Mexican, Mexico

African Mexicans, now largely assimilated in the general population, have historically been located in certain communities in Mexico. They are currently found in the coastal areas of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Veracruz, Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatán.

When the Spanish first arrived in Mesoamerica, they brought free Africans with them. Among them was Juan Garrido, a conquistador who belonged to Juan Ponce de León's entourage. Garrido was born on the West African coast, the son of an African King. Garrido went on to join Hernando Cortés in the Spanish conquest of Mexico. These African contributed to the conquistadors success in New Spain, but they did not share in the victory because of their status. Read more info here

Blacks in Mexico Seek Government Recognition

The first town of freed African slaves in the Americas is not exactly where you would expect to find it - and it isn't exactly what you'd expect to find either. First, it's not in the United States. Yanga, on Mexico's Gulf Coast, is a sleepy pueblito founded by its namesake, Gaspar Yanga, an African slave who led a rebellion against his Spanish colonial masters in the late 16th century and fought off attempts to retake the settlement. The second thing that is immediately evident to vistors who reach the town's rustic central plaza: there are virtually no blacks among the few hundred residents milling around the center of town. Continue reading here.

Critically ill Canadian denied re-entry from Mexico

The family of a Canadian woman who fell critically ill due to a severe asthma attack in Mexico says that health officials in Canada are refusing her a hospital bed in Toronto because of unfounded swine flu fears.

Victoria George, 29, has been on life support in a Cancun hospital since Wednesday. Her mother says that her insurance provider has been repeatedly told there are no intensive care unit beds available for her to be transferred to in the Greater Toronto Area.

"Doctors in Mexico told (Victoria's) husband, 'She has no symptoms or pathologies of the swine flu-virus and she never did: her condition is a direct result of her asthma,'" Pauline George told CTV.ca in a telephone interview late Sunday evening. Continue reading here.

Mexico celebrates Spring Equinox

Visitors believe the ancient structure holds a special energy at the equinox which they can receive especially if they are dressed in white.

Perfomers in Aztec costume join the ceremony, to perform dances as part of the ritual.

Thousands gather at the pyramid of the sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico to celebrate Spring Equinox.
Thanks to Ayira Bey

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Miscegenagtion and Racism: The Afro-Mexican in Colonial Mexico

Most students of Mexican history would be surprised to know that an extensive Black population, which will be referred to as Afro-Mexican, existed during the colonial period. However, Afro-Mexicans, both slave and free at one time outnumbered the current domination Mestizo population and the Whites. Mexico had an extensive Black population, which eventually assimilated into the dominant majority Mestizo population by the eighteenth century. This paper will concentrate on the factors that caused the decline of the Afro-Mexican population in Mexico during the colonial period, from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. It will not focus of the Afro-Mexican population, slave or free, but only explain their disappearance. Although the Afro-Mexicans were an extensive dominant population during the colonial period, by the eighteenth century, they became a negligible population that the Indians, Whites and Mestizos supplanted. What accounted form their demographic decline in colonial society. The prevalent mestijaze ethos and pernicious racism caused the Afro-Mexican gradual population decline in colonial Mexican society.

Nobody knows when the first African slaves came to Mexico, or New Spain as it was called, but their numbers grew in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 1501 marked the earliest date of the Black slaves arriving in the Americas from Spain. Blacks served as companions, servants, auxiliaries to the Spanish explorers and conquistadors.1 Not till 1519, when Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec empire did Blacks come to New Spain. Cortes brought two slaves with him, Juan Cortes and Juan Garrido.2 Hernan Cortes was the first Spaniard to introduce Blacks to the region.3 Though most Blacks that came to New Spain were slaves, some arrived as free men. A few plagued active roles in the Conquest of 1519.4 Cortes, himself, used Black slaves not only in the Conquest but also on his plantations. Continue reading article here