There were contacts between Africans and Mexicans during the time of the Olmec civilization that was centered in Veracruz, and which thrived a thousand years before Christ. The extent of the contacts with Africa are subject to debate. More pertinent for present day Mexico is the impact upon Mexico made by those who were brought in chains from Africa during the slave trade of the three centuries of Spanish rule in Mexico.

The first black brought by the Spanish colonialists came with the original conquistador Hernando Cortes in 1519. Estimates of subsequent immigration vary widely. Aguirre Beltran in his La poblacion negra de Mexico shows that importation of groups of captives from Africa began in the very first years the Spanish conquest, continued to be substantial for two centuries, and for one 70 year period the Spanish brought over 2,000 Africans a year through the licensed ports. There was always a certain amount of unlicensed importation. During Mexico's last century of Spanish rule trade in slaves dried to a trickle. (The absence of new Africans is one reason why 98% of the Afro-Mexicans in the 1810 census were mixed race). As for the total number who came on European slave ships to Mexico, Luz Maria Martinez Montiel made the most recent attempt to discern a total and she accepts the "around 500,000" total estimated by Aguirre Beltran. Much lower estimates have been made, however. Colin Palmer, in his study Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650 suggests that around 200,000 would be an accurate number. Patrick J. Carroll's Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity, and Regional Development concludes that any estimate must be moderated by the fact that few slaves came during the last century of Spanish rule, and that evidence is spotty concerning how many slaves were imported between 1519 and 1580.

The missing data on slave imports in the immediate decades after 1519 can be extrapolated from reports within Mexico about groups of slaves during those times. Those reports were numerous, and have been collected by demographer Peter Gerhard who made a comprehensive study of the New Spain municipalities. There were, for instance, 600 slaves in the port of Veracruz in 1571, and 600 others in that year in Veracruz Viejo. Large numbers of Africans were also in the counties south of Veracruz during the early to mid-1500s. Antonio Zedillo in his Cronica florida de Oaxtepec points to 500 slaves being brought by Hernando Cortés to the Cuernavaca area during the early 1540s. The memorable slave revolt in the Cordova area by Gaspar Yanga occurred in 1570, and there were enough runaway slaves in the region for Yanga to eventually have a maroon colony estimated at 500 people. Slaves in the 1500s were worked to death at fearful rates. The number of workers mentioned in the documents could probably be doubled to account for the number needed to maintain that numerical figure. Suggestive of the horrendous death rate is the Viceroy's edict in 1547 that banned the throwing of dead slaves into a river in Veracruz because the accumulation of such bodies had been polluting the water supply.

María Luisa Herrera Casasus in her Presencia y escalvitud del Negro en la Huasteca points to a potentially large contraband slave trade that must be included in estimates. The Huastaca coast of Northern Veracruz was roughly 80% Afro-Mexican in colonial times, and slavery was prevelant. This coast had many inlets for laying anchor but none were licensed for the slave trade. According to the elder of the coastal town of Tamiahua, Alfonso Cruz Lorenzo, the origins of the African people in Tamiahua are unknown, but there are many stories and legends that have been passed down, and one well retold account attributes the initial African presence in Tamiahua to shipwrecked French pirates who were either mostly black sailors, or who had on board a large number of black slaves. Certainly, between 250,000 and as many as 500,000 Africans were brought to colonial Mexico.

An unknown number of United States slaves escaped to freedom in Mexico between 1829, when Guerrero abolished slavery in his country, and 1865 when the U.S. civil war ended. In 1850 the Seminole "Black Indians" fled to Mexico and established communities along the Rio Grande. Many returned to the U.S. after the Civil War, but many remained, and one of the Seminole communities, Nacimiento de los Negros, continues in existence today.

At least a few hundred Black Americans came to work in the great Tampico oil boom of 1910-1925. Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association had two branches in the oil region. During Garvey’s Harlem Renaissance years many Black Americans came to Mexico to escape the land of lynching and legal segregation, and an African American farm commune near Ensenada that was founded in 1917 lasted until 1960.

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