Africa in Mexico (2)

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MEXICO — A couple of years ago, the immigration police in the southern state of Oaxaca arrested four Mexicans and deported them to Guatemala for the simple reason that – “No hay negros in Mexico!” (‘There are no blacks in Mexico!) Needless to say, that caused an uproar and the racist, overbearing officers were discharged from service. Significantly, the most mordant protests came from the academe.

“Of course there are ‘negros’ in Mexico,” my good friend Cristina Barron exclaimed when we heard the news. She heads the history department of Universidad Iberoamericana and has consistently lamented the “history of silence and discrimination” that has marginalized Mexicans with African blood. Despite the research work done by notable historians and anthropologists like Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran and Maria Elisa Velazquez, two of the most outstanding, the man-of-thestreet Mexican, like those racist border police, seem to be oblivious of Africa’s contribution to Mexico and the rest of South America.

The UNESCO-sponsored “La Ruta del Esclavo: Resistencia, libertad, y patrimonio” (The Route of the Slave: Resistance, liberty, and patrimony) that had kept the academic world busy for decades, managed to shatter the “silence,” but barely eliminated the discrimination suffered by “colored people.” Cristina said the Africans who were brought here by force contributed in no small measure to the enrichment of art and culture as well as to the success of political movements that formed the Mexican nation.

According to historian Velazquez, the first Africans came with the explorers and conquistadores. In the Codice Azcatitlan (one of the earliest) a dark-skinned man in lay attire is seen behind conquistador Hernan Cortes and his armored horde as they march towards Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). Some of the Africans who fought with the Spanish conquerors and helped pacify the native indios were rewarded with haciendas. The demographic catastrophe caused by the conquest (explained in “Africa in Mexico, 1”) plus a royal decree that prohibited the enslavement of native indios, “justified” the mass “importation” of enslaved people from Africa.

Historian Velazquez affirms that slaves (male and female) from New Guinea and eastern Africa arrived in Acapulco via the galleon trade, were taken to Vera Cruz by land from where they were distributed toall cardinal points of the Virreinato de la Nueva España (Mexico). Most of the enslaved ended up in Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Puebla, Hidalgo, Monterrey Sinaloa, Chiapas, Tobasco and the Yucatan peninsula.

The African men were destined for hard labor at gold and silver mines, forests, plantations, and shipyards. Many of them had knowledge of cattle-raising and the domestication of animals; in fact, they were the first cowhands or cowboys. In Puebla, Xalapa and Guanajuato, they worked as blacksmiths adept at making horseshoes; they were saddle-makers, tailors, and coachmen. African women became domestic helpers in residences and convents; they did the laundry, cooked and cleaned, and in many occasions were the wet nurses of Spanish, criollo, and mestizo babies. However, slavery was not a permanent state, so it was not uncommon for owners to free their slaves, out of gratitude for long years of service. Slaves could also buy their freedom.

Perhaps the most enduring contribution of enslaved Africans was in music and the arts and crafts. They fashioned musical instruments. Their ethnic ancestral designs showed up in woven fabrics, in terracotta and ceramics. Their vernacular architecture influenced local construction. Their sensuous dances, poignant songs and tales, traditional medicine, and cuisine have become inalienable features of Mexican life.

Sadly enough, from the middle of the 18th century and all throughout the nineteenth, when it was fashionable to indulge in pseudo-scientific studies about different “races,” the alleged inferiority and superiority of each, the importance of African influences in Mexico and the rest of South America was devalued, silenced, and suppressed. Not until 2001 did the tide change. In an international conference held in Durban, South Africa, Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico denounced “Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Other Forms of Intolerance,” an unprecedented act that recognized and accepted their African ancestors and the descendants of the “negros,” the once enslaved people.

(ggc1898@gmail.com)