Afro-Mexicans and The Alamo!

The existence of Afro-Mexicans was officially affirmed in the 1990s when the Mexican government acknowledged Africa as Mexico's “third root” which makes it possible for us to see clearly the unmistakable face and handprint of Black Africans in Pre-Columbian America centuries before the Spanish. .

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed on February 2, 1848, ended the war between the United States and Mexico. By its terms, Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. The agreement made Mexicans in the USA White by Treaty! In 1833, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was elected President of Mexico. When he abolished the Constitution of 1824, it prompted a Mexican Civil War and the Texas independence movement.

Santa Anna was a criollo (Mexican-born Spaniard) and initially fought on the side of Spain against insurgents, who advocated for the welfare of indigenous peoples, mestizos, and other lower classes in Mexico. In Hispanic America, criollo is a term used originally to describe people of Spanish descent born in the viceroyalties(wealthy landowners).They were regarded as white and a few of them no doubt were, but most were descended from Mestizos who had been recognized by their Spanish fathers and brought up as Spaniards.

Yet, the legend of the Alamo is a Texas tall tale run amok. The actual story is one of White American immigrants to Texas revolting in large part over Mexican attempts to end slavery. Far from heroically fighting for a noble cause, they were illegal immigrants who fought to defend and expand the evils of slavery. White settlers began arriving in Texas from the United States in the 1820s, when it was part of Spanish Mexico. The Spanish government wanted them as a bulwark against the Comanche, but these new Texans had another agenda. They wanted to take over thousands of acres of cheap land in the Brazos River Valley. White settlers, could then use it to cultivate cotton.

The problem, according to Stephen F. Austin, known as the “Father of Texas,” was that Sant Anna's new government, which took power on a racial equality agenda, would not abide slavery. The new government wanted slavery gone, but ending the practice would ruin the settlers. Austin, “talked to each individual member of the junta of the necessity which existed in Texas … for the new colonists to bring their slaves.” But constant turnover and instability in Mexico City proved problematic for the Texans. In 1824, a new government proposed measures to undo the understanding over slavery. One bill outlawed “commerce and traffic in slaves” and stated that any enslaved person brought into Mexico would be deemed free by “the mere act of treading Mexican soil.” The US was already dealing with slaves escaping to Florida to fight with the fierce Seminoles whose front lines were largely comprised of former slaves who routinely routed the US army in battle, and a new area where slaves could find freedom was bad for business.

In fact commanders like Andrew Jackson had grown famous by massacring women, children and elderly natives when the young men were out hunting. The Treaty of Camp Moultrie (1823), also known as Moultrie Creek, came on the heels of the cession of Florida from Spain to the U.S. in 1821. The primary goal of this treaty was to obtain Seminole lands in North Florida targeted for the expansion of plantation slavery. The treaty created a reservation in Central Florida and provided goods, tools, and an annuity to help relocate the Seminoles.

Finally, in 1824, a new Mexican constitution seemed to settle the issue by leaving the slavery question to the states. The state constitution of 1827 allowed settlers to import enslaved people for six more months. That September, however, yet another new government in Mexico City passed a flurry of laws curbing slavery. By 1828, Texans had settled on an unsustainable practice: They would ignore anti-slavery laws passed in Mexico City.

At dawn on March 6, 1836, the 13th day of the siege, the Battle of the Alamo commenced. Fighting lasted roughly 90 minutes, and by daybreak all the Defenders had perished, including a former congressman from Tennessee, David Crockett. The loss of the garrison was felt all over Texas, and even the world. The Defenders were from many different countries, including some Defenders who were native-born Mexicans. Following the battle, Santa Anna ordered the Defender’s remains burned

It was early March 1836; a sad little procession moved slowly down a south Texas road. A young mother rode a pony, holding her fifteen months old baby daughter, and a black man walked beside her, acting as escort. Just a few days earlier, this trio of weary travelers had witnessed the fall of the mission fortress, the Alamo. There, the Mexican forces of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna made the woman, Susannah Arabella Dickinson, a widow.

Suddenly, a man arose out of the tall prairie grass beside the road, frightening Mrs. Dickinson. She relaxed when she recognized the familiar features of Joe, the young black servant of Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis, the commander of the Texian garrison of the Alamo. Thus, two African Americans, both deeply involved with the drama of the Alamo siege and final assault, met on the road leading from the Alamo to Gonzales.

This talk of secession brought crackdowns from the Mexican government, including taxes on cotton to pay for military installations in Texas and an order to close the border with the United States. Austin sunk into a depression. Mexico was threatening the foundation of Texans’ economy. “Nothing is wanted but money,” Austin wrote in one letter, adding in another, “and negros are necessary to make it.” In April 1832, the Mexican government closed a loophole allowing settlers to reclassify their human chattel as indentured servants. This finally outlawed slavery, full stop. For Austin, this was the last straw. “Texas must be a slave country,” he wrote a friend, “circumstances and unavoidable necessity compels it.”

Ben, the black man escorting Susannah and her daughter, had watched the final moments of the Alamo battle from a house in San Antonio. He was in the town working as a cook for Gen. Santa Anna and Colonel Juan Nepomuceno Almonte. A free person, who worked as a steward on several ships sailing out of the east coast of the U.S., Ben met Colonel Almonte in New York. Impressed with Ben, Col. Almonte hired him as a cook. Almonte returned to Mexico and Ben accompanied him to Vera Cruz. When Santa Anna started his 1836 campaign to suppress the Texas Revolution, he assigned Col. Almonte to his staff. Almonte took Ben along.

Ben had once seen David Crockett in Washington, DC. Therefore, at daylight, the Mexicans took him to the fort to identify Crockett's body. A few days after the battle, Santa Anna ordered Ben to escort Susannah Dickinson and her daughter to the Texian lines. After Ben fulfilled his mission, General Sam Houston hired him to serve as his cook. After the battle of San Jacinto, Ben fades from historical record.