Audain, Mekala. Mexican Canaan : fugitive slaves and free blacks on the American frontier, 1804-1867. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T35Q4TC8
DescriptionThis dissertation examines the migration of free blacks and slaves across the United States’ southern border into New Spain and later Mexico in the antebellum era. For fugitive slaves, Mexico offered a sanctuary from U.S. slavery. Mexico abolished slavery in 1829; never policed its borders very effectively; and at times, actively welcomed runaways. Northeastern Mexico was sparsely populated and attracted few immigrants and welcomed slave fugitives who could help defend its border. The nation also welcomed free blacks, offering them full citizenship rights—unlike the United States. Consequently, starting in the 1820s and 1830s, some free blacks began to immigrate there. The Texas Revolution and subsequent U.S. annexation of Texas made it less welcoming to free blacks, who became subjected to greater restrictions after the United States acquired the region. But some free blacks continued to migrate to Texas after 1836, and both free blacks and fugitive slaves migrated to Mexico after 1845. The consolidation of U.S. slavery in the 1850s along with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law (1850), ensured that both free blacks and slaves would continue to see Mexico as a refuge through emancipation. This history of the transnational migration of African Americans to the Spanish-U.S.-Mexican borderlands recovers the story of a southern underground railroad that led fugitive slaves south of the border.