For the rest of this semester, you will be learning about the African Diaspora in Mexico. The African Diaspora in Mexico began around the year 1521 when slaves began to be transported into the Spanish colony of Mexico. From 1521 to 1821, about 200,000 slaves were forced to leave their homes by the Spanish colonists in Mexico (Exploring Africa). As soon as the slaves arrived, they began trying to escape. When they escaped, they began heading to remote regions of the Costa Chica county of Mexico. The slave owners referred to these slaves as maroons. For this reason, the communities these escaped slaves formed were called maroon communities (Exploring Africa). These communities would try to break the slaves out of many of the neighboring estates in the Costa Chica region of Mexico. To this day, the Costa Chica region of Mexico continues to be the main region in Mexico in which people of African descent are located. However, people of African descent have seemed to be disappearing in Mexico. Some estimate that only 50,000 blacks still live in the communities of Mexico (Aspin). This is occurring due to the intermarriage of blacks with Mexicans and indigenous Indians. The blacks have not disappeared, they have just mixed into society. There have been many attempts to revive the African culture in Mexico. However, many of these attempts have failed. It is believed that the tradition that Africans have brought over to Mexico are long gone, but the blacks in Mexico are still not ready to give up yet.
References
Exploring Africa. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. <http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/students/curriculum/m15/activity1.php>.
Aspin, Chris. "Black African Slave Legacy Lingers in Mexico - Assata Shakur Speaks - Hands Off Assata " Web. 09 Feb. 2012. <http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/5431-black-african-slave-legacy-lingers-mexico.html>.
Alex,
ReplyDeleteI think this is truly a great way to begin this project. Your first entry included a great combination of factual knowledge and explanations of the beginning of the African Diaspora in Mexico. This is the first time I have heard in detail about the maroon communities. It is also interesting to think about how the African population is defusing within the cultural melting pot. It is also fascinating to think about how this blending carries on the African culture while creating a new cultural identity at the same time. It would be interesting to see in a few hundred years if that new culture would still identify with their African roots.