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BLACK INDIAN MEXICO
During the three centuries of Spanish rule the Indian nation of Mexico was culturally and politically more enriched by the over 300,000 African slaves brought by the Spaniards than by the Spaniards. Few Spaniards came to stay. By the time of the 1810-1821 Mexican war for independence Afro-Mexicans had largely intermarried and merged their numbers with the urbanized of the Indians. Together, they formed the bulk of the coalition that comprised the new nation's activist poor.
Culturally, Blacks and Indians built a mixed race life-style during colonial times. Once liberated from Spanish rule, Mexico flowered. Today, we can look back and see that in addition to Indigenous food, drink, clothing, colorful art and legends, multiracial Mexico has an African contribution that includes much of nation's great music, including the song and dance La Bamba. Recent studies also show a substantial African influence upon Mexican cuisine, language, literature, history writing, art, religious observances, medical practices and magic rites. Black Indian Mexico also produced for the nation, 4 presidents, 2 heroes to name states after, 17 to name cities after, and many more to get streets and statues.
The distinctive culture and militant political history of Mexico is the product of multiculturalism in action. Recent studies show that the mixed African/Indian family has been essential in this development. Africans, Indians, and the sizable number of Asians in old Mexico, along with a few poor whites, worked together to create a distinct national identity. The Spanish rulers and their White Mexican elite allies wanted to recreate Europe in the new world. The Spaniards and the light hued Mexican elite repressed culture that was expressly Indigenous, African or Asian. However, left relatively unchecked was a new synthesized merged culture. Those who lived its lifestyle came to like it, and to champion it in many political struggles over the past few centuries. Sometimes the cause seems to be "Indigenismo," other times it seems "Mexicanismo," and in 2001 Subcomandante Marcos said as he entered Mexico City that he came "for all the people who are the color of the earth." Click links below for details, and see the book by the author of this web page, Ted Vincent, The Legacy of Vicente Guerrero: Mexico's First Black Indian President - University Press of Florida, 2001.