The African Texans

Chapter 1. Free African Americans before the Civil War

Free African Americans ▼▼▼          Free African Americans before the Civil War THE FIRST AFRICAN who came to Texas landed on the Gulf Coast as one of the few men that survived a Spanish exploring expedition in . Estevan brought with him skills and cultural ideas fromAfrica and Spain.He could speakArabic because he had grown up in North Africa where it was the common language, and he had been captured by Spaniards who made him a slave. From them he learned Spanish. He had been Muslim but accepted Catholic Christianity , perhaps to improve his status with the Spaniards. As shipwreck victims in Texas, he and a few Spaniards helped each other survive the hardships of a new land and the months as captives of Indians. To gain favor with the native people, Estevan assisted the Spaniards in providing medical treatment to Indians who were ill. When he and three other survivors gained their freedom and searched for Spanish settlements in what became Mexico, he acted as the scout. With his language ability he seemed better able than the others to communicate with the new groups of native peoples they met in their travels.1 Estevan was the first African to bring new forms of culture to Texas. Other Africans followed him and added to the cultures of the region with folklore and, later, written stories. They contributed a variety of religious views.Black Texans sang and played music in the style of their homeland. As members of families they provided each other with support and care. They brought with them African Texans ▼▼▼  the skills to fashion homes and furniture that showed artistic beauty. In later generations, they became teachers and founded schools and universities. African Texans eventually entered new areas of entertainment such as sports. The social and cultural contributions of black Texans increased the longer they lived and worked in a region. Drawing of Estevan, the first African in the land of Texas. Institute of Texan Cultures illustration no. - Free African Americans ▼▼▼  Like Estevan, other African slaves entered New Spain, which became Mexico, and for years included Texas. Many of their children gained freedom and often married Spanish settlers or Indians. In Spanish colonies such as Mexico and Texas, the Spanish had the greatest wealth. They viewed themselves as the best people, with Indians and Africans below them in importance. Persons with a Spanish parent and an African parent found their status and acceptance fell somewhere between those two groups.An individual who acquired money and bought land might be able to improve his or her status and acceptance in society. Some slaves and a larger number of free blacks came to Spanish Texas as soldiers and musicians in exploring expeditions of the s and s. Then in the s they joined Spanish expeditions with settlers going north to help establish towns. Some, like Felipe Elua of San Antonio, used their skills to grow food crops such as sugar cane and vegetables, as well as cotton. Others worked as weavers to produce cloth from the cotton. Several, including Pedro Ramirez, helped herd cattle near San Antonio or received land for their own ranches, like Narciso la Baume in the Nacogdoches area. These African Tejanos usually spoke Spanish, worshiped as Catholics, and by the s accounted for  percent of the non-Indian people in Spanish Texas.2 In the early s, especially after the people of Mexico gained their independence from Spain in , a limited number of free blacks from the United States entered Mexican Texas. They sought greater personal freedom and opportunities,often living at the edge of settlements. White Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries viewed themselves as superior to other people, especially Indians and Africans, based on a strong sense of differences. White Americans and Texans emphasized the differences of darker skin color as well as the cultural variations such as dress, language, and religion. In British culture, “black” and “white” had taken on negative and positive meanings, which stimulated negative attitudes toward people of darker complexion. These views were coupled with the African Texans ▼▼▼  desire of a growing number of landowners for inexpensive laborers to work the fields. Even African Americans who had gained their freedom encountered whites who feared that free blacks living near slaves would influence the slaves to seek freedom.Thus,slaveholders won the passage of laws that limited the legal, social, and political rights of all black people in...