The black question

When one looks at the populations of Mexico and Brazil, some differences stand out. For one thing, the percentages of persons described as "Negro" or "mulatto" are higher in Brazil than in Mexico. On the other hand, when compared to the United States, Brazil and Mexico share some of the same features: ambiguity and flexibility in racial labeling, multiplicity of categories, the tendency of being selectively inaccurate in listing one's "race", more acceptance of intermediate racial categories between "white" and "black".

Yet, as indicated in Brazil by the celebrations of the death of Zumbi and recent agitation for "black" rights, problems of persons of African descent have assumed a more center stage than in Mexico. Certainly, that focus is nowhere near that of the US, where "black/white" conflict is a daily fact of life; however one gets the impression of very little African/non-African conflict in Mexico.

Both Brazil and Mexico have a legacy of slavery, but there has long been a popular impression that Mexicans are descendants of Spaniards and Indians only. Even college texts on race relations illustrate this kind of thinking. In fact, barring a specific agenda to focus on the African Diaspora, attention placed on Africans in Mexico is minimal across the board. I used a certain library software package which listed 188 recent articles written on Mexico and found no articles which had Africans as a theme.

Differences in Brazil and Mexico are more demographic and economic rather than philosophic. First, although intermediate racial categories and miscegenation were accepted both in Mexico and in Brazil, there were more Africans brought to Brazil than to Mexico (therefore a greater number to be absorbed into the population). Second, the Indian population of Mexico was more numerous, centrally located and culturally dominant than in Brazil.

Thus, instead of the Brazilian case of African/Portuguese mixtures with an admixture of Indian, the Mexican example was one of both Spaniards and Africans being absorbed into a vast Indian population. Third, slavery in Brazil was both longer and more economically important in Brazil than in Mexico, creating more and deeper emotions of master/slave, exploiter/exploited in Brazil. Fourth, although Mexican culture has elements of racism, the concept of mestizaje (the idea of the goodness of being classed as racially mixed) is more deeply rooted in Mexico than in Brazil, where the population is increasingly collectively desirous of the "white" label (a term which is both exclusionary and by nature pointed toward an ideal of being light rather than brown).

The apparent focus away from the African presence in Mexico starts with the reality of actual racial and ethnic percentages in Mexico's population. Figures from the 1990s indicate that only 0.10% of Mexico's population is Black or Negro. In 1950, only 0.4% of Mexico's population was classified as Afro-mestizo. A look at this data would lead one to the supposition that "Africans in Mexico" was and is a novelty at most, especially when compared to the overwhelming Indian and (Spanish/Indian) Mestizo catas mestizo populations grew rapidly. Since the Spanish seldom made an absolutely clear, analytical distinction between race and culture and never prohibited interracial marriage, miscegenation never encountered the obstacles it did in the North American colonies.

Fluidity, Flexibility and Ambiguity

Miscegenation is of little consequence, however, unless the society has provisions which allow for its social significance. By way of comparison, the North American colonies (as well as the United States) were the scene for miscegenation among Africans, Indians and Europeans. Because of the "hypodescent" rule, however, miscegenation between Africans and other groups has had little social consequence because, among North Americans, any African ancestry constitutes membership in the "Negro" or "Black" group.

By distilling combinations which include African ancestry into one socially relevant category (Negro, later black, later African-American), North Americans have nullified any social effect of miscegenation including Africans. Those North Americans who claim that the US is a melting pot are essentially correct except the pot is not meant to include persons of African origin.

On the other hand, the Ibero-American racial classification experience has been, for the past 500 years, an exercise in ambiguity, subjectivity, flexibility and, in many cases, outright lying. The incredible number of racial and color designations in Ibero-America boggle the mind. Starting with Hernán Cortés and his mestizo offspring, the Spanish seemed to have accepted the idea of intermediate racial groups something foreign to the North American mind. This preoccupation with intermediate racial terms was soon reflected in New Spain's population and, unlike the case of Anglo-America, intermediate racial terms included persons of African origin. Eventually, by 1570, demographic calculations became more complex. An anonymous colonial painting entitled Las Castas reflects this plethora of racial terms. Of the 16 different racial categories depicted in the painting, 13 portray persons with African ancestry.

The use of intermediate racial terms had several effects. One was that there became no solid enemy color group against which Africans (or anyone else) could fight. Individuals with dark skin were occasionally able to advance due to some (usually military) heroics.

There were always lighter-skinned never-do-wells around and the really rich people were removed from almost everyone (of any color) anyway. The second effect was an acceleration of the tendency of Africans to take on the culture of those with whom they came into contact.

For those Africans who mated with Indians and produced zamboes, this sometimes meant that they remained in their Indian communities. For those who identified with Spaniards or who were in the towns, they soon took on Iberian characteristics and absorbed much of the Indian/Spanish cultural mix which (due to the large numbers of Indians) was a fact of life.

A third result of the complexity of racial nomenclatures was an ambiguity and unwieldiness which militated against being able to instantly react to one uniformly on the basis of race. It is relatively easy for a person to develop a social etiquette for dealing with two, three or even four racial categories, but it is ludicrous to expect him, during his day-to-day existence, to create appropriate patterns of action for each of 16 or 32 different categories.

Moreover, as anyone familiar with families supposedly of the same race knows, different siblings can have different complexions and hair textures. In the multi-layered classifications eventually created in New Spain, genetic reliability by appearance became a suspect proposition at best.

Subjectivity in Racial Labeling

In addition to racial classification becoming complex, it also became elastic and subjective. For example, Aguirre Beltran noted that, by 1570, the Spanish authorities developed the practice of calling legitimate sons of Indian/Spanish unions Spanish and calling illegitimate sons of Indian/Spanish unions mestizo. Given the fact that, of all the castas in New Spain, the African, or slave casta was the lowest, people began the habit of shading racial evaluations so as to minimize African ancestry. This is why, given that laxity in identifying with Africa, it is astonishing that, in both 1570 and 1810 population estimates by Aguirre Beltran, the Afro-mestizo population was nearly as great as the Indo-mestizo population.

Leslie Rout is graphic in his assessment of the racism present in New Spain, but ironically this very racism served to skew racial classifications away from those including African ancestry and into those which highlighted Indian ancestry. African ancestry became gradually absorbed into a broad group of brown-skinned and olive-skinned persons.

In Brazil, the contradictions

Presently, Brazil and the US surpass Mexico in terms of economic prowess and overall potential. However ironically Mexico has provided an example of a country with importation of African slaves, but little problem between persons of African descent and others. The Mexicans did this not with the US-style social mechanisms of "civil rights" movements and legislation designed to force people to behave equitably but rather with miscegenation, multiplicity of racial categories and an ability to absorb Africans into the population with comparatively little difficulty. In other words, the Mexicans "out-Brazilianized" the Brazilians. Presently, it is an open question as to whether Brazil will move more toward the model of Mexico, toward the US model or remain the way it is today: a bundle of contradictions.

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El Proceso de Acculturacion. D.F. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1992.

Basave Benitez, Agustin. Mexico Mestizo. D.F. Mexico: Fondo Cultura Economica, 1992.

Carroll, Patrick James. Blacks in Colonial Veracruz. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.

Conniff, Michael and Davis, Thomas J. Africans in the Americas. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.

Curtin, Philip D. The Atlantic Slave Trade: a Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969.

Esteva-Fabregat, Claudio. Mestizaje in Ibero-America. translated by John Wheat. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995.

Fontaine, Pierre Michel. Race, Class and Power in Brazil. Los Angeles: UCLA Press, 1982.

Freyre, Gilberto. The Masters and the Slaves. New York: Alfred A.
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Harris, Marvin. Patterns of Race in the Americas. New York: Walker and Company, 1964.

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Knight, Franklin. The African Dimension in Latin American Societies. New York: Macmillan, 1974.

Morner, Magnus. Race Mixture in the History of Latin America. Boston: Little Brown, 1967.

Palmer, Colin. Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.

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van den Berghe, Pierre. Race and Racism. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1967.