One of the hidden historical facts is the influence of Africans on Mexican culture. Slavery throughout the Americas—Cuba, Brazil, Barbados, Jamaica—and particularly in the United States is well documented and described. But few speak of African slaves in Mexico; as if such a phenomenon never occurred. In several articles I have written about the African slave presence in San Miguel de Allende, and the implication that there must have been others throughout the territory. In this article I would like to delve into the larger picture, and speak about how Africans arrived in New Spain, their lot once on this soil, and what they have left behind.
Historian Colin A. Palmer states: “When I arrived in Mexico….to begin research on the early history of Africans and their descendants there, a young student politely told me that I was embarking on a wild goose chase. Mexico had never imported slaves from Africa, he said, fully certain that the nation's peoples of African descent were relatively recent arrivals.”
To trace the history of the African presence in Mexico we need to go back to the beginnings—the conquest of these territories by Hernan Cortes. While in Cuba, Hernan Cortez was promised a fleet to head west to the coast of present-day Mexico, to explore and conquer. However, because of personal conflicts with the governor, Diego Velazquez de Cuellar, Cortes’s charter was denied at the last minute. The vendetta between the two had to do with a woman wronged—the sister in law of Velazquez. But that’s a whole different story…
Undeterred by the revocation of his status as the captain-general of the expedition, Cortes gathered 11 ships, and in an openly mutinous act sailed with the fleet in February of 1519. On board he had 508 soldiers, about 100 sailors, and 16 horses. Once he landed on the coast of the Yucatan, he continued his defiance of authority by ordering his men to sink all but one of the ships they had sailed. He had heard rumors that a few of the men still loyal to Velazquez were planning on seizing a ship to escape to Cuba, and Cortes acted swiftly to thwart their plans.
After spending several months on the coast, and winning the support of some of the indigenous people, he set off to the interior and arrived in Tenochtitlan—present day Mexico City—in October of 1519. Within two years he conquered the Aztec empire, with the final, victory battle taking place on August 13, 1521.
Africans had begun appearing in the Americas in the 15th century, as soldiers and servants to the Spanish and Portuguese explorers. Many were known as Ladinos, or Hispanicized Africans because they had converted to Christianity, but many others were brought along as slaves. One of the most famous Africans was Juan Garrido, who arrived as a free man with Hernan Cortes. Certainly there must have been a few more in that initial expedition, because slaves arriving with the conquistadors had the potential of earning their freedom through excellence in battle, or buying their own freedom. Historians agree that Africans were present in the conquest from the start because arrival in the New World was a potential to improve their social and economic conditions.
However, the overwhelming majority of Africans who ended up in New Spain—today’s Mexico—came later as slaves. When the Spanish conquerors began their incursions into the vast territories of New Spain and particularly once they discovered gold and silver mines, they needed a vast free labor force. They worked the indigenous people, literally to death, so that within 100 years of their arrival the population of natives had plunged from an estimated 25 million people to some one million by 1605. With this demographic depletion, the Spaniards turned to another source of free labor: Africa.
One must wonder why this continent became the focus of slave acquisition. There is no question that finding human being who were different in appearance to themselves, made it easier for western Europeans to justify their captivity. But there were other ethnic groups that fell in that category. Asians, aborigines from Australia, or those from the Polynesian islands certainly differed from the white population in their features and skin color. Yet the nucleus for slavery after the conquest of the New World became Africa, lying beyond a body of water narrower than the English Channel. At its narrowest point the strait is only eight miles wide.
They say geography is history, and this is a prime example. The western coast of Africa lies nearest to southern Europe, namely the Iberian Peninsula, making it easy to enter and attack. Attempting to gather slaves from China, Japan, the Pacific islands or the continent of Australia involved much longer journeys. The second reason was political. The Far East had long-established, powerful nation states not easily attacked and defeated, such as the Chinese and Japanese empires. Africa, aside from Egypt, was populated by small tribal enclaves and warring villages. Various Arab empires had been raiding Africa for slaves over many centuries. When the European settlers in the New World found a need for free labor, the Arab slave-trade was already long established all over the Old World.
There was another reason, or perhaps simply a rationale—the Roman Catholic Church. A 15th century
papal decree granted Portugal and Spain a monopoly on trade in West Africa, and the right to colonize the New World in its quest for land and gold. Queen Isabella, a most pious Catholic monarch, invested in Christopher Columbus’s expeditions, sanctioned the invasion and acquisition of “persons to perpetual slavery,” for the benefit and enrichment of the church and the crown.
She eventually rejected the enslavement of Native Americans, claiming they were Spanish subjects. But no such claim was extended to African slaves. Some 12.5 million men, women and children of African descent were forced into the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It was the largest forced migration in human history. Of those multitudes, some 200,000 ended up in New Spain. In the 17th century, some of the larger cities of New Spain had up to a third of the population represented by African descendants.
Unlike other nations with African-descendants, in Mexico today, they do not represent a significant and distinct part of the population. The main reason was the encouragement of mestizaje, the intermarriage of different races. Because of this the facial characteristics of African-descendants are not prominent. Where a major concentration of Afro-Mexicans still reside, and have maintained their ethnic features, and traditions is in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Veracruz.
But the influence of African descendants on Mexican culture is evident in many ways. Mexican cuisine has flavors, condiments, and ways of cooking that are unquestionably African in origin. Tamarind and hibiscus—the common, and ever-present flor de jamaica—were both imported from Africa. Many of the practices related to cattle ranching originated there as well, just as many words that have become part of Mexican vocabulary. Mexican music has also had its influence from the African continent, including in the most “Mexican” of musical expressions: the mariachi. Another important aspect of African heritage is that aside from their influence on food and music, Afro-Mexicans have had a major role in political and intellectual movements, including a president of the nation. But that subject deserves a full narrative and will be addressed in the future.
Just as the ancient features of African ancestors have been lost in time, the other quotidian details are hidden too. The true awakening and acknowledgement of its African ancestry has not yet been fully appreciated by the Mexican population.