American Slavery, Mexican Freedom: Reconceptualizing Freedom and Abolition South of US Slavery, 1810–65

In the nineteenth century, thousands of enslaved people escaped US Slavery, fled south, and found refuge in Mexican territory. Desertions to Mexico were numerous enough that Mexican authorities frequently received requests, from United States, requesting for the extradition of slaves who had sought and found refuge in Mexico. The Mexican government profusely refused to oblige. In this presentation, I examine what these requests and refusals represented for US-Mexico diplomatic relations, and what these dynamics tell us about Mexico’s abolitionism, and anti-slavery stance and efforts. I argue that the constant and persistent demands from the United States, for Mexico to return former slaves, living free in Mexico, highlight that (1) there was a significant number of enslaved people who sought safe havens in Mexico, and that (2) US slavery was central to the hardening of diplomatic relations between both countries in the nineteenth century. As early as 1820’s the Mexican Senate rejected treaties’ requests for the extradition of fugitive slaves. In 1828, the Mexican congress rejected Joel Poinsett’s concluding that “it would be most extraordinary that in a treaty between two free republics slavery should be encouraged by obliging ours to deliver up fugitive slaves to their merciless and barbarous masters of North America.” Instead, a few years later, Mexico’s president wrote his friend, abolitionist Samuel Webb, offering: “if they would like to come, we will offer them land for cultivation, plots for houses where they can establish towns, and tools for work, under the obligation that they obey the laws.” Subsequently, in the late 1840s President James Polk “required the extradition of runaway slaves” from Mexico, to no avail. These dynamics marked Mexico-US relations throughout the nineteenth century.