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from the Africans for Cuba list serve<br>
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricansForCuba/" eudora="autourl">
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricansForCuba/<br><br>
</a>MEXICO WELCOMED FUGITIVE SLAVES AND AFRICAN AMERICAN
JOB-SEEKERS:<br>
New Perspectives on the Immigration Debate<br><br>
Ron Wilkins<br>
Patrice Lumumba Coalition<br>
-------------------------------------------------------------<br>
RW is a former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating <br>
Committee (SNCC) and is presently a professor in the Department of
<br>
Africana Studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills<br>
------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>
There are of course, many angles from which to view the escalating
<br>
immigration debate. Mexican immigrants, who constitute the largest
<br>
share of the undocumented, have a unique history with the African
<br>
population inside the United States. As the Black community weighs<br>
in on this very contentious issue, it becomes necessary for us
<br>
( both black and brown) to review the history that we share.<br><br>
However, before reviewing our history together, I need to say <br>
unequivocally that the U.S. seizure of more than half of Mexico's
<br>
territory in 1848 netted Washington more than 80% of Mexico's <br>
fertile land and was a criminal act. And that if Mexico today,
<br>
still included California and Texas, she would possess more oil
<br>
than Saudi Arabia and have sufficient economic infrastructure to
<br>
employ all of her people. When Mexican people say that "the
border <br>
crossed us, we did not cross the border", they speak the truth,
and <br>
more black people (most of whom are not strangers to oppression,
<br>
exploitation, domination and exclusion) need to appreciate that.<br><br>
It has been said that for most of the 19th century, Mexican <br>
immigrants were more highly regarded by African Americans, than any
<br>
other immigrant group. What may account for this, at least in part,
<br>
is the enormous if not pivotal role undertaken by black fighters in
<br>
the war to secure Mexican independence from Spain and abolish <br>
slavery. Unfortunately, many of us repeat the falsehoods of our
<br>
adversaries and have forgotten our special relationship with <br>
Mexican and Indigenous peoples.<br><br>
It is time that our memories be restored and that the naysayers and
<br>
nativist negroes among us either put up or shut up. What follows is
<br>
the little known history of Mexico serving as a refuge for fugitive
<br>
slaves and a provider of job opportunities for blacks emigrating
<br>
from the U.S. to Mexico.<br><br>
<br>
Mexico as a Haven for Fugitive Slaves<br><br>
From the very beginning of his Texas colonization scheme, a <br>
determined and deceitful Stephen Austin sought to have Mexican
<br>
officials acquiesce to the settlement of slave-owning whites into
<br>
the territory. It was generally acknowledged that the people and
<br>
government of Mexico abhorred slavery and were determined to <br>
prohibit its practice within the Mexican republic. Beginning in
<br>
1822, at least 20,000 Anglos, many with their slave property, <br>
settled into Texas. Jared Groce, one of the first of Stephen
<br>
Austin's Texas settlers that year, arrived with 90 enslaved <br>
Africans. The Mexican Federal Law of July 13, 1824 clearly
favored <br>
and promoted the emancipation of slaves. Mexico had even stipulated
<br>
that it was prepared to compensate North American owners of <br>
fugitive slaves. Determined instead to have things their way, <br>
Anglos began to press for an extradition treaty which would require
<br>
Mexico to return fugitive slaves.<br><br>
From 1825 until the end of the Civil War in 1865, Mexican <br>
authorities continuously thwarted attempts by slave-holding Texas
<br>
settlers, to conclude fugitive slave extradition treaties between
<br>
the two parties. During this period of extremely tense
relations <br>
between the two governments, Mexico consistently repudiated and
<br>
forbade the institution of slavery in its territory, while U.S.
<br>
officials and Texas slave-owners continuously sought ways to <br>
circumvent Mexican law. The Mexican authorities thwarted repeated
<br>
attempts by slave-holding Texas settlers, to conclude fugitive
<br>
slave extradition treaties between the two parties.<br><br>
In 1826 the Committee of Foreign Relations of the Mexican Chamber
<br>
of Deputies refused to compromise on the issue of fugitive slaves
<br>
and defended the right of enslaved Africans to liberate themselves.
<br>
Mexican government officials cited "the inalienable right which
the <br>
Author of nature has conceded to him (meaning enslaved
persons)". <br>
Congress member Erasmo Seguin from Texas commented that the <br>
Congress was "resolved to decree the perpetual extinction in
the <br>
Republic of commerce and traffic in slaves, and that their <br>
introduction into our territory should not be permitted under any
<br>
pretext".<br><br>
Again, in October 1828 the Mexican Senate rejected 14 articles of a
<br>
newly-proposed treaty and harshly criticized article 33, stating
<br>
"it would be most extraordinary that in a treaty between two
free <br>
republics slavery should be encouraged by obliging ours to deliver
<br>
up fugitive slaves to their merciless and barbarous masters of
<br>
North America".<br><br>
Reporting on the growing number of Anglo settlers in Texas, Mexican
<br>
General Teran reported "most of them have slaves, and these
slaves <br>
are beginning to learn the favorable intent of Mexican law to their
<br>
unfortunate condition and are becoming restless under their <br>
yokes ..." General Teran went on to describe the cruelty meted
out <br>
by masters to restless slaves; "they extract their teeth, set
on <br>
the dogs to tear them in pieces, the most lenient being he who but
<br>
flogs his slaves until they are flayed".<br><br>
On September 15, 1829 Afro-Mexican President Vicente Guerrero <br>
signed a decree banning slavery in the Mexican Republic. Yielding
<br>
to appeals from panicked settlers and Mexican collaborators who saw
<br>
Mexico benefiting economically from the Anglo presence, Guerrero
<br>
exempted Texas from the prohibition on the introduction of slaves
<br>
into the republic, on December 2nd. Several months later, the
<br>
Mexican government severely restricted Anglo immigration and banned
<br>
the introduction of slaves into the republic.<br><br>
Undeterred, the Anglos succeeded in negotiating a new treaty with
<br>
Mexico in 1831, which included article 34, which called for pursuit
<br>
and reclamation of fugitive slaves. After considerable wrangling
<br>
between the Mexican Chamber of Deputies and Senate, article 34 was
<br>
removed from the treaty. Also, by 1831 it became apparent through
<br>
debate within the Mexican Senate that the government's welcoming of
<br>
fugitive slaves was not completely altruistic. Some Mexican
<br>
officials, fearful of U.S. military intervention, had begun to
see <br>
it as wise to encourage the development of runaway slave colonies
<br>
along the Northern border as a way to lessen the threat posed by
<br>
the U.S. As historian Rosalie Schwartz put it, many Mexican <br>
officials "reasoned, these fugitives, choosing between liberty
<br>
under the Mexican government and bondage in the United States,
<br>
would fight to protect their Mexican freedom more vigorously than
<br>
any mercenaries". As the interests of Mexican officials and
U.S. <br>
abolitionists coincided during the early 1830's, a modest number of
<br>
former slaves established themselves in Texas and fared well during
<br>
the period.<br><br>
In 1836, after the fall of the Alamo and its slave-owning or pro- slavery
leaders, <br>
such as William Travis, Jim Bowie and Davy <br>
Crockett, Mexican forces were defeated and an independent Texas was
<br>
eventually annexed by the United States. However, before the <br>
expulsion of Mexican forces from Texas, Brigadier General Jose
<br>
Urrea evicted scores of illegally-settled plantation owners, <br>
liberated slaves, and in many instances, granted them
on-the-spot <br>
titles to the land they had worked. Oddly enough, many black people
<br>
call for "forty acres and a mule" -- a reference to Union
General <br>
Sherman's Special Field Order 15 and General Howard's Circular 13,
<br>
which made some land available to former slaves. But what one
<br>
never hears are references to Mexican General Jose Urrea and the
<br>
land titles that he and his men granted to former Texas slaves,
<br>
following the defeat of the Alamo, a generation before the
"Civil <br>
War".<br><br>
Even after the loss of Texas, Mexican officials refused to formally
<br>
acknowledge Texas independence on the grounds that it "would
be <br>
equivalent to the sanction and recognition of slavery". After
Texas <br>
independence the slave population mushroomed and the number of
<br>
runaways across the South-Texas-North-Mexico border, increased. In
<br>
1842 Mexico's Constitutional Congress reasserted the nation's <br>
commitment to fugitive slaves. In 1847, 38,753 slaves and
102,961 <br>
whites were listed in the first official Texas census. In 1850,
in <br>
a new treaty accord with the United States, Mexico again refused to
<br>
provide for the return of fugitive slaves<br><br>
The slave institution in Texas was continuously undermined by <br>
defiant Tejanos (Mexicans in Texas) who took great risks and <br>
invested enormous resources toward facilitating the escape of <br>
enslaved Africans. The Texas to Mexico routes to
freedom <br>
constituted major unacknowledged extensions of the
"Underground <br>
Railroad". Tejanos were variously accused of "tampering
with slave <br>
property", "consorting with blacks" and stirring up
among the <br>
slave population "a spirit of insubordination".<br><br>
Plantation owners in Central Texas adopted various resolutions
<br>
aimed at preventing Mexicans from aiding the slave
population. <br>
Whites in Guadalupe County prohibited Mexican "peons" from
entering <br>
the county and anyone from conducting business or interacting with
<br>
enslaved persons without authorization from the owners. Bexar <br>
County whites suggested that "Mexican strangers entering from
San <br>
Antonio register at the mayor's office and give an account of <br>
themselves and their business". Delegates to a convention in
<br>
Gonzales resolved that "counties should organize vigilance
<br>
committees to prosecute persons tampering with slaves" and that
all <br>
citizens and slaveholders were to endeavor to prevent Mexicans
<br>
from communicating with blacks. Whites in Austin decreed that
"all <br>
transient Mexicans should be warned to leave within ten days, that
<br>
all remaining should be forcibly expelled unless their good <br>
character and good behavior were substantiated by responsible <br>
American citizens" and that "Mexicans should no longer be
employed <br>
and their presence in the area should be discouraged".
In <br>
Matagorda County, all Mexicans were driven out under the bogus
<br>
claim that they were wandering, indigent sub-humans who "have
no <br>
fixed domicile, but hang around the plantations, taking the <br>
likeliest negro girls for wives ... they often steal horses, and
<br>
these girls too, and endeavor to run them to Mexico".<br><br>
By the year 1855, the estimates were that as many as 4000 to 5000
<br>
formerly enslaved Africans had escaped to Mexico. Slaveholders
<br>
became so alarmed at this trend, that they requested and received,
<br>
approximately 1/5th of the standing U.S army which was deployed
<br>
along the Texas-Mexico border in a vain effort to stem the flow of
<br>
runaways. Defiant Mexicans stood their ground, refused to
return <br>
runaways, continued supporting slave uprisings and providing <br>
assistance to escaping slaves. In the words of Felix Haywood, a
<br>
Texas slave, whose experience is recalled in "The Slave
Narratives <br>
of Texas, "Sometimes someone would come along and try to get us
to <br>
run up north and be free. We used to laugh at that. There was no
<br>
reason to run up north. All we had to do was walk, but walk south
<br>
and we'd be free as soon as we crossed the Rio Grande".<br><br>
<br>
What a Difference a Border Made<br><br>
1857, was a year whose profound irony made it one of the most <br>
interesting. 1857 was the year that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
<br>
against Dred Scott, an enslaved African who had sued for his <br>
freedom, on the grounds that his owner had forfeited any claim to
<br>
him, after taking him into a free state. Ironically 1857 was the
<br>
same year that the Mexican Congress adopted Article 13 declaring
<br>
that an enslaved person was free the moment he set foot on Mexican
<br>
soil.<br><br>
<br><br>
MEXICO AS A PROVIDER OF JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR AFRICAN-AMERICANS<br><br>
During the 1890's, hundreds of black migrants fed-up with slave-like
<br>
conditions and segregation, left Alabama for Mexico and <br>
established ten large colonies. Shortly thereafter, during
the <br>
period of the Mexican Revolution, large numbers of black people
<br>
migrated from New Orleans to Tampico, Mexico as the oil industry
<br>
prospered. These Africans in Mexico established branches of Marcus
<br>
Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association. One of the black
<br>
oil workers who came to Tampico stated, "there is no race
<br>
prejudice, everyone is treated according to his abilities".
During <br>
the same period, black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson asserted
<br>
that Mexico was "willing not only to give us the privileges of
<br>
Mexican citizenship, but was also willing to champion our
cause".<br><br>
Juan Uribe, a major Mexican official, visiting Los Angeles in 1919,
<br>
was quoted as saying, " My only regret is that it is not
physically <br>
possible to immediately transport several million African Americans
<br>
to my beloved Mexico, where the north yields her riches as nowhere
<br>
else and where people are not disturbed by artificial standards of
<br>
race or color". Similarly, African American immigrant Theodore
Troy <br>
said, " I am going to a land where freedom and opportunity
beckon <br>
me as well as every other man, woman and child of dark skin. In
<br>
this land there are no Jim Crow laws to fetter me; I am not
denied <br>
opportunity because of the color of my skin and wonderful
<br>
undeveloped resources of a country smiled upon by God beckon my
<br>
genius on to their development". A black colony which
included <br>
fifty families, developed fruit orchards and engaged in cattle
<br>
raising. It established itself in Baja, California, in the Santa
<br>
Clara and Vallecitos Valleys situated between Ensenada and Tecate,
<br>
approximately thirty miles south of San Diego and lasted into the
<br>
1960's.<br><br>
Not to be overlooked is the enormous success of the Negro Baseball
<br>
Leagues in Mexico during the 1930's and 1940's. Black ball players
<br>
together with 4-500 family members seeking relief from racism in
<br>
the U.S. and segregated institutions, were hosted in Mexico by
<br>
generally respectful competitors and admiring fans. One competitor
<br>
in particular, Ray Dandridge played for 18 years in Mexico,
before <br>
Jackie Robinson gained admission into U.S. major league
baseball. <br>
Also, from the 1930's to the 1960's, major Mexican muralists, such
<br>
as Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozco
invited <br>
prominent African American artists such as Hale Woodruff, John
<br>
Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White to the Mexican Art
<br>
School where they developed an art style which helped them to <br>
connect images, more effectively, to ethnic and class
struggle.<br><br>
Of course there are many more historical intersections where <br>
Mexican and African people cooperated with each other. A few <br>
examples were the solidarity between the Student Nonviolent <br>
Coordinating Committee (SNCC)/Black Panther Party and Brown Berets;
<br>
SNCC and the Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres and El Movimiento
<br>
Estudiantil Chicano de Atzlan (MEChA) and the Black Student Union
<br>
(BSU). Mack Lyons, a black member of the United Farmworkers Union's
<br>
National Executive, negotiated its contract with Coca Cola, which
<br>
owns Minutemaid and sizeable Florida orange groves. In Los Angeles,
<br>
during the 90's, black and brown students recognizing common <br>
history and mutual interests, formed African and Latino Youth <br>
Summit (ALYS).<br><br>
Admittedly, Vicente Fox is no Vicente Guerrero. The Mexico of
<br>
today is profoundly different from the refuge that once
welcomed <br>
fugitive slaves, or land of opportunity that embraced African <br>
American job-seekers; yet, its beautiful history of support, for
<br>
African Americans, in need of allies, cannot be erased. It might
<br>
prove useful to see the relationship between black and brown people
<br>
as similar to the bond between a man and woman. It is beautiful
<br>
most of the time, but there are moments when it is tested and may
<br>
become strained. When this happens one or both must give more and
<br>
work to increase or renew trust.<br><br>
<br>
Pass this material on to others.<br><br>
The black or brown reader of this piece should now know, that the
<br>
best of our history together, as black and brown people, speaks to
<br>
the necessity of collaborating during the worst of times. A wise
<br>
people are a grateful people, and never content themselves with
<br>
recalling and celebrating their legendary alliance with an <br>
important neighbor. Instead, they press forward, fully aware that
<br>
mutually-supportive relationships are still possible and necessary.<br>
----------------------------------------------------------<br>
Special acknowledgement is extended to historians Rosalie Schwartz,
<br>
Gerald Horne, Rodolfo Acuna and Omar Farouk, whose earlier <br>
investigative efforts in the field of African-Mexican <br>
collaboration, contributed to making this work possible.<br>
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