At the beginning of the nineteenth century, as reported by Humboldt, a large proportion of the Mexican population were chinos. He also cites “the great number of mulattoes, artisans, and free Negroes who by their industry alone, procure much of the necessaries of life.” He gives the number of mulattoes in Mexico City as 7094. That of the chinos at the capital must have been large, too, in proportion to the rest of the population.
The mulattoes increased to such an extent that in 1805 an attempt was made to curb their power by a law forbidding the marriages of whites and blacks. “This open stigma upon a population, numbering nearly half a million,” says Bancroft,” was hardly a popular measure. This population ranked among the most useful in the country. Aware of their superiority they looked down upon the Indians, and were not a little encouraged in this respect by the evident preference accorded them by female aborigines, who were lured by their greater vivacity. It is even said that they preferred them to Europeans.”8
As in Venezuela, Brazil, and elsewhere, a mulatto family in Mexico could have itself declared white and enter the privileged ranks, if it was wealthy enough. Humboldt says, “It often happens that families suspected of being of mixed blood demand from the high court of justice (l’audencia) to have it declared that it belongs to the whites. These declarations are not always corroborated by the judgment of the senses. We have seen swarthy mulattoes who had the address to get themselves whitened (this is the vulgar expression). When the color of the skin is too repugnant to the judgment demanded, the petitioner is content with an expression somewhat problem-matical. The sentence then simply bears that such or such individuals may consider themselves whites. (Que se tengan por blancos.)”9
The most noted Mexican of Negro ancestry is Vicente Guerrero, the William Tell of Mexico, its second president, in whose honor a state is named. Guerrero was an ex-slave, and his first step on coming into power in 1829, was to issue a decree freeing all the Negro and Indian slaves. He wrote into the Mexican Constitution, Article 10:
“1. That slavery be exterminated in the Republic.
“2. Consequently those are free who up to this day have been looked on as slaves.”
By then, however, Negro slavery had almost died out in Mexico, except in one of its states, where it was growing stronger. This was Texas, whither many white Americans had been bringing in their slaves since 1821. These slave-holders opposed President Guerrero’s emancipation decree, and it may be interesting to note that but for the stand of this Negro president against slavery, Texas would almost certainly not now be in the American Union. Texas wanted independence in order to be able to keep its slaves. The constitution of Texas as an independent state was never submitted to the people but was arbitrarily put over by the American slaveholders. John Quincy Adams denounced the fight of the Texan slaveholders for independence, in the House of Representatives, May 25, 1835, saying “it was not for the maintenance of the principles of political and religious liberty but a civil war for the perpetuation of slavery and the slave trade.”
A GEORGE WASHINGTON AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN COMBINED.
XXV. General Vicente Guerrero, second President of Mexico. Freed Mexico from Spain and then liberated the slaves. Had been a slave himself.
As regards Guerrero’s Negro strain, writers and encyclopedias10 of the time say that he was a mulatto, but the present tendency is to deny the Negro part of it and say it was Indian. In 1935, when I said in a newspaper article that Guerrero was a mulatto, some California Mexicans objected indignantly. However, the Lawyers’ Guild of Mexico who was appealed to in 1940 by a Negro organization when the Mexican government tried to bar American Negro tourists, said in its reply that it was most unjust since a Negro, Guerrero, had played such a role in bringing about Mexican independence.11 Guerrero’s less idealized portraits very clearly show his Negro strain. Guerrero’s most trusted aid was a Negro, Colonel Juan del Carmen, who is described by Villasenor as “very black, of unprepossessing appearance, and extraordinary bravery.” Carmen died fighting for Mexican independence.
The first ruler of Mexico, after its independence, Iturbide I, might have had a Negro strain, too. He was “a mestizo of Valladolid, who was generally accepted as a creole,” says Priestley. As was said, the terms mestizo and mulatto were often confused, especially if one’s hair was straight rather than frizzly.
Another noted living Mexican who shows an undoubted Negro strain in features, color, and hair is the great mural painter, Diego Rivera.
With the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade, the number of Negroes in Mexico were so absorbed by the Indians and whites that the strain was hardly longer visible. As Poinsett, American Minister to Mexico in the 1820’s said, “It is, I think, difficult to distinguish the African blood after two crosses with the Indians. They (the mixed bloods) lose entirely the Negro features and the mestizoes have straight black hair like the Indians.”12
However, a close-up of any eastern Mexican community will reveal to the trained eye signs of the old Negro ancestry. This is especially true of the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca; the warm regions of the Gulf as the City of Vera Cruz; and parts of the Pacific coast.
As regards the mixing of Mexicans, and American whites and blacks in northern Mexico, see the chapter on Texas in the section on the United States.
ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Luis Querol y Roso, Negros y Mulatos de Nueva Espana de su Alzamiento en Mejico en 1612. Anales de la Univer. de Valencia, Ano 12 Cuad. 90. This article has abundant documentation.
Riva Palacio V. Mexico a traves de los siglos, Vol. 2, 239-41, 1887.
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1 Diccionario Universal de Historia y Geographia, Vol. 2, pp. 499-500. 1853.
2 Priestley, H. I., The Mexican Nation, pp. 57, 126. 1923.
3 Toro, A., Influencia de la Raza Negra en la Formacion del Pueblo Mexicano, pp. 215-18, in Ethnos, Vol. 1, Apr. 1920-March, 1921.
4 Bancroft, H. H., History of Mexico, Vol. 2, p. 385. 1883.
5 Bancroft, ibid., Vol. 2, p. 772.
6 Humboldt, A., La Nouvelle Espagne, Vol. 1. pp. 407-08. 1811. Also the English translation: Kingdom of New Spain, Vol. 1, p. 234. 1811.
7 Coleridge, H. N., Six Months in the West Indies, pp. 84-5. 1826. This view of the Indian character was general. Chanvalon, who visited the French West Indies in the 1760’s and saw the Carib Indians, said in like vein, “Nothing equals their stupidity. Their reasoning powers are very dull and are endowed with hardly more foresight than the instinct of animals. While the intellect of the clumsiest European laborer, and even that of the Negroes in the most benighted regions of Africa, appears to be clouded, it is nevertheless capable of being enlarged but that of the Carib does not seem susceptible of this.” (Voyage a la Martinique, p. 51. 1763.)
Las Casas, their great protector, said similarly, “All these people are naturally simple; they know not what belongs to policy and address; to trick and artifice… They are a weak, effeminate people, not capable of enduring great fatigue… . The Almighty seems to have endowed them with meekness and a softness of humor like that of the lambs.” (An Account of the First Voyages and Discoveries, etc., pp. 2-3, 1699.
8 Bancroft. H. H., History of Mexico. Vol. 3, p. 753. 1883.
9 Humboldt, A., Kingdom of New Spain, pp. 246-7. 1811.
10 Larousse, Vol. 18, p. 65, 1872; Biographie Universelle, Vol. 8, p. 1603, 1857; Anti-Slavery Almanac—article reproduced in Colored American, Sept. 5, 1840.
11 Letter to the West Indies National Council of New York, published in the Negro Press, Oct. 10, 1940.
12 Poinsett, J. R., Notes