Black Mexicans? The Mexico They Dont Want You To See

Friday, September 21, 2012

Down to Veracruz

a song for Yanga

by Maevin X

.We're going down to Veracruz to lay in the sun
We're going down to Veracruz to have some fun
They got some black people there
got nappy hair
Speak that Espanol
got mucho soul
down in Veracruz
There was a black slave named Yanga
story goes round
Brother Yanga was so bad
the Spanish gave him a town
San Lorenzo de los Negros
down in Veracruz....

lyrics by Marvin X

from Woman, Man's Best Friend,

Al Kitab Sudan Press, 1973

Yanga: The Leader  The most memorable of the Afro-Mexican groups of former slaves finding refuge in the coastal mountain range near the Gulf Coast was the one founded by Gaspar Yanga in the 1570´s.Yanga was a slave from the African nation of Gabon. Some say it was Angola. Nobody knows for sure.Many say that Yanga was from a royal family in Africa.In the safety of the high mountain country of Veracruz, Yanga´s community eventually grew to a population estimated at 500 people.Yanga´s followers got their provisions from raids on the early Spanish haciendas in the area or from the heavily laden caravans as they slowly labored through the high mountain passes along the Camino Real between Veracruz and Mexico City.

Darrell and Marvin K, two sons of Marvin X in Southern Mexico, Pinotepta, Oaxaca. Marvin X had received a National Endowment for the Arts writing fellowship to research North American and Central American Africans in the Americas. He studied Africans in Mexico, from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic, from Alcapulco to Vera Cruz, Chetumal and into Central America, Belize. photo by Marvin X, 1975