Mexicans of African descent have been ignored by historians in the United States and Latin America. Recently, estimates put the Black Mexican population 1.4 million. In Mexico, the term that is used to describe Afro-Mexicans on forms is usually “Moreno.” Veracruz has had the largest black population in Mexico that dates back to Spanish slavery. However, today the majority of Mexico’s African ancestral population lives in the “Costa Chica” region, just south of Acapulco. During Spanish slavery over 300,000 or more enslaved Africans were transported to Mexico. One ignored fact is that by the early 1600s, Mexico the largest slave population than any other country in the Americas. Later, Brazil would have the most.
The Spanish system of slavery identified blacks by skin color and physical features. So, that if ones last name is “Moreno” or Morales, Mora, Prieto, Pardo, Negrete, and others this would indicate that you definitely have an African relative. Mexico under Spain kept two birth certificate books. One was called the “Book of the Whites” and the other was called “The Book of the Casta.” Castas meant mixed ancestry. Afro-Mexicans had several origins, and are spaced out along hundreds of years. Rosalie Schwartz (1975) identifies those Blacks who crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico in order to escape slavery. Her work, however, says little about the children of these slaves, and how many intermarried with the Mexican population and later returned to the U.S. as distinct and indistinct Afro Mexicans. This was a different set of Afro-Mexicans.
Katzew (1996) perhaps best explains social stratification in colonial Mexico. The racial caste (casta) system that existed in Mexico in the eighteenth century was developed by the Spanish Crown to refer to the racial mixtures that comprised Mexican Society. At the top of the racial caste system were the Spaniards born in Spain. The Creoles were next and then the castas with the indigenous people at the bottom. Blacks in this “Casta System” were identified by different names on their birth certificates.
According to researcher Katzew, “By the eighteenth century a whole array of fanciful terms had been devised to refer to the different castas and their offspring. Several documents, record these officially designed racial classifications which included zoologically inspired terms such as lobo (wolf),” and others. Few would know that Mexico had an Afro Mexican president (Vicente Guerrero), or that Emiliano Zapata was born in an area of Mexico that was approximately fifty per-cent Afro Mexican. Pancho Villa was also part Black. Though escaped slaves in Mexico would enjoy a degree of freedom, little did these runaways know that they would be “absorbed” and just identified as “Mexican.” This was a way that would root them out of history and colonize them into an erased category. Santa Anna would have Africans in his Cavalry and escaped slaves that ran away from Texas settlers. All of this has been ignored.
The African presence in Mexico is still ignored or erased. Undoubtedly, one must be clear that Black Mexicans exist as a racial and ethnic group with cultural links to Spain, indigenous peoples, and African contributions. However, Hispanic roots have also undergone a denial of the Moorish (North African) roots that has evaporated from discussions from language, and architectural origins (the domed Catholic churches which are Arabic architectural constructions). The last names such as Alvarez are Arabic and not Hispanic. The first two letters (Al) comes from Allah and the “ez” and the end of Rodriguez is also Arabic. Few even know that the science of Algebra (Al) was invented by North Africans.
