Africans in the Conquest of Mesoamerica - Essay Example

Mesoamerica: the African Role in Colonization. It was the Italian thinker and philosopher of history, Benedetto Croce, who once said that “each true history is a contemporaneous one” (1989, p.14).1 The implication of this assertion is not just the reality that any historical “account,” or “record” of a given historical event, is undeniably influenced by the individual bias of the writer or recorder. It also carries with it the implication that any view we have of the past is inextricably linked to the circumstances in which we live and think in the present, that it is the present which holds far more significance for the past, than does the past for the present. Admittedly, the past does influence the present. But when it comes to the work of the historian, who must selectively choose his facts so as to write his account of history, the present, that is his choices, his passions, his worries, and his strengths and weaknesses, will have far-reaching consequences on any view he may hold and assert regarding the past. These are the structural realities which must be accepted when attempting to assess and interpret the meaning of the role and experience of African slaves in the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica, or as it is known today, Mexico. As Americans, our tendency is to look to our southern neighbors as speakers of Spanish, who have themselves experienced historical experiences similar to our own. We began as colonies of the English crown, just as Mexicans once lived under the rule of the king of Spain. They, like us, broke off from the mother country and became an independent nation. They speak the tongue of the European country with which they once had a political allegiance. To that we can add our widespread perception of Mexicans as having a mixture of Spanish and Mesoamerican blood. These perceptions largely reflect our current beliefs and prejudices: i.e. we are an “Anglo-Saxon” country and the Mexicans are a “Latin” country. These simplistic terms, aside from perpetuating misconceptions, stem from our present needs and wants. In reality, the history of Mexico, from the time of the arrival of the first Europeans at the end of the fifteenth century to the present, is one which is far richer than any one historical account could demonstrate. Even more germane to the purposes here, that historical experience is one to which peoples and individuals from Africa made a most significant contribution. So much so that it can be said that not only were Africans central to the Spanish crown’s conquest and colonization of Mexico, but also that it would surely prove impossible to imagine a history of Mexico of the last four centuries without their presence, marked as it was by the very probable truth that these same Africans played a bigger role in the creation of modern Mexico than the Spaniards themselves. A common popular misconception held regarding the African experience in Mexico, and the Spanish New World in general, is that the Spanish-African collusion began with the arrival of the first slaves from Africa to the New World at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Conniff dates the arrival of the first shipment of African slaves to the Caribbean as 1502, followed shortly thereafter by the arrival of the first Africans in mainland Mexico (Conniff 2002, p. 73). In reality, however, Spain had, for a century or so, already developed intimate economic and social ties with Africans which bordered on interdependency. This is supported by Landers in her account of Africans in the colonization of Latin America. According to Landers, Africans, both free and slave, had been a significant part of the population of Southern Iberia centuries prior to the Spanish colonization of Latin America. In accordance with the Spanish custom of integrating all outside arrivals into medieval Spanish society, while allowing them to retain their own unique culture and identity, the Africans living in Spain had access to identities and institutions which were a synthesis of African and Iberian cultures. This is validated by Isabel and Ferdinand’s’ appointment of Juan De Valladolid, an African courtier, with a notable ethnic pedigree, to the post of “Chief and Judge” of Seville’s large black population. This appointment institutionalized the Spanish administrative model of ruling African subjects and slaves through the leading members of their own community. This tradition accompanied the Afro-Iberians arrival in Spanish America several centuries later. (Landers 2006, pp. 112-113) It is this historically documented extensive relationship which immediately challenges the assumption that Africans initially arrived in the Americas only as slaves. The truth is that the Spanish-African cultural, social, and economic interaction significantly predated Cortes’ conquest of the Aztec empire. To be clear, the relationship between the two was not one of equality and mutual respect. The Africans living in Spain had long lived as second-class citizens in a state of servitude to Spanish society. Interestingly, the model used to subdue the Africans in Spain was re-applied by the Spaniards to the Indians of Mesoamerica and, ironically, was implemented using Africans as both slaves and as soldiers. That latter role of Africans, that is as soldiers used to fight and conquer the Aztecs, is yet another story typically absent from popular conceptions of the conquest of Mexico. Free Spanish-Africans, or ladinos, fully integrated into the Spanish culture, were part of the Spanish military forces which subjugated the native populations of the Antilles and the circum-Caribbean. The veterans of these wars continued to play a part in the subsequent Spanish conquests of the Aztec and Incan Empires, becoming an acknowledged part of the Spanish military machine. Juan Garrido, a free West African, who was a Spanish-speaking, Catholic subject of Spain, is documented as having fought in the Spanish army in Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Florida, and in the victory against the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan. He was rewarded with land, and a minor government post in New Spain. (Landers 2006, p. 113). In what can be considered a rather strange omission, the role and very existence of Africans is virtually nowhere to be found in the letters and writings of Hernando Cortes, as he described and depicted his conquest of the Aztecs. In a letter to the King of Spain, written by Cortes in 1971, he describes his departure, on the sixteenth of August, from Cempoal, which he renamed Sevilla. He gives a detailed account of the well-equipped military force of fifteen horseman and three hundred foot soldiers, with which he set out, and of the detachment of two horsemen and 150 men which he left behind at Vera Cruz to complete the fortifications of the town. (Cortes 1971, pp. 50-51). However, there is no mention of any Spanish-Africans in his dispatch. Ironically, not only did the garrison in Vera Cruz surely include African soldiers, but that city went on to become a majority African city. The port of Vera Cruz (“true cross” in Spanish) became an entrance point for goods and slave shipments to Spanish Mexico and, as such, epitomized the importance of the African contribution to the Spanish empire. By 1570, Spain’s Mesoamerican colony boasted a very skewed demographic, with the Spaniards being outnumbered by African slaves one: three in Veracruz, and one: seven in the mining town of Taxco. The Mexican population also showed a four: one ratio of Africans to Europeans. This marked strength of the African population over the Europeans, which started in the sixteenth century, persisted until the eighteenth century. (Landers 2006, p. 118). Men like Garrido received little mention in the writings of Cortes, or of other Spanish conquistadors. If we recall Croce’s axiom, this is not surprising. For Cortes, the conquest was a Spanish endeavor and most certainly not an African one and that is how he portrayed his history of it. Beyond the initial conquest, and moving to the overall colonization of Mexico by Spain throughout the sixteenth century, the role played by Africans was as much an economical one as it was a political one. Africans served as soldiers, both with Cortes, and generally for the Spanish crown. Though if it is a question of sheer numbers, the African experience in sixteenth century Mexico was most greatly characterized by the institution of slavery, and the importance of labor for the development of what would become the economic basis of the Spanish Empire in the New World. The model of using slave labor was one which the Spaniards first developed in their plantations on the Canary Islands. The first impetus to use slavery in the New World came not from Mexico, but rather from the Spanish possession of Hispaniola, the first place where the slave-system and, as a consequence, the master-slave relationship between Spaniards and “others” (people of color) was established. The Spanish institutionalization of African slave labor emerged as a result of the labor-intensive character of the cane sugar industry, which the Spaniards successfully transplanted from the Canary Islands to Hispaniola. From the modest numbers of about two thousand African slaves who were initially shipped to Hispaniola between 1504 and 1518, as domestic servants, and laborers in the mining and construction industries, the slave population grew in leaps and bounds by the 1520’s, running into the millions. This constantly increasing demand for slave labor was a direct consequence of the declining indigenous population, coupled with the rising economic contribution of the cane sugar plantations. Hispaniola thus became the Spanish colony which first institutionalized the new relationship between the Spanish masters and their African slave laborers. The precedent was set, and later spread to the other Spanish colonies of Latin America. (Guitar 2006, pp. 41-42). When we think of the word “conquest” the image conjured up is often one of battles and corpses. The word “colonization,” however, is one which provokes a more extensive imagery. It necessarily involves commerce, cultural diffusion, and change. Despite our own association of African slavery, with the American South, and of the Spanish colonization of Mexico, as being one involving Spaniards and Mesoamericans, it is in fact incumbent on us to link this latter event to Africans as much as we link it to Mesoamericans. Given their pre-existing relationship with Spaniards, and as well taking into account the ravaging and destructive effects European diseases and conquest had on indigenous populations, it comes as little surprise that Africans were brought to Mexico as slaves. A large number of significant factors contributed to the Spanish preference for African slave labor. Firstly, the Africans, acclimatized to the Tropics, could efficiently work in the humidity of the new plantations. Secondly, they were immune to the European diseases which ravaged the Indians with high death tolls. Thirdly, unlike the Indians, they had no prior knowledge of the terrain, or family ties in the new land, making them more submissive to slave status. Fourthly, centuries of co-existence with the Spanish, both as slaves and free subjects, had made the Africans time-tested, reliable workers, who had earlier proved their mettle in the plantations established by the Portuguese and Spaniards on the Atlantic islands of the West African coast. (Guitar 2006, p. 46). This is say that African slaves brought to Mexico were ideal because they had already been conditioned to accept Spanish rule and because they could replace the dwindling and untrustworthy natives. It is well nigh impossible to definitively declare the true intent of the Spanish conquest and colonization of Mexico as being either financial or religious; that is, did the Spaniards act out of the desire to Christianize their newly-won subjects, or were their motives purely economical and thus avaricious in nature? The truth surely lies somewhere between these two divergent viewpoints. And yet, the records do show that the financial motive was often predominant, for many slaves were imported and much gold and silver, as well as many agricultural products, were exported. If their motives were purely evangelical, there would have been little need to import African slaves. The reverse is of course true. Luis de Velasco, New Spain’s second viceroy, estimated the colony’s black population to number more than twenty thousand by 1553. (Landers 2006, p. 118). The evangelical motive, though surely preponderant in many individual Spanish conquistadors, priests, aristocrats, and colonizers, was most likely used by the Spanish crown, not for the teleological purpose of converting the natives, but rather for the practical purpose of accruing and maintaining power. In one of his accounts of Cortes’ conquest, Bernal del Castillo wrote of a “gift” that Cortes sent to Montezuma, through Tendile. In addition to attractively packaged strings of twisted glass beads, and margaritas with elaborate designs, Cortes’ gift also included an opulently carved and inlaid armchair and “a crimson cap with a golden medal engraved with a figure of St. George on horseback, lance in hand, slaying the dragon” (Castillo 2008, p. 54). Cortes instructed Tendile to tell Montezuma that the chair was given for the express purpose of Montezuma being seated in it when giving an audience to Cortes. St. George is a central figure in Catholic mythology, due to his role as a martyr who died for his Christian faith. The symbolic meaning and intent of Cortes’ decision to send Montezuma the chair and have him “seated in it” should be clear: like St. George, Montezuma would perish for his beliefs and, to demonstrate this, Cortes wanted him to be seated, that is, in a servile position. It is a metaphor for the conquest of Mexico and the founding of the Spanish Empire, an empire which was in part built with imported African labor. A glance at contemporary Spanish accounts, for example during Cortes’ expedition and conquest, yields a great amount of evidence pointing to financial motives. Cortes’ letters to the Spanish king are littered with references to the gold, riches, and agricultural wealth and potential of the Aztec kingdom. In one epistle, Cortes gives an account of the visit of a group of Aztec chieftains, including Montezuma’s brother, sent as emissaries by Montezuma, to persuade Cortes to turn back. Cortes reports that the embassy offered him “some three thousand pesos de oro” (1971, p. 79) for his cooperation. In another instance, Cortes gives evidence of the presence of gold mines in the land of the Aztecs, by reporting that the messengers who accompanied the Spaniards were compelled to announce their presence to the local potentate and to seek his permission to visit the gold mines he owned. (1971, p. 93). In another communication, Cortes emphasizes the prosperity of the city of Churultecal, and gives as evidence the fact that the citizens are better dressed than those of Tascalteca, wearing a kind of “African” burnoose, but with armholes, as an overall covering. He is particularly impressed with the large area of irrigated land, and its abundant harvest of crops. (1971, pp. 74-75). The passage of Cortes’ which refers to the mode of dress, holds particular relevance to the argument made above: that Spaniards largely transplanted their model of interaction with Africans, to say nothing of the Africans themselves, and applied it to their new relationship with the natives of Mesoamerica. The fact that the people in the above-mentioned city had garments “different from those worn in Africa” was hardly coincidental. The other major cultural experience the Spaniards had had, whereby they subdued and interacted with another people, was with Africans. Cortes’ comparison of the Mesoamericans with the Africans stemmed not just from a supposed similarity of physical attire, but also from a shared historical experience with the Spanish, characterized as it was by domination and inferiority. By having two different “others” to rule in the New World, the Spanish were better able to maintain their system of exploitation. Africans replaced the fallen Indian where necessary, but never with the hope of gaining a truly equal footing with the Spaniards themselves. It is therefore important to remind ourselves how much the present influences our view of the past. The popular view of the Spanish conquest and colonization of Mexico very often does not include, or makes little mention of, Africans, despite their numerically significant role in the affair. As Croce said, “each true history is a contemporaneous one.” If that is the case, it is necessary then to enhance and broaden our contemporary understanding of the past. This means giving Africans their due mention and credit in the historical account of the Spanish conquest and colonization of Mesoamerica. The fact that, in many cases, Africans outnumbered Spaniards in many cities and towns of New Spain demonstrates the former’s historical significance. To the extent that numbers matter, Africans held the day. The truth is that a history of the conquest of Mexico, devoid of any real mention of the African role, is one which is as inaccurate as it is “short.” In reference to Spanish bewilderment at encountering men in the Americas, the famed historian of Spanish Mexico, William Prescott, wrote that, , “[Man] is fitted by nature for every climate, the burning suns of the tropics and the icy atmosphere of the North” (Prescott 1957, p. 690). As the Spanish-African-Mesoamerican experience has shown, all men are indeed fit for all climes. Works Cited Castillo, Diaz Del. The History of the Conquest of New Spain. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2008. Conniff, Michael L. and Thomas J. Davis. Africans in the Americas: A History of the Black Diaspora. New York: Blackburn Press, 2002. Cortes, Hernan. Letters From Mexico. New York: Orion Press, 1971. Croce, Benedetto. Teoria e Storia della Storiografia. Milan: Adelphi Edizioni, 1989. Guitar, Lynne. “Boiling It Down.” Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America. Ed. Jane Landers. New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. pp. 39-82. Landers, Jane G. “Cimarron and Citizen: African Ethnicity, Corporate Identity, and the Evolution of Free Black towns in the Spanish Circum-Caribbean.” Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America. Ed. Jane Landers. New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. pp. 111-145. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru. New York: The Modern Library, 1957. Read More