A Relatively Recent but Forgotten Mexican Favor
Feb 22, 2020 20:38:43 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Feb 22, 2020 20:38:43 GMT -5
A Relatively Recent Forgotten Favor?
Favors are usually remembered and appreciated. At least the is the normal reaction. But in the USA, there seems to be a certain disregard for a very important favor that was done on a national scale towards a people who were being mistreated. That favor was that of the Mexican government and its people for the Africans who were being mistreated under Anglo American slavery. The reason I say forgotten, is because it seems that tensions against Mexico are being vociferously expressed by descendants of a people who were helped by Mexico in their greatest hour of need.
Expressions such as vehement requests that all Mexicans leave the USA.
Demands that a border Wall be erected to keep then out.
Complaints about any federal assistance that they get.
Snide remarks about their not learning English fast enough.
Physical attacks to force the out and make them feel unwelcomed
Cooperating with Racist Anglo Americans in persecuting them.
Had the Mexicans reacted the same way to black slaves seeking haven in Mexico-then they would have been doomed. But fortunately, that was not the case. Instead they wee shown compassion and received with hospitality so they could start living a normal human life as all humans deserve to live.
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We all know that being a slave under the Anglo American system was tantamount to being treated like an animal. We all know that as a slave you could be beaten and murdered at a moment's notice for the slightest infraction or just for the heck of it as is illustrated by the film Django Unchained were such cruelty is very poignantly depicted, To make matters worse, if you escaped you were hunted down and if caught, were liable to be maimed in order to teach you a lesson not to do it again.
Feet and other limbs were amputated to teach that lesson. Families were heartlessly separated with total calloused disregard for natural emotions and worries which such separations inflicted. So for a slave-there was very little chance of gaining freedom since unlike slavery under Spain and Portugal, Anglo slavery offered no hope of being provided with the means of buying your ow freedom with money earned. In short, your situation was a hopelessly accursed one.
To make matters worse, all the states had agreed to return runaway slaves to their owners. So hunting them down was legal in the USA
Amidst all this suffering and pain, however, Mexico offered a ray of hope. It refuses to return runaway saves from the USA, offered then safe haven and have an opportunity to start a normal life.
For these reasons, it seems strange to me to see the descendants of these harassed people displaying murderous hatred towards Mexico and its people, while showing great fanatical love towards the very nation which perpetrated such heinous crimes on their ancestors. To me it seems tantamount to kissing the had that whips us while biting the hand that helped us.
Favors are usually remembered and appreciated. At least the is the normal reaction. But in the USA, there seems to be a certain disregard for a very important favor that was done on a national scale towards a people who were being mistreated. That favor was that of the Mexican government and its people for the Africans who were being mistreated under Anglo American slavery. The reason I say forgotten, is because it seems that tensions against Mexico are being vociferously expressed by descendants of a people who were helped by Mexico in their greatest hour of need.
Expressions such as vehement requests that all Mexicans leave the USA.
Demands that a border Wall be erected to keep then out.
Complaints about any federal assistance that they get.
Snide remarks about their not learning English fast enough.
Physical attacks to force the out and make them feel unwelcomed
Cooperating with Racist Anglo Americans in persecuting them.
Had the Mexicans reacted the same way to black slaves seeking haven in Mexico-then they would have been doomed. But fortunately, that was not the case. Instead they wee shown compassion and received with hospitality so they could start living a normal human life as all humans deserve to live.
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Their Lamentable Situation
We all know that being a slave under the Anglo American system was tantamount to being treated like an animal. We all know that as a slave you could be beaten and murdered at a moment's notice for the slightest infraction or just for the heck of it as is illustrated by the film Django Unchained were such cruelty is very poignantly depicted, To make matters worse, if you escaped you were hunted down and if caught, were liable to be maimed in order to teach you a lesson not to do it again.
Feet and other limbs were amputated to teach that lesson. Families were heartlessly separated with total calloused disregard for natural emotions and worries which such separations inflicted. So for a slave-there was very little chance of gaining freedom since unlike slavery under Spain and Portugal, Anglo slavery offered no hope of being provided with the means of buying your ow freedom with money earned. In short, your situation was a hopelessly accursed one.
To make matters worse, all the states had agreed to return runaway slaves to their owners. So hunting them down was legal in the USA
Amidst all this suffering and pain, however, Mexico offered a ray of hope. It refuses to return runaway saves from the USA, offered then safe haven and have an opportunity to start a normal life.
For these reasons, it seems strange to me to see the descendants of these harassed people displaying murderous hatred towards Mexico and its people, while showing great fanatical love towards the very nation which perpetrated such heinous crimes on their ancestors. To me it seems tantamount to kissing the had that whips us while biting the hand that helped us.
The Little-Known Underground Railroad That Ran South to Mexico
Unlike the northern free states, Mexico didn’t agree to return fugitive slaves The Underground Railroad ran south as well as north. For slaves in Texas, refuge in Canada must have seemed impossibly far away. Fortunately, slavery was also illegal in Mexico.
Researchers estimate 5,000 to 10,000 people escaped from bondage into Mexico, says Maria Hammack, who is writing her dissertation about this topic at the University of Texas at Austin. But she thinks the actual number could be even higher.
“These were clandestine routes and if you got caught you would be killed and lynched, so most people didn’t leave a lot of records,” says Hammack.
There’s some evidence that tejanos, or Mexicans in Texas, acted as “conductors” on the southern route by helping people get to Mexico. In addition, Hammack has also identified a black woman and two white men who helped enslaved workers escape and tried to find a home for them in Mexico.
Mexico abolished slavery in 1829 when Texas was still part of the country, in part prompting white, slave-holding immigrants to fight for independence in the Texas Revolution. Once they formed the Republic of Texas in 1836, they made slavery legal again, and it continued to be legal when Texas joined the U.S. as a state in 1845.
Enslaved people in Texas were aware that there was a country to the south where they could find different levels of freedom (though indentured debt servitude existed in Mexico, it was not the same as chattel slavery). Hammack has discovered one runaway named Tom who had been enslaved by Sam Houston. Houston was a president of the Republic of Texas who’d fought in the Texas Revolution. Once Tom got across the border, he joined the Mexican military that Houston had fought against.
Fugitive slaves got to Mexico in many different ways. Some went on foot, while others rode horses or snuck aboard ferries bound for Mexican ports. Stories spread about enslaved people who crossed the Rio Grande river dividing Texas from Mexico by floating on bales of cotton, and several Texas newspapers reported in July 1863 that three enslaved people had escaped this way. Even if this wasn’t logistically possible, the imagery of floating to freedom on a symbol of slavery was strong.
But it wasn’t only enslaved people in Texas who found freedom in Mexico. “I have found individuals who made it all the way from North Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama,” Hammack says.
Slaveholders knew that enslaved people were escaping to Mexico, and the U.S. tried to get Mexico to sign a fugitive slave treaty. Just as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 had compelled free states to return escapees to the south, the U.S. wanted Mexico to return escaped slaves to the U.S. But Mexico refused to sign such a treaty, insisting that all enslaved people were free when they set foot on Mexican soil. Despite this, some U.S. slave owners still hired slave catchers to illegally kidnap escapees in Mexico.
It’s unclear how organized the southern “underground railroad” was. Hammack says some enslaved people may have found their way to Mexico without assistance. Other evidence suggests tejanos, especially poor tejanos, played a part in helping escapees get to Mexico.
The Fugitive Slave Act increased federal and free-state responsibility for the recovery of fugitive slaves, appointing federal commissioners empowered to issue warrants for their arrest.
www.history.com/news/underground-railroad-mexico-escaped-slaves