The Eastside of San Antonio has historically been an African American community. It has been this way in modern times as the result of the migration of ex-slaves moving on to land set-aside for a Baptist Settlement in the Victoria Commons area. The Baptist Settlement was destroyed by the housing authority, which built a white only housing project known as the Victoria Courts. Later, after segregation barriers had been lifted the projects residents became African American and Hispanic. But, the Eastside of San Antonio was historically more than African American, it was also Afro-Mexican.
From the research done on the Canary Islanders, who where some of the first mostly white Spanish inhabitants in San Antonio, there was also black Canary Islanders that came to San Antonio in the 1731. These black Canary Islanders were Christianized Moors from the African Canary Islands, which Spain had illegally seized. When the Canary Islanders arrived they came to San Antonio at a time when the Spanish Casta System was in effect. This racist system was a rigid racial structure that sought to remove blacks from the genetic pool of Mexico. The Spanish casta system sought to “lighten up Mexicans” so that where African ancestry was present it would be “strained out.” This is part of the reason why some Hispanics deny their African ancestry, but researchers say that as much as 33% of the Mexican population has a African relative in their past. This is why some Mexicans have curly hair, dark skin, and other African features. This was true of my paternal grandmother who was obviously an Afro-Indian but tried to hide this fact. Over the years I have had to face racist comments from all ethnic groups as a result of my mixed heritage. Some of these remarks have been politically motivated and racist, but mainly stem from ignorant and uneducated ideas about race. I lay claim to all of my heritage, which includes Indian, Mexican, African, Arab, and European. Most people are not fully any one racial group, but many have identified with one specific cultural group. This is so because America is a racist society and forces people into racial boxes. To be clear one must always remember that there is only one race—the diverse human race.
The casta system came up with the terms “mulatto, lobo, coyote,” and other racist terms for describing mixed-race Mexicans and Africans. The Spanish tried to develop a racial structure that put the light-skinned Spaniards at the top of the social pyramid. This is still evident in Mexico today. In general, a walk through any Mexican town reveals that those that are dark are poor, while lighter skinned Mexicans are at the top of the social ladder. This is the reason why, upon arrival to San Antonio, Black Moors were forced to live on the eastern side of the San Antonio River. This means that some blacks in San Antonio may be related to the Moorish Canary Islanders. Many of the White Canary Islanders do not want us to know this and have hidden this fact over the years. African Americans in San Antonio should try to develop a “Black Moor Canary Islander Festival” to bring awareness to this little know fact. An “Afro-Mexican festival” should also be organized. But why did the white Canary Islanders send them to the eastern side of the San Antonio River to begin with?
This is where it gets tricky. In Mexico there was a large black African slave population in the 1500s. These slaves often ran away or revolted. Some came to the Northern frontier of Mexico, which would now be the San Antonio area, as slaves of the Spanish. In the Mexican City of Vera Cruz there was one such slave uprising by an African slave from Angola named “Yanga.” Yanga led a slave revolt against Spain and was successful. He was able to take his band of slaves into the mountains and eventually marry into the Indian population. These mixed-raced Afro-Mexicans would have spread out over many parts of Mexico, including the northern frontier of Mexico which is now Texas. We know that there was already an Afro-Mexican population in San Antonio as far back as the 1500s on the eastern side of the San Antonio River that may have developed as a result of Spanish slavery. But there may have been free blacks in the area as well that escaped from slavery. The so-called founders of Texas would end this in the early 1800s, as every free black was run out of Texas and San Antonio. Thus, San Antonio’s historic eastside may have become black because of the Afro-Mexican and Indian heritage, and the Black Moor heritage sometime later. San Antonio had an Afro-Mexican mayor named Victor Blanco in 1809. He roots may have been from an African-Mexican population or from the Moors. At this point we do not know. It is apparent that blacks lived here in numbers that far exceeded the 8-9% black population that we see today. There is evidence that the African and African-Mexican population may have been as high as 28% at one time in San Antonio’s past. The fact that San Antonio had a large mixed-race population is a little known secret. When the Canary Islanders have their celebrations on the founding of San Antonio each year they never talk about the Afro-Mexicans or the black Canary Islanders. Someone out there might want to take me up on a proposal to develop an Afro-Mexican Black Moor Festival. Let’s get something going because these other groups have racial amnesia. We might also celebrate the black Mexican soldiers that killed most of the Alamo defenders that ran from the Alamo.
