Kayla Garnett, a student intern, contributed to this feature.
What comes to mind when you think about Mexican holidays? Cinco de Mayo? Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)? Dia de los Niños (Children’s Day)?
What about Juneteenth?
Yes, Juneteenth!
Mexico has celebrated El Nacimiento, Juneteenth, for 160 years. How did this African American holiday, which has recently been acknowledged as a U.S. federal holiday, come to be celebrated in Mexico?
What’s the big deal about Juneteenth?
When General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, it was good news to enslaved Blacks. Granger’s troops gathered everyone to hear the announcement of General Order 3, which declared:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property. . .”
Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was issued two and a half years earlier, and the Civil War ended two months earlier, slavery was still being practiced in Texas until the U.S. Army enforced emancipation.
Tracing the “Day of the Blacks”
The people of El Nacimiento call their celebration “Día de los Negros” (which means “Day of the Blacks” in English), but it commemorates the same event that African Americans have called Juneteenth for generations. Why was General Gordon’s announcement in Galveston so important to people 500 miles away in Mexico?
The Creation of a People in Florida
Our story begins in the late 1600s, when enslaved Africans escaped from British-occupied plantations in the Carolinas and fled to Spanish-occupied Florida. These freedom-seeking Africans found refuge among Native American people groups like the Hitchiti, Yuchi, Yamasee, and Apalachee. Creek Indians began to migrate from Georgia and Alabama to Florida around this time as well.
Attacks and invasions by slave catchers and landgrabbers fostered unity between many of these communities. Those who banded together to resist Spanish colonial rule were nicknamed “cimarrón,” a term the Spanish borrowed from the Taino people. This word originally referred to wild, savage, or runaway herd animals; but the Spanish applied cimarrón to noncompliant Natives and runaway slaves. The pronunciation of the word changed to “simanó-li” when the Creek borrowed it. The transformation was complete when English referred to these Native Americans as Seminole Indians and the African Americans among them were called Black Seminoles. The ranks of Black Seminoles grew even more when Spain outlawed slavery in Florida, and Blacks fled there for freedom.
The Trail from Florida to Oklahoma
Both kinds of Seminoles were brave warriors who employed clever tactics during the Seminole Wars. Blacks were fighting for their freedom, and “Indians” were fighting for their land. American history usually describes hostilities between the U.S. and the Seminoles as 3 different wars, but the Seminoles saw it as one continuous war from 1817-1858. The conflict has been called “the longest and most expensive war the white man ever waged against Native Americans.”
Despite their tireless efforts, both Black and Native Seminoles were forced to travel the genocidal “Trail of Tears” to the so-called “Indian Country” (modern Oklahoma). “Indians” of diverse ethnicities and languages were deported hundreds of miles away from their home countries and crowded into this artificial “country” by people who saw no value in it – yet. Thousands of forced immigrants died within the first year. The hardships of Black Seminoles were compounded by attempts to re-enslave them.
The Exodus from Oklahoma to Mexico
Close to 200 Black and Indian Seminoles escaped in 1849. Under the leadership of Chiefs Wild Cat and John Horse, they made their “Exodus to Mexico,” where slavery had been abolished since 1837. The Mexican government offered the Seminoles land in exchange for helping the Mexican military protect the Northern border.
In 1850, the Black Seminoles established the town El Nacimiento de los Negros, or “the birth of the Blacks.” The Black Seminoles became known as “Mascogos,” a term adapted from the English Creole they spoke, known as “Muscogee.” Their descendants are still known by this name today.
Freedom, food, family, and fun!
When news reached El Nacimiento that Blacks in the United States had been freed on June 19th, 1865, the Mascogos joined the celebration. They were finally free from American threats of re-enslavement. Every Juneteenth, or Día de los Negros, the community continues to celebrate freedom with food and song.
Festivities include “Capeyuye,” which are African American call-and-response style songs. Their dances mirror their traditional Native American and African heritage. Favorite foods include soske (hominy porridge) and cabrito (roasted goat). Finally, the women wear handmade calico dresses, another visual reminder of their cross-cultural roots.
A Weekly Juneteenth (Día de los Negros)?
In the biblical book of Exodus, God told the Hebrews to “remember” to take a weekly holiday. Every seven days they were to rest and reflect on how humans were created to be God’s image-bearers (Exodus 20:8-11). In Deuteronomy 5:12-15, God gave the Hebrews another reminder of this weekly praise break to celebrate their deliverance from slavery.
When Jesus walked with us in-person, he gathered with his faith family on the Sabbath. On one such occasion, Jesus announced it was his purpose to “heal the broken hearted” and “set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:16-19,NKJV). As a people who have been oppressed for 400 years, African Americans and Afro-Mexicans have good reason to sing, dance, and feast to this weekly rhythm of bondage-breaking and healing.
Eternal Emancipation
The Sabbath is a God-given rest from our mundane labors to reflect on our higher purpose and redefine our role in this world. We are God’s image-bearers, not to be treated as beasts of burden or trafficked as disposable tools and toys. People should never have been libeled as wild, savage, or runaway animals just because they stand up for their dignity and self-determination.
Every seventh day we have the privilege to worship our Lord of liberation. We have the right to recharge ourselves, so we can keep working with God towards that day of universal and eternal emancipation (Revelation 21). Until then, there are still so many who need to hear the words of that powerful spiritual, Go Down, Moses:
Oh, let us all from bondage flee…
And let us all in Christ be free,
Let My people go!
