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1. Black Women duringSlavery to 1865
- Texas A&M University Press
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angela boswell 1. Black Women during Slavery to 1865 Africans and their descendants have been a part of Texas history for as long as Europeans and their descendants have. An African slave named Esteban accompanied the first Spanish expedition and exploration of land that eventually became part of Texas. Like the Spanish and later French explorers, the first Africans in Texas were male. Although the explorers were males, true efforts to populate and control any American colony, including Texas, obviously required women. It is not clear when African women or their descendants first arrived in Texas, but they were present in the eighteenth-century Spanish settlements and almost certainly even earlier—the 1792 Spanish census of Texas listed 167 mulattas and nineteen black women, both free and slave. The Spanish settlements of Mexico, including Texas, allowed considerable latitude socially, economically, and legally for persons of color. Full-blooded Spaniards were at the top of the social system, but intermarriage and interracial procreation produced many mixed-blooded children of Spanish, Indian, and African descent. Any white blood elevated a person’s social status, whereas in the American South, any black blood consigned a person to the lowest caste in society. Because of the more fluid social structure, and because Spanish and Mexican law gave free persons of color legal, and even political, rights, Texas became a haven for runaway slaves from the southern United States. Even enslaved women in Spanish Texas understood their worth, humanity , and legal rights. In one San Antonio de Bexar case in 1791, a slave woman sued for a change in ownership due to mistreatment. 14 angel a boswell By 1821, when Mexico gained its independence from Spain, many African American women, both slave and free, lived in Spanish Texas settlements. Thereafter, Mexican laws remained inconsistent but tended to favor freedom over slavery. African American women intermarried with other African Americans as well as mulattoes, Native Americans, and whites. They formed families and supported themselves through domestic labors that were in high demand on the Texas frontier: nursing , cooking, sewing, spinning, taking in laundry, and serving. Some women were able to accumulate property or build healthy and thriving businesses, such as boardinghouses, interacting both economically and socially with their Spanish neighbors. Although under Mexican sovereignty the social fluidity and legal freedom offered by Texas encouraged many free blacks and runaway slaves to emigrate, it was also under Mexican rule that the seeds were sown that would eventually condemn thousands of African Americans to a state of slavery in Texas. The vast majority of African American women to inhabit Texas before 1865 arrived with the Anglo colonists. Stephen F. Austin received permission from the new Mexican government in 1823 to settle families from the United States. Lured by cheap land on which they could grow cotton, many Anglo settlers brought with them slaves, both male and female. Although the independent Mexican government passed contradictory laws regarding the status of slaves and the legality of the institution, even Austin’s colony granted acreage to slaveholders based upon the number of slaves. As a result, large numbers of enslaved blacks were imported into Texas from the U.S. South, as well as directly from Africa. By the time Texans struck their blow for independence in 1836, one of the valued ideals for which they fought was the right to own slaves. Texans moved quickly in 1836 to solidify their social ideals into law. They believed that all persons having any African parentage within the last three generations should make up the lowest rung of society— and that lowest rung should be consigned to perpetual slavery. Free blacks, especially successful ones, within the population belied whites’ basic ideals and undermined the institution the Anglo Texans hoped to fasten upon Texas as they had in the rest of the South. Because of Texas’ proximity to Mexico and its frontierlike conditions, it was even more necessary to control the black population and limit the number of blacks who were not enslaved. The Texas war for independence had provided an opportunity for a few slaves to earn freedom by fighting for [18.208.172.3] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:36 GMT) Slavery to 1865 15 the Texans or by taking advantage of the turmoil of war and running away. For the most part, however, Texas’ independence decreased the opportunities for Texas blacks to ever receive their freedom. The new Texas constitution and laws allowed only those African Americans who were...