About the African Presence in México
The existence of Afro-Mexicans was officially affirmed in the 1990s when the Mexican government acknowledged Africa as Mexico's "Third Root." For nearly 500 years, the existence and contributions of African descendants in Mexico have been overlooked, although they have continued to contribute their cultural, musical, and culinary traditions to Mexican society through the present day. This groundbreaking exhibition provides an important opportunity to revisit and embrace the African legacy in Mexico and the Americas while creating significant occasions for cross-cultural dialogue, exchange and presentations for all age ranges and backgrounds. No exhibition has showcased the history, artistic expressions, and practices of Afro-Mexicans in such a broad scope as this one, which includes a comprehensive historical range of artwork including contemporary artistic expressions. [California African American Museum]
REFERENCES:
Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo [scholar]; “Tribal origins of slaves in Mexico;” Journal of Negro History, Volume 31, Number 3, 1946: pp. 269-352; with maps.
Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán (January 20, 1908, Tlacotalpan, Veracruz–1996, Xalapa, Veracruz) was a Mexican anthropologist known for his studies of marginal populations. His work has focused on Afro-Mexican populations. He was the director of the National Indigenous Institute and as Assistant Secretary for Popular Culture and Extra Curricular Education he was responsible for forming policy towards indigenous populations. For this reason he is important in the field of applied anthropology.
Giddings, Joshua R.; “Exiles of Florida,” [1858]; Congressman [Ohio].
The Exiles of Florida is an account of the Florida Wars, which were waged by U.S. forces against an unoffending community of Blacks and Native Americans. In this book Giddings presents evidence of the U.S. Government's role in the destruction of this Florida Community.
[This era began with the British, circa 1710 and is known also as the Yamasee War [South Carolina]; The Tuscarora War [North Carolina]; [Georgia did not exist at that time].
Rebollar (Corona), Rafael [Mexican Filmmaker; Rafael Rebollar
Rafael Rebollar is one of Mexico's most accomplished documentary directors. His past work includes a series on indigenous culture in Mexico, and a documentary on the cultural and political changes of the 1960s. His films have been invited to participate in festivals in Mexico, Brazil, and the United States.
[1] From Florida to Coahuila (The History of the Black Seminoles) Get Details and Purchasing Info
Rafael Rebollar
Documentary 50 minutes 2002
With English subtitles
AFRICAN PRESENCE IN MEXICO
This documentary tells the remarkable story of a rebel people � the Mascogos, known in the United States as the Black Seminoles. This exceptional community, whose history crosses, borders, languages, and cultures, is descended from escaped slaves who made common cause with the Seminole Indians of Florida. The fierce battles of the Black and Indian Seminoles with the United States in the mid-1800s ended in truce rather than defeat, and they resettled along both sides of the Mexican border. These furious fighters � the only Native American group which never signed a peace treaty with the U.S. - were recruited by both the Mexican and U.S. governments to defend the border from bandits, and served as an elite battalion attached to the U.S. Army. They continue to live in towns like Nacimiento in Coahuila, Mexico, and Bracketteville, Texas. The exceptional Mascogo/Black Seminole culture combines African-American spirituals, Indian fry-bread, and Tex-Mex cowboy culture. Their old religion was based in dream divination, and their old language combined West African, Native American, English, and Spanish. But these old ways have been dying along with the elders who practiced them, and young Mascogo and Black Seminoles have lost touch with a heritage which is not taught in school and which risks total assimilation into mainstream Mexican and U.S. culture. Filmed on both sides of the border, this video documents the complex history of people of African descent caught between national boundaries, and the efforts of their descendants to maintain their culture and instill a sense of pride in future generations of this warrior people.
[Note: the term, Mascogos, is the Mexican/Spanish equivalent to Muscogees, the tribal name of the the Seminole, Creek, Chactaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee, known as the Five Civilized Indian Nations –whose territory included what is now Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The Negroes, the Africans, the Maroons of Florida --their most famous marronage being the absconding from Stono Plantation in 1739-- took refugee and identity from their Indian companions and hosts in the British era of American history; and are still listed as Black Indians with the US Government and counted as members of those nations.]
[2] La Tercera Raiz/ The Third Root, director Rafael Rebollar Corona’s documentary focuses on the daily life and cultural traditions of Afro-Mestizos living in the Costa Chica region of Mexico’s Pacific coast. In Spanish with English subtitles. (Mexico, 2001, 30 min.)
[3] Correrias en el Monte [Forays into the Bush];
[4] Forgotten Roots, The (La Raiz olvidada) Get Details and Purchasing Info
Rafael Rebollar
Documentary 50 minutes 2001
With English subtitles
Mexico has always imagined itself a nation forged from the encounter between Spaniards and indigenous people in the colonial past. But there are roots that have been forgotten, if not deliberately erased. This impressively researched documentary, the first of a three part series, acknowledges and explores the history and influential cultural heritage of Africans in Mexico. It tells how African people were brought as slaves and servants to the conquistadors, and came to occupy a variety of places in Mexican colonial society, from exploited mine and plantation workers to wealthy landowners. Their story in Mexico is one of both resistance and acculturation, as some slaves rebelled against their masters and others had children with them to advance themselves socially. This video uses both historical documentation and the example of Mexico�s dazzling hybrid traditions to illustrate the deep and pervasive footprints left by African culture in Mexican culture and society. The crowning example is the city of Veracruz, that bustling port of the �Afro-Andalusian Caribbean,� with its bubbling hodgepodge of faces, races, and musical expressions that was the point of entry for the majority of the slaves to enter Mexico. But the video emphasizes that Africans were present throughout the country, and works towards a reconciliation with those African roots of Mexican culture that have been forgotten for too long.
The African Presence in México: From Yanga to the Present
For nearly 500 years the existence and influence of the African descendants in Mexico have been overlooked. The African Presence in México: Yanga to the Present traces how Africans---less than two per cent of colonial Mexico's (1521-1810) population---significantly enriched Mexican culture through their art, music, language, cuisine, and dance.
"African Presence in México invited Mexican-Americans and African-Americans to look at their identities in light of their shared histories in Mexico and the United States," said the Cultural Arts Developer. “The exhibition also allowed Americans to better understand the complexity of race issues in the U.S. and Mexico," she said.
The Spanish first brought Africans to Mexico in 1519 to labor in the agrarian and silver industries, under often brutal conditions. There were constant slave protests and runaways (cimarrones), who established settlements in the mountains of Orizaba.
In January 1609, Yanga, a runaway slave elder, led the cimarrones [maroons]to a successful resistance against a special army sent by the Spanish Crown to crush their actions. After several cimarrón victories the Spanish acquiesced to the slaves' demand for land and freedom. Yanga founded the first free African township in the Americas, San Lorenzo de los Negros, near Veracruz. It was renamed in his honor in the 1930s.
Slavery in Mexico was abolished in 1810 by Jose María Morelos y Pavón, leader of the Mexican War of Independence. As a mulatto (Spanish and African), Morelos was directly affected by Mexico's prejudices. Racial mixes were seen as undesirable by a society that aspired to purity of race and blood; i.e., Spanish only.
In 1992, as part of the 500th anniversary of the arrival (encuentro) of the Spanish in the Americas, the Mexican government officially acknowledged that the African culture represented la tercera raiz (the third root) of Mexican culture, with the Spanish and indigenous peoples.
The bilingual exhibition features paintings, prints, movie posters, photographs, sculpture, costumes, masks, and musical instruments. "It's a fascinating hybrid---a visual arts exhibition based on a cultural history," says co-curator Orantes. [Oakland Museum]
###
“The African Presence in Mexico: From Yanga to the Present”
The DuSable Museum
Curated by Sangrario Cruz of the University of Veracruz and the National Museum of Mexican Art’s Visual Arts Director Cesareo Moreno, this exhibition through paintings, photographs, lithographs and historical texts, highlights the impact that Africans had on Mexican culture and examines the complexity of race, culture, politics, and social stratification. No exhibition has showcased the history, artistic expressions and practices of Afro-Mexicans in such broad scope as this one, which includes a comprehensive range of artwork from 18th Century Colonial caste paintings to contemporary artistic expressions. The African Presence in Mexico is also a bilingual exhibition that includes text panels, tours and various educational and public programming in both English and Spanish.
Organized and originally presented by the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, this traveling exhibition has made stops in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, D.C., and California, as well as Monterrey and Veracruz, Mexico. The exhibition features important historical figures, such as Yanga, an African leader and founder of the first free African township in the Americas (January 6, 1609), and illuminates the contributions of Africans to the artistic, culinary, musical and cultural traditions of Mexican culture from the past through the present day. Featured in the exhibition are artists such as Rufino Tamayo, Elizabeth Catlett, Francisco Toledo, Maria Yampolski, Francisco Mora, and Afro-Mexicano artists; Ignacio Canela, Mario Guzman, Guillermo Vargas and Hermengildo Gonzalez.
AFRICAN PRESENCE IN MEXICO
SMITHSONIAN
WHAT IS A MEXICAN?
Miriam Jimenez Roman
Black people in Mexico? The looks of amazement and disbelief on the faces of first-time viewers of Tony Gleaton's photographs are eloquent testimony to the significance of these images. Particularly to those who have little or no knowledge about societies beyond the borders of the United States, these photographs are a revelation. They force us to rethink many of our preconceptions not only about our southern neighbor but more generally about issues such as race, ethnicity, culture, and national identity.
Not long ago, on a hot and humid July day, I rode with friends to the town of Yanga, in the state of Veracruz on Mexico's gulf coast. In recent years, Yanga has received considerable attention as one of the Americas' earliest "maroon communities": settlements founded by fugitive slaves. Originally known as San Lorenzo de los Negros, in 1932 the town was renamed for its founder, a rebellious Muslim man from what is now Nigeria. In 1609, after resisting recapture for 38 years, Yanga negotiated with the Spaniards to establish a free black community.
Today a recently erected statue of Yanga stands on the outskirts of the town, more a testimony to the persistence of a few Mexican anthropologists who "re-discovered" the place than to the historical memory of its founders' descendants. For as I strolled through the area and talked to the residents, and saw the evidence of an African past in their faces, I discovered that they have little more than amused curiosity about the outsiders who express interest in that past. Yanga's people have quite simply been living their lives as they always have, making the adjustments necessary in a changing world and giving little thought to an aspect of their history for which they are now being celebrated. The story of Yanga and his followers is remarkable for being so typical: The town's relative isolation is the reason for its founding and for its continued existence as a predominately black enclave. Fugitive slave communities were commonly established in difficult-to-reach areas in order to secure their inhabitants from recapture.
But their physical isolation has also led to their being ignored. Particularly since the Revolution (1910-29), the Yangas of Mexico--most found dispersed throughout the states of Veracruz on the gulf coast and Oaxaca and Guerrero south of Acapulco--have been out of sight and out of mind, generally considered unworthy of any special attention. Mexico's African presence has been relegated to an obscured slave past, pushed aside in the interest of a national identity based on a mixture of indigenous and European cultural mestizaje. In practice, this ideology of "racial democracy" favors the European presence; too often the nation's glorious indigenous past is reduced to folklore and ceremonial showcasing. But the handling of the African "third root" is even more dismissive.
There are notable exceptions to this lack of attention. The anthropologist Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran's seminal works ("La Poblacion Negra de Mexico, 1519-1810." Mexico: Ediciones Fuente Cultural, 1946; and "Cuijla: Esbozo Etnografico de un Pueblo Negro." Veracruz, Mexico: Universidad Veracruzana, 1989) remain among the most important on the subject. Doubtless influenced by the interest in Africans and their descendants in other parts of the world, during the past decade a small but significant group of Mexican intellectuals have begun focusing on black Mexicans. It is true that the state of Veracruz (and especially the port city of the same name) is generally recognized as having "black" people. In fact, there is a widespread tendency to identify all Mexicans who have distinctively "black" features as coming from Veracruz. In addition to its relatively well-known history as a major slave port, Veracruz received significant numbers of descendants of Africa from Haiti and Cuba during the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Africans and their descendants to the formation of Mexican society do not figure in the equation at all. Because they live as their neighbors live, carry out the same work, eat the same foods, and make the same music, it is assumed that blacks have assimilated into "Mexican" society. The truth of the matter is, they are Mexican society. The historical record offers compelling evidence that Africans and their descendants contributed enormously to the very formation of Mexican culture.
For all intents and purposes the biological, cultural, and material contributions of more than 200,000. Africans and their descendants to the formation of Mexican society do not figure in the equation at all. It is impossible to arrive at precise figures on the volume of enslaved Africans brought to Mexico or the rest of the Americas. Hungry for slaves and eager to avoid payment of duties, traders and buyers often resorted to smuggling. The 200,000 figure is generally recognized as a conservative estimate.
Because they live as their neighbors live, carry out the same work, eat the same foods, and make the same music, it is assumed that blacks have assimilated into "Mexican" society. The truth of the matter is, they are Mexican society. The historical record offers compelling evidence that Africans and their descendants contributed enormously to the very formation of Mexican culture.
When Yanga and his followers founded their settlement, the population of Mexico City consisted of approximately 36,000 Africans, 116,000 persons of African ancestry, and only 14,000 Europeans. The source of these figures is the census of 1646 of Mexico City, as reported by Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran in "La Poblacion Negra de Mexico" (p. 237). These approximate figures include as persons of African ancestry only those designated as "Afromestizos," in accordance with the caste-system definitions at the time. The census indicates that there were also more than a million indigenous peoples. In fact, such precise definitions were almost impossible to make, and it is highly probable that the categories "Euromestizos" and "Indomestizos" also included persons of African descent. Escaped slaves added to the overwhelming numbers in the cities, establishing communities in Oaxaca as early as 1523. Beyond their physical presence, Africans and their descendants interacted with indigenous and European peoples in forging nearly every aspect of society. Indeed, the states of Guerrero and Morelos bear the names of two men of African ancestry, heroes of the war of independence that made possible the founding of the republic of Mexico in 1821.
It is within this context that we must view Tony Gleaton's photographs. The people in these images, ignored in the past, now run the risk of being exoticized, of being brought forward to applaud their "Africanness" while ignoring their "Mexicanness." The faces of these children and grandmothers should remind us of the generations that preceded them. But we must not relegate them to history. As always, they remain active participants in their world. To understand the implications of the people of Yanga--and of Cuajinicuilapa, El Ciruelo, Corralero, and other like communities--we must go beyond physical appearance, cease determining the extent of Africa's influence simply by how much one "looks" African, and go forward to critically examine what indeed is Mexico and who are the Mexicans. So, yes, there are black people in Mexico. We may marvel at these relatively isolated communities that can still be found along the Pacific and gulf coasts. But of greater significance is recognizing the myriad forms that mark the African presence in Mexican culture, past and present, many of which remain to be discovered by people such as Tony Gleaton and ourselves and certainly by the Mexican people. ###
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MEXICAN ARTS
http://www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org/af//africanpresence.html
No comments:
Post a Comment