Afro-Mexican Lives in the Long Nineteenth Century

As the first book-length examination of abolition and its legacies in Mexico, this collection reveals innovative social, cultural, political, and intellectual approaches to Afro-Mexican history. It complicates the long-standing belief that Afro-Mexicans were erased from the nation. The volume instead shows how they created their own archival legibility by continuing and modifying colonial-era forms of resistance, among other survival strategies. The essays document the lives and choices of Afro-descended peoples, both enslaved and free, over the course of two centuries, culminating during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Contributors examine how Afro-Mexicans who lived under Spanish rule took advantage of colonial structures to self-advocate and form communities. Beginning with the war for independence and continuing after the abolition of slavery and caste in the 1820s, Afro-descended citizens responded to and, at times, resisted the claims of racial disappearance to shape both local and national politics.

Nicole von Germeten is Professor of History at Oregon State University. Her many publications include Death in Old Mexico: The 1789 Dongo Murders and How They Shaped the History of a Nation (2023).