected an
elaborate
color bar (la linea de color a) and a caste (casta) system to
accomplish these
racial objectives. The Spaniards imposed on people of color, especially
the
Afro-Mexican population restrictions regarding dress, marriage,
education labor
and almost everything else. The free Afro-Mexican had to pay tribute,
could not
carry arms, not accepted into eccelesiatic orders, not allowed to wear
gold ,
pearls, silk, forbidden to go after dark, could not hide horses, live
with
Indians.97
Numerous Spanish colonial laws in
Mexican discriminated
against the Afro-Mexican population. The Spaniards feared Blacks would
destroy
the. A double standard existed into the law between Spaniards and
people of
color. One laws existed for the Spaniards and a more harsh one for the
people of
color. Numerous laws, decrees, cedulas, and ordinances restricted the
movement,
freedom, jobs, land of Afro-Mexican , slave or free.98
Blacks could not carry weapons if any ever. The Spaniards barred Blacks
from
participating the social, economic and political life of Mexican
colonial
society.99 The Spanish
authorities
imposed tribute of the free Afro-Mexican population. They had to
register with
the Caja de Negro. For the payment of tribute. Afro-Mexicans paid
tribute in the
poll tax, even among mulattos, which was required, till the end of the
colonial
period.100 The Crown required
Afro-Mexican couples to pay two pesos annually and single persons one
peso. The
Crown exempted the poor, the elderly and women without means from the
tribute.101
91 .Love,
need citation, p.89.
92 .Gonzalo
Aguirre Beltran. "The Slave Trade in Mexico." Hispanic American
Historical Review, vol.24 (August 1944), p.,431.
93 .Love
in 1976, pp.92-93.
94 .Irene
Diggs. "Color in Colonial Spanish America." The Journal of Negro
History, vol 38, no. 4 (October 1953), pp.404-407.
95 .Love,
1967. pp.102-103.
96 .Palmer,
pp.42,183.
97 .Love,
pp.90-91.
98 .Dusenberry,
pp.284-285,291,293-294.
99 .Mellafe,
p.114.
100 .Beltran
in Morner, p.17.
101 .Palmer,
p.183.
The Afro-Mexicans realized that their
"free" status
did not mean they would get better treatment than their slave
counterparts. In
1577, a royal cedula required free Afro-Mexicans to live with well
known
Spaniards. Afro-Mexicans could not leave without permission form
Spanish
official. Most of the restrictions on the Afro-Mexican applied to the
Afro-Mexican slaves.102 The
free
Afro-Mexican population fared little better than their slave
counterparts.
Colonial Mexican society failed to give a viable position to the
Afro-Mexican.
The free Afro-Mexican existed as a "marginal man" in a hostile and
repressive environment.103 The
Black that to escape slavery to gain his freedom. A free Afro-Mexican
had a
restricted freedom. He was between a slave and vassal, and suffered
form the
status of slavery.104
The Afro-Mexican population
experienced virulent and
pernicious racism more than any other group, society relegated them to
the
lowest rung of the ladder. Spaniards feared the Afro-Mexican and saw
them as a
source of unrest. The Spanish government regarded them as illegitimate
and
inferior and prevent them from social-economic and political
advancement in
commerce, education, institutions, professionals and guilds. Even the
Church
discriminated against Afro-Mexicans.105
Free-Afro-Mexicans experienced severe
discrimination in
professions Artisans, merchants, and professionals prevented membership
of
Afro-Mexicans, slave or free. The guilds barred free Afro-Mexicans form
obtaining honest occupations. Spanish prevented free Afro-Mexicans to
enter the
profession, religions, orders. As a result, many Afro-Mexicans lived
marginal
existence in theft, prostitution, and vagabond.106
Despite many Afro-Mexicans suffering from racial prejudice and
illiteracy a few
managed to find C in the craft industry. Though barred from most guild
a few
admitted them but prevented them from becoming masters. At most, the
Afro-Mexican became a journeymen. Only two guilds allowed Afro-Mexicans
to
obtain the status of masters: the candle makers and leather dresses.
Another
option for the Afro-Mexicans to work in the urban centers, where they
worked as
domestic workers, common laborers, porters, shoemakers and clog
masters, vendor
and itinerant trades. As a rule, freemen (especially the
unskilled)earned very
meager wages. In certain circumstances, slave could be used under
certain
situations in the . Some guild not all . Most Afro-Mexicans lived
worked
constantly under a Spanish master, slave or free.107
The free Blacks and mulattos had to compete with the Afro Mexican slave
for the
scare skilled and unskilled jobs. Free laborers worked long and harder
than
slaves. Moreover, free labor was cheap.108
Despite brutal racism a few Afro-Mexicans accrued modest fortunes for
themselves
and their children. But the vast majority of the Afro Mexican
population were
born in to poverty and died in poverty. Free Afro-Mexican women faced a
particular discrimination. They could not participate in the crafts
because the
men controlled it. Most free Afro-Mexican worked as vendors,
housekeepers,
servants, and wet nurses.109
102 ..Love
in 1967, p.92.
103 .Palmer,
p.190.
104 .Beltran
in Morner, p.15.
105 .Bowser,
pp.253-354.
106 .Beltran
in Morner, pp.18-19.
107 .Palmer,
pp.180-1812,45.
108 .Beltran
in Morner, p. 19.
109 .Bowser,
pp.358-359.
Because of the pernicious racism,
Afro-Mexicans had an
inevitable and precarious position fin colonial Mexican society. The
Afro-Mexican slave was one of the most oppressed. The free an
intermediate
between slave and free. the Spaniards barred the integration of the
Afro-Mexican
social mobility. Spaniards developed in genius means for the
subordination of
Blacks.110 The Spaniards trade
the
Afro-Mexican a marginal man. The Afro-Mexican had status of slave and
free. As a
result, they forced Afro-Mexicans to live as outcasts and engage in
criminal
behavior, living as vagabond, robbers, murders.111
The Spaniard clearly circumscribed Afro-Mexicans both slave and free.
The
Spaniards marginalized Afro-Mexicans because they lived in a hostile
society.
Many Afro- Mexicans shoed their alienation by defying societal rules
and laws.
This defiance took the form of deviant behavior, such as robbery,
theft,
vandalism the property of Spaniards and some Indians. Many
Afro-Mexicans became
a part of this rootless urban proletariat. Spaniards refused to grant
Blacks
rights of full participation in socio-economic affairs of society.
Barred from
many jobs, schools, professions, Afro-Mexican plague the racist
colonial Mexican
society. The Spaniards regard Afro-Mexicans criminal behavior as
showing of the
bad race. Rarely if even did the Spaniards grant privileges to
Afro-Mexicans, as
a group, only to individually Black who had Spanish sponsor.112
Not all Afro-Mexicans followed the
laws. Some found ways to
circumvent or ignored the discriminatory legislation. Other
Afro-Mexicans openly
defied the laws, by wearing whatever they wanted. Still others
petitioned or
sued the colonial government to be exempted from tribute or other
restrictions.113
Other reason accounted for the
decline of the Afro-Mexican
population in the colonial period. the Spaniards feared Black and
Indian
revolts. In consequence, the Spaniards not only barred them from
engaging in
political affairs, but forced the free Afro-Mexican males into militia
service
to put down revolts, rebellions and insurrections. Free Afro-Mexican
males had
to perform military duty for the colony. Colored troops existed in most
of the
important cities in the colony with White officers commanding them. The
Spaniards permitted Afro-Mexicans certain privileges such as exemption
from
tribute and use of military weapons that their group generally did not
enjoy.114
The Spaniards feared the large Black population in the
sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. They believed that their large numbers would
be a
threat to the small White minority.115
The Spaniards feared the Afro-Mexican
slave conspiracies and
rebellions. Slave conspiracies abounded in colonial Mexico. The
Spaniards
ruthlessly crushed the slave plot of 1537 in Mexico city. After 1537,
for eight
years, the Spaniards barred the importation of African slaves. The
Spaniards
also crushed the slave plots of 1546 and the insurrections in Pachuca,
Guanajuato, and other regions.116
In 1609 and 1612 conspiracies were discovered. In 1616, another
uprisings
occurred. Revolts took place in the 1620s and 1630s.117
In colonial Mexico, many rebellions, insurrections and conspiracies. It
was a
period filled with political, economic and social turmoil. In fact, one
scholar
state that over 100 rebellions and insurrections occurred in Mexico
during the
period 1523-1823. These rebellions incited a rebellion spirit among the
oppressed class Afro-Mexicans did not participate in most these
rebellions, but
it affected them, making them more rebellions. Mexico be came one of
the first
places in America to fight against slavery.118
Afro-Mexicans also fought against colonial rule by establishing runaway
villages
called marrons. Their separate identity fought the assimilation and
integration
of Spanish colonial society. In 1608, the fist existed.119
110 .Palmer,
p.186.
111 .Beltran
in Morner, p.21.
112 .Palmer,
pp.179,182,184.
113 .Bowser,
p.354.
114 .Beltran
in Morner, pp.17-18.
115 .Pi-Sunyer,
pp.239.
116 .Love
in 1967,pp.96-98.
117 .Dasvison,
p.251.
118 .Love
in 1967,p.95.
119 .Montiel,
p.454.
Pernicious racism accounted for the
abolition of the slave
trade and African slaves. The Spaniards exploited the Black slave form
Conquest
o Independence. They relied on Afro-Mexican labor for their survival as
the
Indians population decline. However, the Indian population recovered
and a
mestizo group emerged, the Spaniards no longer African slave. Decline
if slave
based economy occurred. Spaniard now turned to the Indians and mestizos
to
fulfill their labors. Contrary to other New World societies in Cuba and
Brazil,
Mexico relied less on slave labor, which lasted a shorter duration.
Cuba and
Brazil depended on slave labor much more longer. In fact, the Mexican
slave
population was quite small in comparison to other societies: Jamaica
had 345,000
in 1817; Cuba had 375,000; United States had 3,953,760. Brazil had
1,510,806.
Mexico had a much larger Indian population than other New World
societies.120
The Afro-Mexican slave represented less that two percent of the
colonial society
during the seventeenth century. In eighteen century, the Afro-Mexican
population
declined to 6,000person., By the late eighteenth century, the Indian
population
had recovered to fulfill the labor demands in the mines, textiles and
agriculture.121
Another reason that the Afro-Mexican
population was through
the government racist mixture. The war of independence enacted
legislation that
declared the equality of all inhabitants of New Spain. On September 27,
1822,
Congress enacted the Plan de Igualo, which barred the classification of
person
by races in official documents. The Criollo dominated government they
forced the
Indians to miscegenation with the rest of the population. IT favored
racial
fusion so that one single race preferable White would replace all the
others. By
the beginning of the 19th century, the sought to "whiten" the entire
Mexican population. The Criollos encouraged European immigration and
barred
Asians, Blacks. The failed and comprised with the Mestizos. The Indians
population declined in absolute numbers.122
The descendents of Afro-Mexicans lost their African heritage and became
absorbed
the greater casta. By the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, they
merged into
the dominant casta. The Afro-Mexican played a major role in the
revolution of
Mexican Independence movement of the castas, today incorrectly called
the
mestizos. By the nineteenth century, the Afro-Mexican merged into the
dominant
casta groups.123 By 1810, the
assimilation of Afro-Mexican was almost complete with only 0.1 percent
full
blood Blacks and 10.1 percent of Blacks breed in a population of
6,125,000.124
Mexico abolished its slave trade in 1817. In September 27, 1822 the
Criollo
government ended the colonial caste system, removing such terms as
mulatto,
pardo, zambo. In 1829, Mexico abolished all slavery at least on paper.125
Though not the focus of this paper,
the Afro-Mexican
population did not disappear or become extinct even though it decline
in
population with the maturation of the colonial society. On the
contrary, the
Afro-Mexican still exist in contemporary Mexican society. The last
racial census
that the Mexican government took occurred in 1921 estimated
Afro-Mexicans at
120,000 to 300,000 in 1930 and 1940 listed as Afro-Mexicans. Rout
estimates that
they represent one percent of the Mexican population, which is a
considerable
amount.126 They also exist in
the
Southern Mexican *states of Veracruz, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and so on.127
120 .Palmer,
pp.187-188.
121 .Herbert
Klein, AFrican Slavery in LatinAmerican and the Caribbean (New
York:
Oxford University PRess, pp.36,83.
122 .Moises
Gonzalezz Navarro. "Mestizaje in Mexicao During the National Period." Race
and Class in Latin Aemrica, pp.146-149,154.
123 .Carroll,
p.132.
124 .Montiel,
p.450.
125 .Rout,
p.279.
126 .Roput,
p.280.
127 .Beltan
in Morner, p.14.
In conclusion, the Afro-Mexican
population declined in the
colonial period. Several generalization can be made. The Afro-Mexican
population
changed from slave to free colored population. Race. It was absorbed
through
racial intermixture. The Afro-Mexican population did not decline but
was
absorbed into o the larger mixed race known as the castas. The
afro-Mexican
population changed from slave to free, rural to urban. Most of the
population
was women and children. feminization of the free Afro-MExican
population by the
eighteenth century. Manumission process favored Afro-Mexican females
and their
children. Urban slaves favored more than rural slaves. Prejudice and
racism
limited the access of Afro-Mexican to larger society. Economic security
could be
obtain through strategic marital alliance and military services.
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Miscegenagtion and Racism: The
Afro-Mexican in
Colonial Mexico
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