The Underground Railroad to Mexico
December 12, 2021 8:26 AM Subscribe
In 1829, Mexico's black president Vicente Guerrero, abolished slavery.
Unlike going to the North where slaves legally had to be returned, slaves in the U.S. and Texas could travel south to complete freedom. A sort of underground railroad to the south formed.
Many of the American settlers in Texas didn't like abolition and they seceded from Mexico going to war, winning and establishing a slave Republic (and later joined the U.S. and seceded from the U.S., going to war). Some in Texas want to secede again (slavery not included?).
Some stories of slaves who went south and their ancestors.
Many of the American settlers in Texas didn't like abolition and they seceded from Mexico going to war, winning and establishing a slave Republic (and later joined the U.S. and seceded from the U.S., going to war). Some in Texas want to secede again (slavery not included?).
Some stories of slaves who went south and their ancestors.
Like, even South Carolina didn't form as a slave state from the jump, although the low country system quickly corrupted it and Georgia.
posted by eustatic at 9:10 AM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by eustatic at 9:10 AM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
I grew up in Texas and took the two (!) years of mandated Texas History in fourth grade and eighth grade. But I never really learned the link between the Texas Revolution and slavery. It was quite explicit in the 1830s but even though I went to a fairly liberal private school, that part was just sort of skated over in favor of the mythology of Texas special-ness.
It's particularly shocking because most of the Texians who revolted only came to then-Mexican Texas a decade or so before, most as part of The Old Three Hundred. Before they came there were very few outsiders living in Texas, almost all the people were Native Americans. The new immigrants from the United States had the goal to establish a cotton plantation economy in East Texas, with of course slavery as the key labor underpinning. In Texas they talk about The Old 300 as a mythology like the Mayflower pilgrims for the rest of the country. It wasn't until recently I realized they were recent immigrants invited by Mexico and committed deeply to establishing a society of enslavers.
My family is from East Texas, starting in the 1840s during the Texas Republic. Learning this history explained a lot about my own family.
It's not like all this history is over either. Just today I learned about the Corwin Amendment, a US constitutional amendment passed in 1861 that would have made slavery a permanent feature of the US. It was never ratified and the Civil War forced politics to go the other way. But it still lingers on the books awaiting ratification. In 1963 some piece of shit Texas congressman named Henry Stollenwerck proposed ratifying it. "To protect states' rights."
Thank you for highlighting the stories of people who escaped slavery to find freedom in Mexico and the abolitionists who helped them.
There was a similar "go south to be free" idea near Spanish Florida which was offering freedom to escaped slaves by about 1700. The new 1619 Project Book has a short section on Fort Mose, a whole town of free Black people near St. Augustine. Later in 1816 the US army under Andrew Jackson attacked the Negro Fort, another bastion of freedom for escaped slaves in the Florida panhandle, with the goal both of eliminating a threat to the hegemony of slavery and of kicking off the Seminole Wars.
posted by Nelson at 9:24 AM on December 12, 2021 [20 favorites]
It's particularly shocking because most of the Texians who revolted only came to then-Mexican Texas a decade or so before, most as part of The Old Three Hundred. Before they came there were very few outsiders living in Texas, almost all the people were Native Americans. The new immigrants from the United States had the goal to establish a cotton plantation economy in East Texas, with of course slavery as the key labor underpinning. In Texas they talk about The Old 300 as a mythology like the Mayflower pilgrims for the rest of the country. It wasn't until recently I realized they were recent immigrants invited by Mexico and committed deeply to establishing a society of enslavers.
My family is from East Texas, starting in the 1840s during the Texas Republic. Learning this history explained a lot about my own family.
It's not like all this history is over either. Just today I learned about the Corwin Amendment, a US constitutional amendment passed in 1861 that would have made slavery a permanent feature of the US. It was never ratified and the Civil War forced politics to go the other way. But it still lingers on the books awaiting ratification. In 1963 some piece of shit Texas congressman named Henry Stollenwerck proposed ratifying it. "To protect states' rights."
Thank you for highlighting the stories of people who escaped slavery to find freedom in Mexico and the abolitionists who helped them.
There was a similar "go south to be free" idea near Spanish Florida which was offering freedom to escaped slaves by about 1700. The new 1619 Project Book has a short section on Fort Mose, a whole town of free Black people near St. Augustine. Later in 1816 the US army under Andrew Jackson attacked the Negro Fort, another bastion of freedom for escaped slaves in the Florida panhandle, with the goal both of eliminating a threat to the hegemony of slavery and of kicking off the Seminole Wars.
posted by Nelson at 9:24 AM on December 12, 2021 [20 favorites]
Like, even South Carolina didn't form as a slave state from the jump, although the low country system quickly corrupted it and Georgia.
I don't know what the "low country system" specifically refers to -- plantations, I guess?
As I understand it, the Carolina province was started as a grant of land by the king to eight lords proprietor, an arrangement with an explicitly feudalistic basis but without an existing population of serfs to provide labor to power the local economy. Hence the need to import both slaves and indentured servants.
The system was very similar to that imposed on Ireland in previous centuries, which also created a feudalistic arrangement of unpaid laborers tied to the master's land holdings. The plantation system wasn't invented in the South but the addition of slave labor is what supercharged it.
posted by viborg at 9:49 AM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
I don't know what the "low country system" specifically refers to -- plantations, I guess?
As I understand it, the Carolina province was started as a grant of land by the king to eight lords proprietor, an arrangement with an explicitly feudalistic basis but without an existing population of serfs to provide labor to power the local economy. Hence the need to import both slaves and indentured servants.
The system was very similar to that imposed on Ireland in previous centuries, which also created a feudalistic arrangement of unpaid laborers tied to the master's land holdings. The plantation system wasn't invented in the South but the addition of slave labor is what supercharged it.
posted by viborg at 9:49 AM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Looking over this story, I thought of the ironic parallels and anti-parallels to today. Then the "illegal immigration" (illegal as in it was illegal to escape slavery) went from north to south across the border.
One of the links says that a slave of Sam Houston escaped to Mexico, joined the Mexican army and fought Sam Houston.
Not included is how Simon Bolivar was both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln to his people. He ran wars of independence and abolished slavery in the newly forming countries. Latin America was way ahead of the U.S. in freeing slaves.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:02 PM on December 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
One of the links says that a slave of Sam Houston escaped to Mexico, joined the Mexican army and fought Sam Houston.
Not included is how Simon Bolivar was both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln to his people. He ran wars of independence and abolished slavery in the newly forming countries. Latin America was way ahead of the U.S. in freeing slaves.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:02 PM on December 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
In 1829, Mexico's black president Vicente Guerrero, abolished slavery. Unlike going to the North where slaves legally had to be returned....
Who knew? Got me to wondering about how this affected Mexico's southern border. Turns out, the Federal Republic of Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua as well as the southern Mexican state of Chiapas - it gets complicated) was already ahead of them. That body legislated an end to slavery in 1823, and soon saw influx of slaves fleeing from Belize (pg 4), which did not outlaw the practice until 1834. Given the numbers, destinations, and the dates, I expect similar stories could be told elsewhere in the Americas. Or across the globe, really.
posted by BWA at 12:16 PM on December 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
Who knew? Got me to wondering about how this affected Mexico's southern border. Turns out, the Federal Republic of Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua as well as the southern Mexican state of Chiapas - it gets complicated) was already ahead of them. That body legislated an end to slavery in 1823, and soon saw influx of slaves fleeing from Belize (pg 4), which did not outlaw the practice until 1834. Given the numbers, destinations, and the dates, I expect similar stories could be told elsewhere in the Americas. Or across the globe, really.
posted by BWA at 12:16 PM on December 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
The "underground railroad" link has a story about a person escaping slavery by floating on a cotton bale. The question is raised whether cotton bales would even float. In fact, they were considered sufficiently buoyant to use in a military pontoon bridge.
The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Bridge, Military - Wikisource, the free online library
The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Bridge, Military - Wikisource, the free online library
If no boats are to be found, and the depth or configuration of bottom of the river renders the use of floating supports necessary, rafts of timber, floats of casks, cotton bales, and other buoyant bodies may be usedposted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:28 PM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Wow BWA that 'across the globe' map really puts the South in a regional context as a regressive outlier. (Brazil too.)
posted by viborg at 12:34 PM on December 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by viborg at 12:34 PM on December 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
This is fascinating.
Growing up in Illinois, I learned a lot about the underground railroad heading north to Canada; there was a local underground railroad location that we used to visit a lot on school field trips.
But I knew nothing about the existence of a south-bound underground railroad until reading this. (I also didn't know Mexico had a Black president in 1829. My ignorance of Mexican history is appalling.)
I am so glad to have learned about this, and to have my mind blown and my horizons expanded.
Thank you so much for posting this, dances_with_sneetches!
posted by kristi at 1:49 PM on December 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
Growing up in Illinois, I learned a lot about the underground railroad heading north to Canada; there was a local underground railroad location that we used to visit a lot on school field trips.
But I knew nothing about the existence of a south-bound underground railroad until reading this. (I also didn't know Mexico had a Black president in 1829. My ignorance of Mexican history is appalling.)
I am so glad to have learned about this, and to have my mind blown and my horizons expanded.
Thank you so much for posting this, dances_with_sneetches!
posted by kristi at 1:49 PM on December 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
I didn't even know Guerrero was Afro-Mexican, which is interesting because every tenth street in Mexico is named after him.
posted by ssg at 2:10 PM on December 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by ssg at 2:10 PM on December 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
That map of the world simplifies the story. There were all sorts of abolition laws. Some states outlawed slavery but grandfathered in any slaves already owned. Some nations outlawed slavery but only its home country, not in its colonies.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:51 PM on December 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:51 PM on December 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I've got a friend who's the offspring of many generations of Texans who pointed out to me that cotton was always a bigger part of the Texas economy than cattle, the whole cowboy mythos notwithstanding. He's a co-author of a book puncturing another Texas myth, Forget the Alamo.
posted by adamrice at 3:00 PM on December 12, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by adamrice at 3:00 PM on December 12, 2021 [7 favorites]
Oh wow, Forget the Alamo is a big deal! I haven't read it yet but I did catch that Fresh Air segment, the author did a great job. The Alamo never did make a damn bit of sense to me, even as a 4th grader. It's nice to have a modern writer dismantle the mythology of it.
Cotton was an enormous part of the East Texas economy, and in the early Americanized Texan history East Texas was the center of things. But there was also a fair amount of sugar, another labor-intensive crop that relied on slavery. Also a fair amount of rice.
posted by Nelson at 4:58 PM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Cotton was an enormous part of the East Texas economy, and in the early Americanized Texan history East Texas was the center of things. But there was also a fair amount of sugar, another labor-intensive crop that relied on slavery. Also a fair amount of rice.
posted by Nelson at 4:58 PM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
I didn't even know Guerrero was Afro-Mexican, which is interesting because every tenth street in Mexico is named after him.
Actually, it looks like this is somewhat of a contested fact, with no solid evidence as to his parents' ethnicities. All the portraits of him (which vary widely in skin tone) were painted after his death. There are lots of claims that he was Afro-Mexican because one of this grandparents was of African descent, but there doesn't seem to be much to back that up. People can't even seem to agree if this was on his father's side or his mother's side.
posted by ssg at 9:52 PM on December 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
Actually, it looks like this is somewhat of a contested fact, with no solid evidence as to his parents' ethnicities. All the portraits of him (which vary widely in skin tone) were painted after his death. There are lots of claims that he was Afro-Mexican because one of this grandparents was of African descent, but there doesn't seem to be much to back that up. People can't even seem to agree if this was on his father's side or his mother's side.
posted by ssg at 9:52 PM on December 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
The Mexican movement for independence from Spain was explicitly abolitionist. In general Mexico's great struggles for social equality have been more radical than those to the north.
Even before the famed Cry of Dolores made by Miguel de Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest who was one of the leading lights (and soldiers) of the movement, he opened the jailhouse doors in Dolores Hidalgo on September 16, 1810. In November of that same year, on behalf of the insurgent movement he issued a proclamation abolishing slavery, which had subjected thousands of indigenous and African-descended people to horrible conditions in silver and gold mines for centuries.
After a long, bloody campaign, slavery was explicitly abolished in the final Declaration of Independence from Spain, issued in 1821.
I just visited Dolores Hidalgo and its museums yesterday for the Guadalupe feast day, and so the nature of social change here has been on my mind!
posted by Sheydem-tants at 3:47 AM on December 13, 2021 [7 favorites]
Even before the famed Cry of Dolores made by Miguel de Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest who was one of the leading lights (and soldiers) of the movement, he opened the jailhouse doors in Dolores Hidalgo on September 16, 1810. In November of that same year, on behalf of the insurgent movement he issued a proclamation abolishing slavery, which had subjected thousands of indigenous and African-descended people to horrible conditions in silver and gold mines for centuries.
After a long, bloody campaign, slavery was explicitly abolished in the final Declaration of Independence from Spain, issued in 1821.
I just visited Dolores Hidalgo and its museums yesterday for the Guadalupe feast day, and so the nature of social change here has been on my mind!
posted by Sheydem-tants at 3:47 AM on December 13, 2021 [7 favorites]
If you want a pretty digestible overview of the Mexican Revolution that touches on some of this, you could do worse than series 9 of Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast. It’s 27 (roughly 30 minute) episodes, and Duncan is pretty good about saying when he’s glossing over stuff or where you might want to explore more for nuance.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:51 AM on December 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:51 AM on December 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
"Actually, it looks like this is somewhat of a contested fact, with no solid evidence as to his parents' ethnicities"
Yeah I'm sorry but that same site from the first link in the post also has a page claiming Beethoven was black, because his mother was a "Moor", which is referenced to a book about something else entirely, and also completely false as far as I know. I understand the need to reclaim people of Afro- descent but I feel like this site might not be the soundest reference.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:29 PM on December 13, 2021
Yeah I'm sorry but that same site from the first link in the post also has a page claiming Beethoven was black, because his mother was a "Moor", which is referenced to a book about something else entirely, and also completely false as far as I know. I understand the need to reclaim people of Afro- descent but I feel like this site might not be the soundest reference.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:29 PM on December 13, 2021
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The whole Juneteenth announcement was not significant because enslaved people 'didn't understand' that they were free, it was because Texas planters refused to free people unless the federal government forced them at gunpoint. People were literally not free until the Union Army held Galveston by force.
Were any of the other colonies explicitly established to become slave republics?
posted by eustatic at 9:00 AM on December 12, 2021 [11 favorites]