Black African Slave Legacy Lingers in Mexico

Descendants of black Africans, many of whom were fugitive slaves, are easy to spot among the residents of this sunbaked and shabby market town close to Mexico's Pacific coast. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Mexico was a top importer of African slaves in the New World. Spanish conquistadors bought some 200,000 of them to do back-breaking work on farms and in mines. Their descendants have undeniably black African looks -- ebony skin, tight-curled hair and broad noses. But after centuries of isolation in tight-knit communities here on the Costa Chica coast -- a remote semi-jungle region straddling the borders of the poverty-ridden states of Guerrero and Oaxaca -- their distinctiveness is slowly being eroded through wider contact and intermarriage with outsiders. Experts estimate 50,000 blacks still live in 30 communities on the Costa Chica. Cuajinicuilapa is one of the largest. Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico is the only other state with a strong black legacy. Efforts by Costa Chica blacks to revive their ties to Africa are seen by some academics as mostly fruitless and little, if anything, is left of African culture. [more]