The history of slavery in the Americas normally covers the situation of the blacks in North America. However, recently there have been increasing numbers of historical studies conducted about Africans in Latin America, specifically Mexico. Blacks were present as slaves of the Spaniards as early as the 1520s, when Mexico was known as New Spain. Over the next 300 years, the slave trade brought approximately 200,000 Africans to the colony. In fact, there were more slaves than Spaniards. Numerous blacks were born in Mexico and followed their parents as slaves. Slavery was not abolished until 1829, but today the descendants still live in Mexico and their cultural heritage remains in music and dance and the arts.
             The Spanish invaded Mexico in the early 1500s and soon exploited local labor for its needs for mining and agricultural efforts, so there was little initial interest in African slaves. Soon, however, disease and depopulation of local labor made the Spaniards look elsewhere for their workers. The Spaniards had an excellent supply of precious metals as well as a healthy trade balance with Europe, so could easily afford to bring African slaves into the country to fill in the regions abandoned by Amerindian laborers. They were also able to rely on these African slaves to make up for the lack of poor city workers among the Spaniards in the new imperial cities of America1. African slaves were advantageous since they had no kin in the country and were completely mobile. Because they had their own multiple languages and would only have the European language in common when arriving in Mexico, the African slaves would be forced to adjust to Western norms. To the contrary, Indians were a detriment because they could not be moved from their lands on a permanent basis and already had an established culture and language.
             In addition, the Africans did not need to learn new skills, because they came from communities with extensive agriculture,...