Fleeing Slavery in Mexico: The Journey to Freedom Southward
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Mexico played a significant historical role as a refuge for enslaved Black people fleeing from the United States in the 1800s. After Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, it became a sanctuary where enslaved individuals who crossed into Mexican territory were declared free.
This geographical and legal refuge was particularly important for runaway slaves and Black Seminoles escaping enslavement in the U.S. South. Thousands of enslaved people made their way to the Rio Grande, which became a river of deliverance.
The border between the U.S. and Mexico was contested during this period, with Mexico refusing to recognize Texas’s independence until after the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). Post-war treaties formalized borders, but Mexico's abolitionist stance remained important for Black fugitives.
The main mode of transportation for runaway slaves was on horseback traversing the vast, feral stretches of South Texas down to the border. Enslaved sailors and stowaways from New Orleans and Galveston, Texas, also jumped ship in Mexican ports. Mexican laborers working in Texas befriended slaves and acted as guides to help them escape south.
The Webbers and the Jackson family were well-known in the clandestine grapevine of runaways and had their own licensed ferry landings on their properties, which made it easy for them to shepherd runaway slaves across the river into free Mexico. John Webber, a white settler, bought the freedom of his enslaved wife and children.
The breakneck flight from an East Texas cotton plantation to the border was a perilous journey, with runaway slaves having to survive the Nueces Strip, a 160-mile expanse between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. Many Mexicans were sympathetic to fugitive slaves from Texas and the United States, and some Mexicans would put up a fight against vigilantes and bounty hunters looking for escaped slaves who had crossed over the river to free Mexican soil.
Under Texas law, Mexicans and enslaved persons were not allowed to be found together or to collaborate or even speak to each other. However, this did not deter the Webbers and others from helping enslaved people find freedom. The borderlands were different from the rest of slaveholding Texas, as a white man, his Black wife, and their children could live in peace.
The Texas Runaway Slave Project, housed at Stephen F. Austin State University, has been researching fugitive slaves in Texas through newspapers from the 1840s to the 1860s. Alice Baumgartner, a historian at the University of Southern California, is at the forefront of a burst of recent scholarship about the role Mexico played in providing a refuge for runaway slaves.
Mexico's anti-slavery position gave it a sort of "moral capital" during a time when the United States was an aggressive, slaveholding nation. The borderlands, with their unique mix of people and the lack of enforcement of racial codes, offered a glimmer of hope to enslaved people seeking freedom.
References:
[1] Baumgartner, Alice. "South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War." University of North Carolina Press, 2020.
[4] "Mexico's Role as a Refuge for Enslaved People." PBS, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/mexicos-role-as-a-refuge-for-enslaved-people [Accessed: 2022-03-10].
- In a time contrasting the aggressive, slaveholding United States, Mexico's anti-slavery position became a beacon, providing a refuge for runaway slaves.
- Pursuing education-and-self-development, historians like Alice Baumgartner delve into the significant historical role Mexico played as a sanctuary for enslaved individuals, particularly in the realm of science, such as the study of slavery, migration patterns, and social dynamics.
