[News] Mexico Welcomed Fugitive Slaves

[Anti-Imperialist News]

from the Africans for Cuba list serve
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricansForCuba/

MEXICO WELCOMED FUGITIVE SLAVES AND AFRICAN AMERICAN JOB-SEEKERS:
New Perspectives on the Immigration Debate

Ron Wilkins
Patrice Lumumba Coalition
-------------------------------------------------------------
RW is a former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) and is presently a professor in the Department of
Africana Studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills
------------------------------------------------------------

There are of course, many angles from which to view the escalating
immigration debate. Mexican immigrants, who constitute the largest
share of the undocumented, have a unique history with the African
population inside the United States. As the Black community weighs
in on this very contentious issue, it becomes necessary for us
( both black and brown) to review the history that we share.

However, before reviewing our history together, I need to say
unequivocally that the U.S. seizure of more than half of Mexico's
territory in 1848 netted Washington more than 80% of Mexico's
fertile land and was a criminal act. And that if Mexico today,
still included California and Texas, she would possess more oil
than Saudi Arabia and have sufficient economic infrastructure to
employ all of her people. When Mexican people say that "the border
crossed us, we did not cross the border", they speak the truth, and
more black people (most of whom are not strangers to oppression,
exploitation, domination and exclusion) need to appreciate that.

It has been said that for most of the 19th century, Mexican
immigrants were more highly regarded by African Americans, than any
other immigrant group. What may account for this, at least in part,
is the enormous if not pivotal role undertaken by black fighters in
the war to secure Mexican independence from Spain and abolish
slavery. Unfortunately, many of us repeat the falsehoods of our
adversaries and have forgotten our special relationship with
Mexican and Indigenous peoples.

It is time that our memories be restored and that the naysayers and
nativist negroes among us either put up or shut up. What follows is
the little known history of Mexico serving as a refuge for fugitive
slaves and a provider of job opportunities for blacks emigrating
from  the U.S. to Mexico.


Mexico as a Haven for Fugitive Slaves

 From the very beginning of his Texas colonization scheme, a
determined and deceitful Stephen Austin sought to have Mexican
officials acquiesce to the settlement of slave-owning whites into
the territory. It was generally acknowledged that the people and
government of Mexico abhorred slavery and were determined to
prohibit its practice within the Mexican republic. Beginning in
1822, at least 20,000 Anglos, many with their slave property,
settled into Texas. Jared Groce, one of  the first of Stephen
Austin's Texas settlers that year, arrived with 90 enslaved
Africans. The Mexican Federal Law of  July 13, 1824 clearly favored
and promoted the emancipation of slaves. Mexico had even stipulated
that it was prepared to compensate North American owners of
fugitive slaves. Determined instead to have things their way,
Anglos began to press for an extradition treaty which would require
Mexico to return fugitive slaves.

 From 1825 until the end of the Civil War in 1865, Mexican
authorities continuously thwarted attempts by slave-holding Texas
settlers, to conclude fugitive slave extradition treaties between
the two parties.  During this period of extremely tense relations
between the two governments, Mexico consistently repudiated and
forbade the institution of slavery in its territory, while U.S.
officials and Texas slave-owners continuously sought ways to
circumvent Mexican law. The Mexican authorities thwarted repeated
attempts by slave-holding Texas settlers, to conclude fugitive
slave extradition treaties between the two parties.

In 1826 the Committee of Foreign Relations of the Mexican Chamber
of Deputies refused to compromise on the issue of fugitive slaves
and defended the right of enslaved Africans to liberate themselves.
Mexican government officials cited "the inalienable right which the
Author of nature has conceded to him (meaning enslaved persons)".
Congress member Erasmo Seguin from Texas commented that the
Congress was "resolved to decree the perpetual extinction in the
Republic of commerce and traffic in slaves, and that their
introduction into our territory should not be permitted under any
pretext".

Again, in October 1828 the Mexican Senate rejected 14 articles of a
newly-proposed treaty and harshly criticized article 33, stating
"it would be most extraordinary that in a treaty between two free
republics slavery should be encouraged by obliging ours to deliver
up fugitive slaves to their merciless and barbarous masters of
North America".

Reporting on the growing number of Anglo settlers in Texas, Mexican
General Teran reported "most of them have slaves, and these slaves
are beginning to learn the favorable intent of Mexican law to their
unfortunate condition and are becoming restless under their
yokes ..." General Teran went on to describe the cruelty meted out
by masters to restless slaves; "they extract their teeth, set on
the dogs to tear them in pieces, the most lenient being he who but
flogs his slaves until they are flayed".

On September 15, 1829 Afro-Mexican President Vicente Guerrero
signed a decree banning slavery in the Mexican Republic. Yielding
to appeals from panicked settlers and Mexican collaborators who saw
Mexico benefiting economically from the Anglo presence, Guerrero
exempted Texas from the prohibition on the introduction of slaves
into the republic, on December 2nd.  Several months later, the
Mexican government severely restricted Anglo immigration and banned
the introduction of slaves into the republic.

Undeterred, the Anglos succeeded in negotiating a new treaty with
Mexico in 1831, which included article 34, which called for pursuit
and reclamation of fugitive slaves. After considerable wrangling
between the Mexican Chamber of Deputies and Senate, article 34 was
removed from the treaty. Also, by 1831 it became apparent through
debate within the Mexican Senate that the government's welcoming of
fugitive slaves was not completely altruistic.  Some Mexican
officials, fearful of U.S. military intervention, had  begun to see
it as wise to encourage the development of runaway slave colonies
along the Northern border as a way to lessen the threat posed by
the U.S. As historian Rosalie Schwartz put it, many Mexican
officials "reasoned, these fugitives, choosing between liberty
under the Mexican government and bondage in the United States,
would fight to protect their Mexican freedom more vigorously than
any mercenaries". As the interests of Mexican officials and U.S.
abolitionists coincided during the early 1830's, a modest number of
former slaves established themselves in Texas and fared well during
the period.

In 1836, after the fall of the Alamo and its slave-owning or pro- 
slavery leaders,
such as William Travis, Jim Bowie and Davy
Crockett, Mexican forces were defeated and an independent Texas was
eventually annexed by the United States. However, before the
expulsion of Mexican forces from Texas, Brigadier General Jose
Urrea evicted scores of illegally-settled plantation owners,
liberated slaves, and in many instances, granted them  on-the-spot
titles to the land they had worked. Oddly enough, many black people
call for "forty acres and a mule" -- a reference to Union General
Sherman's Special Field Order 15 and General Howard's Circular 13,
which made some land available to former  slaves. But what one
never hears are references to Mexican General Jose Urrea and the
land titles that he and his men granted to former Texas slaves,
following the defeat of the Alamo, a generation before the "Civil
War".

Even after the loss of Texas, Mexican officials refused to formally
acknowledge Texas independence on the grounds that it "would be
equivalent to the sanction and recognition of slavery". After Texas
independence the slave population mushroomed and the number of
runaways across the South-Texas-North-Mexico border, increased. In
1842 Mexico's Constitutional Congress reasserted the nation's
commitment to fugitive slaves.  In 1847, 38,753 slaves and 102,961
whites were listed in the first  official Texas census. In 1850, in
a new treaty accord with the United States, Mexico again refused to
provide for the return of fugitive slaves

The slave institution in Texas was continuously undermined by
defiant Tejanos (Mexicans in Texas) who took great risks and
invested enormous resources toward facilitating the escape of
enslaved Africans.  The Texas to Mexico routes to freedom
constituted major unacknowledged extensions of the "Underground
Railroad".  Tejanos were variously accused of "tampering with slave
property", "consorting with blacks"  and stirring up among the
slave population "a spirit of insubordination".

Plantation owners in Central Texas adopted various resolutions
aimed at preventing Mexicans from aiding the slave population.
Whites in Guadalupe County prohibited Mexican "peons" from entering
the county and anyone from conducting business or interacting with
enslaved persons without authorization from the owners. Bexar
County whites suggested that "Mexican strangers entering from San
Antonio register at the mayor's office and give an account of
themselves and their business". Delegates to a convention in
Gonzales resolved that "counties should organize vigilance
committees to prosecute persons tampering with slaves" and that all
citizens and slaveholders were to endeavor to prevent Mexicans
from  communicating with blacks. Whites in Austin decreed that "all
transient Mexicans should be warned to leave within ten days, that
all remaining should be forcibly expelled unless their good
character and good behavior were substantiated by responsible
American citizens" and that "Mexicans should no longer be employed
and their presence in the area should be discouraged".  In
Matagorda County, all Mexicans were driven out under the bogus
claim that they were wandering, indigent sub-humans who "have no
fixed domicile, but hang around the plantations, taking the
likeliest negro girls for wives ... they often steal horses, and
these girls too, and endeavor to run them to Mexico".

By the year 1855, the estimates were that as many as 4000 to 5000
formerly enslaved Africans had escaped to Mexico. Slaveholders
became so alarmed at this trend, that they requested and received,
approximately 1/5th of the standing U.S army which was deployed
along the Texas-Mexico border in a vain effort to stem the flow of
runaways.  Defiant Mexicans stood their ground, refused to return
runaways, continued supporting slave uprisings and providing
assistance to escaping slaves. In the words of Felix Haywood, a
Texas slave, whose experience is recalled in "The Slave Narratives
of Texas, "Sometimes someone would come along and try to get us to
run up north and be free. We used to laugh at that. There was no
reason to run up north. All we had to do was walk, but walk south
and we'd be free as soon as we crossed the Rio Grande".


What a Difference a Border Made

1857, was a year whose profound irony made it one of the most
interesting. 1857 was the year that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
against Dred Scott, an enslaved African who had sued for his
freedom, on the grounds that his owner had forfeited any claim to
him, after taking him into a free state. Ironically 1857 was the
same year that the Mexican Congress adopted Article 13 declaring
that an enslaved person was free the moment he set foot on Mexican
soil.



MEXICO AS A PROVIDER OF JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR AFRICAN-AMERICANS

During the 1890's, hundreds of black migrants fed-up with slave-like
conditions and segregation,  left Alabama for Mexico and
established ten large colonies.  Shortly  thereafter, during the
period of the Mexican Revolution, large numbers of black people
migrated from New Orleans to Tampico, Mexico as the oil industry
prospered. These Africans in Mexico established branches of Marcus
Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association. One of the black
oil workers who came to Tampico stated, "there is no race
prejudice, everyone is treated according to his abilities". During
the same period, black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson asserted
that Mexico was "willing not only to give us the privileges of
Mexican citizenship, but was also willing to champion our cause".

Juan Uribe, a major Mexican official, visiting Los Angeles in 1919,
was quoted as saying, " My only regret is that it is not physically
possible to immediately transport several million African Americans
to my beloved Mexico, where the north yields her riches as nowhere
else and where people are not disturbed by artificial standards of
race or color". Similarly, African American immigrant Theodore Troy
said, " I am going to a land where freedom and opportunity beckon
me as well as every other man, woman and child of dark skin. In
this land there are no Jim Crow laws to fetter me; I am not denied
opportunity  because of the color of my skin and wonderful
undeveloped resources of a country smiled upon by God beckon my
genius on to their development". A black colony which  included
fifty families, developed fruit orchards and engaged in cattle
raising. It established itself in Baja, California, in the Santa
Clara and Vallecitos Valleys situated between Ensenada and Tecate,
approximately thirty miles south of San Diego and lasted into the
1960's.

Not to be overlooked is the enormous success of the Negro Baseball
Leagues in Mexico during the 1930's and 1940's. Black ball players
together with 4-500 family members seeking relief from racism in
the U.S. and segregated institutions, were hosted in Mexico by
generally respectful competitors and admiring fans. One competitor
in particular, Ray Dandridge  played for 18 years in Mexico, before
Jackie Robinson  gained admission into U.S. major league baseball.
Also, from the 1930's to the 1960's, major Mexican muralists, such
as Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros  and Jose Clemente Orozco invited
prominent African American artists such as Hale Woodruff, John
Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White to the Mexican Art
School where they developed an art style which helped them to
connect images, more effectively,  to ethnic and class struggle.

Of course there are many more historical intersections where
Mexican and African people cooperated with each other. A few
examples were the solidarity between the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC)/Black Panther Party and Brown Berets;
SNCC and the Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres and El Movimiento
Estudiantil Chicano de Atzlan (MEChA) and the Black Student Union
(BSU). Mack Lyons, a black member of the United Farmworkers Union's
National Executive, negotiated its contract with Coca Cola, which
owns Minutemaid and sizeable Florida orange groves. In Los Angeles,
during the 90's, black and brown students recognizing common
history and mutual interests, formed African and Latino Youth
Summit (ALYS).

Admittedly, Vicente Fox is no Vicente Guerrero. The Mexico of
today is profoundly different from  the refuge  that  once welcomed
fugitive slaves, or land of opportunity that embraced African
American job-seekers; yet, its beautiful history of support, for
African Americans, in need of allies, cannot be erased. It might
prove useful to see the relationship between black and brown people
as similar to the bond between a man and woman. It is beautiful
most of the time, but there are moments when it is tested and may
become strained. When this happens one or both must give more and
work to increase or renew trust.


Pass this material on to others.

The black or brown reader of this piece should now know, that the
best of our history together, as black and brown people, speaks to
the necessity of collaborating during the worst of times. A wise
people are a grateful people, and never content themselves with
recalling and celebrating their legendary alliance with an
important neighbor. Instead, they press forward, fully aware that
mutually-supportive relationships are still possible and necessary.
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Special acknowledgement is extended to historians Rosalie Schwartz,
Gerald Horne, Rodolfo Acuna and Omar Farouk, whose earlier
investigative efforts in the field of  African-Mexican
collaboration, contributed to making this work possible.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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