Mexican Abolitionists? Searching for Mexico in the Age of Abolitions

In the fall of 1833, Philadelphia hosted the National Anti-Slavery Convention. Joaquín María del Castillo Y Lanzas, Mexico’s Chargé d’affaires arrived in the city to take his post at the Mexican embassy there but also to attend the Convention.[1] In Philadelphia, Castillo y Lanzas not only met leading Black abolitionists Samuel Webb but established meaningful networks that involved Mexico in the undertakings, discussions, and goals of the convention. The reports and materials Lanzas forwarded to Mexico offer insight into his abolitionist stance and make visible his advice for Mexico: that “under no circumstances” must it support the perpetuation of slavery.

This period widened the channels of communication between Black leaders in the US and Mexican leaders in Mexico, yet in the history of nineteenth century antislavery and abolition in North America (and globally) these channels are rendered invisible. This paper aims to trace and examine the channels endeavored by Black and Mexican abolitionists while simultaneously interrogating the roles of Mexicans as abolitionists. Can Mexicans be understood as abolitionists? Who was an abolitionist, what defined one, and what entitled someone to that label? Most consequentially, I question why in the histories of abolition in the hemisphere, Mexicans have rarely appeared as having ever been abolitionists. Where there no Mexican abolitionists? Was Vicente Guerrero’s abolition of slavery in 1829 inconsequential? This paper, further argues that tracing these channels alongside a reconsideration of Mexicans as abolitionists offer us a broader lens to examine Black liberation in North America and engender a more inclusive historiography of abolition.

[1]Carta de Joaquin María del Castillo Y Lanzas a Valentín Gómez Farías, 30 de Octubre de 1833, Caja 03N177, Folder 2, Charles E. Sr. Papers, Benson Latin American Collection. Austin, Texas.