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What is not in dispute, however, is that Africans took part in the earliest known
what later became the European colonial powers and the western
evidence to suggest that Columbus’s navigator, Pedro Alonso
In order to understand why one would expect to find
it’s necessary to look at yet another frontier complex – that is the Islamic and Spanish,
Islamic and African, and Spanish and African
As we saw in Episode 3: Africa in Historical Context, the Muslims began
North Africa around the sixth century. The year 711 initiated 700 years
in Spain. It’s important to understand the engine of Islamic expansion
talk about Islamic expansion we are not necessarily speaking of a single
expanded from the area of Mecca in Saudi Arabia and ended up in
world. Remember that slavery prior to the Atlantic
incorporating various populations and this is the way
empire. The way the expansion actually took place
their neighbors and make slaves of them. Those slaves would then become Islamicized by joining
the military and conquering their neighbors,
Spain in 711 were not people who had invaded
Berbers who had been conquered and were now
So Spain was ruled for 700 years by North
in 1492 Spain was of exceedingly mixed ancestry.
with a foreign population for over 700 years,
trans-Saharan trade routes and the interior
slave trade, darker skinned in west Africans
into Spain in significant numbers by 1492.
our story. We know the first one – Columbus
thing that happens in 1492 is that Spain is reconquered ending 700 years of North
rule. When that happened, Spain went on a very vigorous attempt to try to stamp
700 years of Muslim influence by expelling those it considered to be non-Spaniard.
non-Spaniard, essentially what that meant is non-catholic. Not only were the Muslims
expelled in this region in this pre-inquisition climate, but the Jews were expelled as
Where did they go? You guessed it … Columbus’s is contact with the western
the access vast new land resources gave Spain the perfect opportunity to
They could simply send them west. We know that large numbers of
present in New Spain – Spain's American Colonies – because the Spanish
meticulous census takers. But what happened in New Spain is that these
wanted to associate themselves with those pure Spaniards of
of those “pure” Spaniards were quite comfortable where they
to capture some of that status a peculiar racial caste
What you see here is a very simplified version of that
African and Native American on the bottom and various
the census listed the race of the individuals in the
that when Spain and later Mexico had possession of
black. But we have to add an asterisk to that.
New Spain people of mixed race could make their way to the top of the caste system,
and the way they did it is going to closely resemble the Islamic expansion whose
the Spanish we’re trying so hard to distance themselves from. Remember, in the
empire if one were a slave one would raise ones status in life by joining the
and conquering in making slaves of other people. A familiar pattern is going to
in New Spain. People of lower castes will move up the chain by joining the
conquering the Aztecs are Mayans or any of a number of various people, gain
wealth, and, just as that was a way of getting full fledged citizenship and the
one could gain full fledged Español status by simply purchasing a
they were pure Español. And you could do that no matter what race
notice here you have Maria Rufina Navarro with listed as a mulatto in
mestizo in 1798. Look at Jose Navarro here who’s listed in 1781 as a
1798 he’s an Español. What that means for him is that he has gained the
the social standing such that regardless of his race that he can enjoy
So the asterisk here is that when we look at the Spanish census in San
example, when we say that it was about 28% black you have to add “at
figure. We know all of the people who are listed on the census as mulatto
mulatto, but those who are listed as the Español may have once been mulatto.
were very few people who were purely Español even in Spain much less in
so those people who are listed as Español we must look at with a
Manpower was a preeminent concern throughout Spain’s expansion into
Much of the colonial structure was based on the need to populate
and make loyal Spanish citizens out of the persons in those
the mission system was all about. Spain was willing to take people
could find them. As it turns out those with the most to gain by going
frontier happened to be people of color in general and black folks in
So would make sense that we would expect to find large numbers of Spanish
folks in the Spanish frontier regions. In fact as we move along the
westward the complexion of the frontier becomes progressively darker.
and more of its manpower from the mixed population in the
and northward as far as California. That is a
to find later on that the last governor of Mexican
name of Pio Pico. It also shouldn’t be surprising
would find people such as Estabanico, in explorations of the Spanish frontier in
for manpower becomes clear in the very early Spanish settlement of
Governor of Florida, Governor Zuniga clearly did not think highly
but it’s also obvious that he understood that they were
Spanish frontier, and nevertheless heavily utilized
mestizos and other dastardly persons” to populate newly
guiding principle of repoblación. To meet that need the
founded the town of Pueblo De Gracia Real De Santa Teresae
of Mose is critically important to understanding the
and later the United States and Spanish Colonies
The Spanish governor of Florida was well aware that Spanish
only ones who are interested in getting free land at Mose.
Moses situated –practically on the border between the
–it becomes clear that the Spanish were actively
colonies to run away and joined the colony at
It should not be seen as a coincidence that Mose was founded in 1738, and one year
in 1739 we find the largest slave uprising in the history of the British Colonies,
Stono Rebellion (another one of the key terms for this unit). Here is one of the
patterns that we will see repeated a few times throughout the course of this
example, by unit three United States will have acquired the Louisiana
in the process we will once again be sharing a border with what will by
the country of Mexico. So when Mexico starts granting free lands to
this frontier province of Texas –a Mexican territory at the
think that’s going to send to the black slaves of the
can probably guess the answer and it’s easy to look to
model when we remember the Alamo.