Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн
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On September 15, 1829, President Vicente Guerrero emancipated all slaves in Mexico. A law in April 1830, prohibited the introduction of slaves into Spanish Texas. Needless to say, Mexican frontiersmen in Coahuila, and Tejanos (Mexicans in Texas) and Anglo-Americans in Texas protested these laws and did their best to evade the law’s intentions.19 The law was not enforced in Texas. As mentioned before (see endnote 9), 25% of the population of Texas prior to 1836 consisted of African slaves.
Although slavery had been legally abolished in New Mexico while a province of Mexico, in actuality, slavery still persisted after 1850 when New Mexico acquired US territorial status. In 1858, a proslavery faction of the territory passed a slave code known as the Otero Slave Code (named for Miguel Antonio Otero, a delegate in Congress from New Mexico), and approved by Governor Abraham Rencher on February 3, 1859. This slave code was similar to those of the southern confederate states, including provisions requiring runaway servants to be arrested, fines and punishments for slaves violating curfews, and imprisonment for any person found guilty of giving a slave a sword or any firearm. This slave code specifically affirmed “that it in no way applied to peonage and that the word ‘slave’ designated only a member of the African race.”20