The Line of Liberty: Runaway Slaves and Fugitive Peons in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands (original) (raw)
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2021
The tale of a runaway, an enslaved Black man or woman choosing to abscond, is nothing short of miraculous. Listen between the lines a runaway speaks, and their story will be found as a testament entailing multiple dynamics. Reflective of the unifying theme, this thesis investigates resistance to slavery in the Texas borderlands, from 1836 to 1861. This thesis examines the existing body of scholarship on Mexico-bound escape routes used by Blacks fleeing captivity. Moreover, in following the direction archival evidence points to, this thesis argues the existence of an Underground Railroad in Texas to Mexico that facilitated the escape of at least 4,000, perhaps up to 10,000 Blacks, to Mexico. The Texas Underground Railroad is an important segment of history that is little known about. Issues explaining the erasure of Mexico, inclusive of the paradigm in Texas public education further averting historical attention, are explained. Evidenced in this research is the formation of a multiet...
Mexico in His Head": Slavery and the Texas-Mexico Border, 1810-1860
Journal of Social History, 2004
The continual re drawing of the boundarie s be twe e n the Unite d S tate s , Te xas , and Me xico in the nine te e nth ce ntury prompte d s lave s to vie w the borde r as a s ymbol of libe ration. Whe n the borde r was firs t fixe d by tre aty in 1819 , e ns lave d Te xans attache d no particular s ig nificance to it be caus e s lave ry was le g al in both the Unite d S tate s and S panis h Te xas. S lave s only be g an to as s ociate the Me xican s tate with fre e dom in the 1820 s , whe n national and s tate g ove rnme nts adopte d a s e rie s of antis lave ry me as ure s. Howe ve r, be caus e Te xas was s till part of Me xico, the borde r playe d no role in s lave re s is tance. With the e s tablis hme nt of an inde pe nde nt Te xas in the 1830 s and with anne xation to the Unite d S tate s in 1845, s lave ry was place d on a firm footing in Te xas for the firs t time. The borde r s oon be came the focal point of s lave flig ht and re s is tance. Eve n with the e nd of s lave ry, black Te xans continue d to as s ociate Me xico with fre e dom and e quality. Mexico in his head: Slavery and the Texas-Mexico border, 1810-1860.
Cuando vino la mexicanada: Authority, Race, and Conflict in West Texas, 1895-1924
lib.utexas.edu
This explains why the character of the movement is both desperate and redemptive…they mean that the people refuse all outside help, every imported scheme, every idea lacking some profound relationship to their intimate feelings, and that instead they turn to themselves. This desperation, this refusal to be saved by an alien project, is characteristic of the person who rejects all consolidation and shuts himself up in his private world: he is alone. At the same moment, however, his solitude becomes an effort at communion. Once again, despair and solitude, redemption and communion are equivalent terms.-Octavio Paz, El Laberinto de la Soledad Chapter 2 Mexican Rattlesnake; The Texas Rangers in West Texas Dead Lines, Defiance, and Race in El Paso "...Entonces estaba el Segundo Barrio lleno de pura mexicanada, se imagina…" (Then there were the residents of the Second Ward, full of mexicaness, can you believe it?)-Hortencia Villegas, eyewitness and survivor of the El Paso riots of
Cruel Embrace: War and Slavery in the Texas Borderlands, 1700-1840
2018
Author(s): Flomen, Max | Advisor(s): Aron, Stephen A | Abstract: This dissertation examines the role of slaving during the encounter between indigenous societies and Euro-American empires in the Texas borderlands from 1700 to 1840. Historians have generally overlooked the structures that bound continental and Atlantic slave systems together. In this multipolar borderland pastoral and plantation modes of production conflicted and comingled, drawing all participants into a “cruel embrace” rife with possibilities for exploitation, destruction, and reinvention. Indigenous war leaders, Euro-American traders, and captives of all nations made their own histories of enslavement and abolition. The dissertation charts the formation of French and Spanish colonies in Louisiana and Texas during the eighteenth century, where forced, long-distance transfers placed indigenous and African populations into plantation and mission regimes. Slaving figured prominently in the confrontation of these band ...
Captives & Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands
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The Journal of the Civil War Era, 2021
In the Southwest Borderlands, marronage and insurrection defined the long war against slavery and empire waged by Indigenous peoples and African Americans following the Texas Revolution of 1835–36. The egalitarian politics and militarized commerce of Native societies empowered marginalized communities by providing the spatial, material, and ideological resources for emancipatory struggles. Allied with Mexico, multiethnic bands of warriors, fugitives, and renegades built fortified villages, planted provision grounds, raised livestock, and recruited outsiders. These efforts culminated in uprisings by Tejanos and enslaved African Americans, as well as an attempt to establish a Pan-Indian buffer state north of the Rio Grande. With their combined force, these cohorts posed grave problems for the Anglo-Texan slave state and made its independence tentative and vulnerable. Taking seriously the aspirations of maroon communities, this article shifts our understanding of emancipation and sovereignty from a racialized and nationalist framework to a more fluid terrain that reveals how the dispossessed galvanized new methods of renewal.
Slavery & Abolition. A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, 2019
In spaces of contested sovereignty, self-emancipated slaves exploited imperial rivalries to attain freedom, based on the Spanish religious sanctuary. However, the status of foreign escaped slaves always remained subject to issues of empire-building. This article focuses on fugitive slaves from the Dutch colony of Essequibo and territorial Louisiana looking for freedom at the southern and northern borderlands of the Spanish empire, respectively, in Venezuela and Texas. In the former, increased Spanish control over the borderland created more opportunities for ‘runaways’. In the latter, improvisation led to erratic policies, related to pressure from US planters.