FRANCISCO DUPUIS, an African American man, fled the United States for
Mexico and petitioned the federal government there for citizenship in
1850, arguing that his many years of service and loyalty made him
worthy. Witness accounts and evidence that he had fought in the
artillery unit of the Mexican army that defended Tampico during the
Mexican-American War accompanied his application. He was issued a/carta
de naturalización/(naturalization letter) signed by the president of
Mexico shortly thereafter.
Alice L. Baumgartner’s/South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and
the Road to the Civil War/presents little-known, but astounding
narratives of Black Americans such as Dupuis who claimed freedom in
Mexico in the antebellum period. She argues that fugitives from slavery
who fled to Mexico threatened American slavery, igniting the sectional
crisis that led to the overturning of the Missouri Compromise and the
birth of the Republican Party. “The US drive to extend slavery to the
Pacific had cost Mexico half of its territory,” the author adds, and it
was this land that had kept the sectional crises at bay — crises later
unleashed as the United States seized territory from Mexico where
slavery was already abolished.
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/abolition-from-below-on-the-underground-railroad-to-mexico/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group.
View/Reply Online (#3879): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/3879
Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/78498641/21656
-=-=-
POSTING RULES & NOTES
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
-=-=-
Group Owner: [email protected]
Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy
[[email protected]]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
