Juneteenth Mexico's Black President Ended Slavery Fought Texas & Aided Enslaved

Primary Sources, Black History

Vicente Guerrero, Mexico’s first black president Texas President Sam Houston lamented that " two valuable negro boys for which I had paid in cash $2100 previous to my visit to Nashville, ran away last spring to Mexico. Thus you can see I am in bad luck." Just two and a half months after Mexico abolished slavery, officials were uneasy about the numbers of new Americans settling within Mexico and they attempted to curb the number of newcomers. In 1830, Mexico decreed that foreigners could not cross the border without obtaining a passport issued by Mexican agents.Texans did not respect the MEXICAN border in their pursuits of Freed Blacks. In 1855, Captain James Callahan of the Texas Rangers entered Mexico in an attempt to recapture self-emancipated Africans. Callahan insisted that the purpose of his excursion was to pursue Indians rather than recapture fugitive slaves. The Mexican government with the help of Native Americans, however, forced him to retreat and withdraw without any Freed Blacks. Consequently, Mexico remained a place of amnesty. Thousands of self emancipated Africans lived in Mexico by 1850. Just two and a half months after Mexico abolished Finding the Mexican government uncooperative, Texas slaveowners took measures to stop escapes as well as to reclaim runaways. In 1850, they pressured the federal government to set up border patrols but with few troops assigned to patrol this vast frontier, this was not very successful.(21) Slaveowners also offered rewards of $200-$600 for the recapturing of fugitives. Frederick Douglass - "For my part, I would not care if, tomorrow, I should hear of the death of every man who engaged in that bloody war in Mexico, and that every man had met the fate he went there to perpetrate upon unoffending Mexicans...There are three millions of slaves in this land, I should welcome the intelligence tomorrow, should it come!