Poet and attorney Tomás Gayton, born in Seattle, has investigated the history of his slave forbears and traveled extensively in Mexico, Africa and elsewhere. In this excerpt from his book, “Sojourn on the Bohemian Highway,” he details one of his trips to Mexico and his research into the little-known history of Africans here.
His account begins in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas.
One day while wandering around El Zócalo I meet Juan, a fair-complexioned mestizo owner of a travel agency. …I ask him about the former slave chapel of San Nicolas behind the Cathedral just across from his office on El Zócalo. Juan’s response, “Tomás, there have never been any black slaves in San Cristóbal.” I open my journal and read to him the words I copied from the historical notice posted at the entrance to the chapel.
Around 1615 the bishop Juan de Zapata y Sandoval founded the hermitage of San Nicolas of the dark ones for the confraternity of Our Lady of the Incarnation, which, contrary to custom in the case of churches for Negroes and mulattos, he placed in the center of the city. It was the first formal temple of the city.
Juan, an intelligent man who once lived in La Jolla, California, still insists that, “there never were any Negros in San Cristóbal.” Juan’s disturbing response is, regrettably, all too typical and misinformed. Africans were brought to Mexico 500 years ago as slaves to replace the indigenous population decimated by Spanish conquest and disease. Blacks have been in Mexico ever since, though their presence has been virtually ignored and underestimated until recent times.
“The Black population is not well known,” says Sagrario Cruz, anthropology and history professor at the University of Veracruz. … She has documented distinct populations of slaves, maroons, black Seminoles and U.S. Blacks, both free people and runaway slaves, who settled in the country before and after Mexico abolished slavery. Free Blacks have lived in Mexico since as early as 1609. The two generals who led Mexico’s war of independence from Spain, José María Morelos and Vicente Guerrero … were of African ancestry. “El Negro Guerrero” was the second president of Mexico and he abolished slavery in 1829.
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Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s book and television documentary, “Black in Latin America,” along with two other documentaries ... recount the strong African heritage that has endured centuries of neglect in Mexico. These works show most Afromestizos or Afro-Mexicans are concentrated in the state of Veracruz on the Gulf Coast and in the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca on la Costa Chica (Little Coast) region on the Pacific Coast. La Costa Chica is a 200-mile long coastal region that begins just south of Acapulco and ends in Puerto Angel, Oaxaca. Together with Chiapas, they make up the three poorest states in Mexico.
In Veracruz, on the Caribbean coast, African culture and heritage persist most strongly in dance, music and song. They even have a museum celebrating Mexico’s African heritage. However, on the Pacific Coast, African culture and tradition have been largely forgotten and lost to posterity.
After Chiapas my next stop in my search for the African diaspora is La Costa Chica on the Pacific coast of the state of Oaxaca. In the city of Pinotepa I call the Rev. Father Glyn Jemmott ... the Roman Catholic priest from Trinidad, West Indies, who since 1984 has served as vicar to several Afro-Mexican towns on la Costa Chica ...
Early the next morning, I travel by taxi to meet Padre Glyn in the nearby village of El Ciruelo. As the taxi cruises into town I can see from the complexion of the people that I have arrived in black Mexico. The driver drops me off at village church where Padre Glyn gives me a warm welcome. Padre tells me dozens of Afro- Mexican communities lie in La Costa Chica, barely subsisting from farming and fishing. Over the next few days Padre Glyn drives me to several of these communities. …
In the lakeside town of El Corralero I attend Mass and listen to the padre’s homily on the pride of Afro-Mexicans. Padre Glyn estimates the Afro-Mexican population of Mexico at three to 10 percent, depending on who is counting and who acknowledges African ancestry. The federal government does not count Blacks as a separate minority. Instead Afro-Mexicans are largely ignored by government services, marginalized by racist attitudes and relegated to lives of poverty and illiteracy, on the fringes of Mexican society.
According to Professor Cruz, “The problem of the loss of cultural identity, along with that of racial discrimination, is that even some black people will deny their own racial heritage.” The spurious practice of mejorando la raza, literally “bettering the race,” by marrying someone lighter-skinned than oneself, is alive and well in Mexico.
For example, when I meet Pedro, a handsome young Afro-Mexican man in the lobby of one of Pinotepa’s finer hotels, he initially denies his African heritage. After I explain to Pedro that I am an African American researching the African diaspora in Mexico, he grudgingly admits to having a black grandparent.
As I bid adios to black Mexico, Presidente Vincente Fox apologizes to black Americans for saying “Undocumented Mexicans living in the USA don’t take jobs away from Americans — they do jobs that not even black Americans will do.” However, he refuses to remove from circulation the racist, stereotyping “Sambo stamp” of Memin Pinguin and, of course, he refuses to apologize to Mexico’s forgotten Negros.
Tomás Gayton’s many books, including “Sojourn on the Bohemian Highway” and his most recent “Jazz Heaven,” can be purchased on Amazon in Kindle or traditional format.