Afro-Mexican
Afro-Mexican is one of the terms to identify black Mexicans of African descent. Although their existence is not commonly known, Afro-Mexicans are mostly present in the coastal Mexican states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Veracruz.
History
When the Spanish first arrived in Mesoamerica, they brought slaves with them. After infectious diseases brought by the Spaniards and the Africans decimated the native population, slaves from Africa became the main labor force in Mesoamerica.
African slaves acted as partners with their Spanish masters in the conquest of New Spain, but they did not share in the spoils of victory with the Europeans because of their slave status (Carroll, 2001). African presence in the New World was strictly for labor. The decline of the Amerindian population caused the Spanish to import large numbers of slaves from Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Gambia, Nigeria, the Congo, and Angola. Africans soon outnumbered Europeans, and the Spanish implemented many tactics to ensure that they remained the dominant racial group in Mesoamerica.
During the colonial period in Veracruz, Spaniards placed restrictions on contact between African and Indians to discourage the formation of alliances (Carroll, 2001). Intermarriage between the races, whose descendants were called Lobos in the caste system of New Spain and Zambos in other parts of Spanish America, was heavily discouraged by the Catholic clergy. Blacks also encountered resistance from the indigenous people who did not want their communities to be permeated by those they considered outsiders. This opposition from both Europeans and Amerindians made it very difficult for Africans to achieve social recognition during the colonial period.
To escape the oppressiveness of slavery, some African Maroons escaped to the mountains and formed their own settlements. These settlements, called palenques, were comprised of mostly African males. The men in these settlements would periodically raid Indian villages and plantations for women and bring them back to their settlements (Carroll, 2001). One of these palenques is Cuajinicuilapa in the state of Guerrero, home to a small enclave of black Mexicans whose ancestors were slaves who escaped from the sugar and coffee plantations along the coast and settled into the mountainous regions of Guerrero (Hamilton, 2002). Today the black residents of this town have a museum that displays the history and culture of their ancestors. They honor their African heritage through traditional dance and music.
Many Afro-Mexicans make their homes along the Costa Chica, a 200-mile long coastal region beginning just southeast of Acapulco, Guerrero, and ending at Huatulco in the state of Oaxaca (Vaughn, 2004). Most of the occupants of the Costa Chica derive their income from agriculture and fishing. The Costa Chica is also occupied by many indigenous groups, and Bobby Vaughn, creator of the website "Black Mexico," describes the relationship between the Afromestizos and the Indians as strained ([1], 2004).
In the last few years, more discourse has been taking place about why so little is known about the black population in Mexico. Some point to the idealistic, but untrue, belief put forth by the Mexican government that all of its citizens are one race and that there is no distinction made between white, mestizo, black, or Amerindian; but Charles Henry Rowell, the editor of the journal Callaloo, believes that the majority of the descendants of African slaves have disappeared through assimilation and miscegenation (2004).
Lack of acknowledgement sometimes makes it difficult for Afromestizos to take pride in their African heritage. Many, like some blacks in the United States, have chosen to assimilate completely into Mexican society. There is also outside pressure from other Mexicans that cause them to assimilate. Because their existence is not widely known throughout Mexico and the rest of the world, they are often assumed to be illegal immigrants from elsewhere in Latin America (Sailer, 2002). There have been many accounts of Afromestizos being pulled over by the police and being forced to sing the Mexican national anthem to prove they are Mexican (Graves, 2004). This discrimination causes many Black Mexicans, if they are able, to conceal their African lineage.
Despite being faced with discrimination and poverty, there are some Afro-Mexicans who openly embrace their African heritage and want it to be recognized. In Coyolillo, located in Veracruz, they celebrate Carnival, which has its roots in African culture. In the village of El Ciruelo, there is a small group of Blacks who have organized as Mexico Negro, and they are fighting to have a racial breakdown added to the census before the 2010 count (Graves, 2004). More than 200,000 Africans were brought to Mexico during the time of the Spanish Empire (Sailer, 2002). Although it is not common knowledge, and they make up less than one percent of the population, the descendants of these slaves do exist and still live in Mexico today.
The famous comic character, Memin, whose magazine has been in Latin American and United States news-stands for more than 20 years, and his mother, "Ma' Linda", are Afro-Mexicans.