An African American and Latinx History of the United States
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3. Alexander von Humboldt, Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain With Physical Sections and Maps, vol. 1, trans. John Black (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, 1811), 246. Laura Gómez writes, “Both the Spanish and the American colonial enterprises were grounded in racism—in a system of status inequality built on presumed racial difference.” Gomez, “Opposite One-Drop Rules: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Need to Reconceive Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Race Relations,” in How the United States Racializes Latinos: White Hegemony and Its Consequences, ed. José A. Cobas, Jorge Duany, and Joe R. Feagin (New York: Paradigm Publishers, 2009), 89.
4. Vincent, Legacy of Vicente Guerrero, 8.
5. Ibid., 84; Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 87.
6. Ward, Mexico in 1827, 185.
7. “Pastoral letter of November 28, 1812, addressed to parish priests and other clergy of the diocese of Durango by the dean and chapter of the cathedral,” in Caste and Politics in the Struggle for Mexican Independence, Newberry Library, n.d., http://dcc.newberry.org/collections/caste-and-politics-in-mexican-independence#the-insurgency (accessed September 14, 2015).
8. Guedea, “The Process of Mexican Independence,” 119. See also Marixa Lasso, “Race War and Nation in Caribbean Gran Colombia, Cartagena, 1810–1832,” American Historical Review 111, no. 2 (April 2006): 338.
9. Ward, Mexico in 1827, 512.
10. Peter B. Hammond, “Mexico’s Negro President,” Negro Digest (May 1951), 11.
11. Ward, Mexico in 1827, 197.
12. José Maria Morelos to James Madison, July 14, 1815 (author’s translation), Founders Online, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/99-01-02-4516 (accessed March 11, 2015).
13. Ibid.
14. John Quincy Adams to George William Erving, November 28, 1818, in The Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume VI: 1816–1819, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York: Macmillan, 1913), 489; David S. Heidler and Jeane T. Heidler, Old Hickory’s War: Andrew Jackson and the Quest for Empire (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1996).
15. John Quincy Adams, “Speech of John Quincy Adams, in the House of Representatives, on the State of the Nation Delivered May 25, 1836” (1836; Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2010), 13. See also David Waldstreicher and Matthew Mason, John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery: Selections from the Diary (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017); Harlow Giles Unger, John Quincy Adams (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2012).
16. John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, April 14, 1818, Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-3489 (accessed November 25, 2014). For Adams on Latin America as well as subsequent developments, see Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy Toward Latin America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
17. These included the Third Servile War (73–71 BC), led by Spartacus. Adams used the concept of “servile war” on other occasions. See Thomas Fleming, A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2013), 144–45.
18. John Quincy Adams to John Adams, December 21, 1817, in Ford, The Writings of John Quincy Adams, 6: 276.
19. John Quincy Adams to George William Erving, November 28, 1818, in The Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume VII: 1820–1823, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York: Macmillan, 1917), 476. For information on Erving, see J. L. M. Curry, Diplomatic Services of George William Erving (Cambridge, MA: John Wilson & Son, 1890).
20. John Quincy Adams to George William Erving in Ford, The Writings of John Quincy Adams, 6: 476. Thomas Jefferson also subsequently defended Jackson’s conduct in the Seminole War. See Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, March 3, 1819, Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/?q=seminole&s=1111311111&sa=&r=25&sr= (accessed June 15, 2016).
21. For details on the framing of the Adams-Onis Treaty, see Samuel F. Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949).
22. John Quincy Adams to George William Erving, November 28, 1818, in Ford, The Writings of John Quincy Adams, 6: 495; “Remembering the Battle of Negro Fort,” Fusion.net, July 27, 2016, http://fusion.net/story/330065/battle-of-negro-fort-anniversary/.
23. John Quincy Adams to George William Erving, November 28, 1818, in Ford, The Writings of John Quincy Adams, 6: 496–98.
24. Gómez, Manifest Destinies, views the notion of manifest destiny “as a cluster of ideas that relied on racism to justify a war of aggression against Mexico” (3).
25. On the racialization of Mexicans, see Menchaca, Recovering History, Constructing Race; Gómez, Manifest Destinies; Ian Haney-López, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York: New York University Press, 2006).
26. Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean (1970; New York: Vintage Books, 1984), 410–18; Stephen M. Chambers, No God but Gain: The Untold Story of Cuban Slavery, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Making of the United States (London: Verso, 2015).
27. John Quincy Adams to Hugh Nelson, April 28, 1823, in Ford, The Writings of John Quincy Adams, 7: 370.
28. Carey McWilliams, Brothers Under the Skin, rev. ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951), 196; Horne, Race to Revolution, 45–64.
29. “Annexation of Territory,” National Era, February 4, 1847.
30. Ibid.
31. “Prejudice Against Color,” Colored American, September 5, 1840.
32. “Slavery,” Freedom’s Journal, November 30, 1827.
33. “First of August Address, at Canandaigua, by Frederick Douglass,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, August 19, 1847.
34. Ibid.
35. Loring Moody, A History of the Mexican War, or Facts for the People, Showing the Relation of the United States Government to Slavery (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848), 102; “Resolution,” Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1826–1827, 19th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1826), 7. Brent presented his resolution on Monday, December 18, 1826, and it was approved by the House of Representatives the following day.
36. Moody, History of the Mexican War, 102. For further details on the Mexican congress’s refusal to accede to US demands to return “fugitive slaves,” see Jose Maria Herrera, “The Blueprint for Hemispheric Hegemony: Joel Roberts Poinsett and the First United States Diplomatic Mission to Mexico,” PhD diss., Purdue University, 2008, 307–8.
37. William Loren Katz interview with Paul Ortiz, SPOHP, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, June 22, 2012. See also William Loren Katz’s keynote address at the 2012 Underground Railroad Conference, ed. Deborah Hendrix, prod. Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, http://williamlkatz.com/media/videos/.
38. “Mississippi—The Connection of Things,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, September 3, 1840.
39. “From East Tennessee,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, December 31, 1840.
40. “Slavery Question in Oregon,” Sacramento Daily Union, September 30, 1857.
41. “Annexation of Territory,” National Era, February 4, 1847.
42. Benjamin Lundy, The War in Texas: A Review of Facts and Circumstances Showing that this Contest Is a Crusade Against Mexico Set on Foot and Supported by Slaveholders, Land-Speculators, &c. in Order to Re-Establish, Extend, and Perpetuate the System of Slavery and the Slave Trade, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Merrihew & Gunn, 1837), 5.
43. “Interesting Letter,” Liberator, May 26, 1832.
44. Irvin D. S. Winsboro and Joe Knetsch, “Florida Slaves, the ‘Saltwater Railroad’ to the Bahamas, and Anglo-American Diplomacy,” Journal of Southern History 74, no. 1 (February 2013): 51–78; Margo Harakas, “Underground Railroad Made Tracks to Bahamas,” Sun-Sentinel (FL), April 14, 2005.
45. John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, 1835–1842 (1976; Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010); “Documentary Proposal by John Mahon: Osceola
and the Seminole Wars,” grant proposal, National Endowment for the Humanities, November 1992, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00007635/00001/4j (accessed March 12, 2016). The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida, in partnership with the National Park Service and the Organization of American Historians, has recently conducted oral history interviews with descendants of Florida’s Black Seminoles who relocated to Oklahoma, Texas, Mexico, and the Bahamas in the wake of the Second Seminole War (1835–42). These interviews are currently being processed for scholarly use.
46. Charles Bingham Reynolds, Old Saint Augustine: A Story of Three Centuries (St. Augustine, FL: E. H. Reynolds, 1888), 113; Kenneth Porter Wiggins, The Black Seminoles: History of a Freedom-Seeking People, rev. and ed. by Alcione M. Amos and Thomas P. Senter (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996).
47. Rivers, Rebels and Runaways, 131–46; Martin Van Buren, “First Annual Message to Congress,” December 5, 1837, Miller Center, University of Virginia, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-5-1837-first-annual-message-congress (accessed May 9, 2017); Cantor Brown, “Race Relations in Territorial Florida, 1821–1845,” Florida Historical Quarterly 73 (January): 287–307.
48. “Speech of John Quincy Adams, in the House of Representatives . . . May 25, 1836.” See also William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).
49. “Speech of John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives . . . May 25, 1836,” 9.
50. Joseph Wheelan, Mr. Adams’s Last Crusade: John Quincy Adams’s Extraordinary Post-Presidential Life in Congress (New York: Perseus Books, 2008).
51. “Speech of John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives . . . May 25, 1836,” 10.
52. Ibid., 9.
53. Lundy, The War in Texas, 53; Congreso General de Mexico, Manifiesto del Congreso en el Presente Año, 1836 (Mexico City: Imprenta de J. M. F. de Lara, 1836). Adams became renowned for his eloquent defense of the Amistad rebels in 1841. See Marcus Rediker, The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom (New York: Penguin Books, 2012), 188–90.
54. “Cuba,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, October 29, 1852. See also “Southern Patriotism & Florida War,” National Enquirer, January 28, 1837; “Cuba and the United States,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, September 4, 1851; “Cuba—The Reason,” Provincial Freeman, June 3, 1854.
55. “Treachery, Vile and Unblushing,” Colored American, February 3, 1838.
56. “Mexico and Texas,” Colored American, January 30, 1841.
57. “The Present Position of Mexico,” Colored American, February 2, 1839. See also Christopher Klein, “The Pastry War, 175 Years Ago,” “History in the Headlines,” News Network, November 27, 2013, http://www.history.com/news/the-pastry-war-175-years-ago (accessed May 9, 2017).
58. James McCune Smith, “Introduction,” in A Memorial Discourse by Rev. Henry Highland Garnet (Philadelphia: Joseph M. Wilson, 1865), 25. See also Harding, There Is a River, 120–24; David Fiske, Clifford W. Brown Jr., and Rachel Seligman, Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of “Twelve Years a Slave” (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013); Marjorie Waters, “Before Solomon Northup: Fighting Slave Catchers in New York,” History News Network, October 18, 2013, http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/153653 (accessed May 7, 2107).
59. Smith, A Memorial Discourse, 30; “The Brief but Courageous Life of Noyes Academy,” Dartmouth Life, December, 2005, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dartlife/archives/15–5/noyes.html (accessed March 5, 2015).
60. Minutes of the National Convention of Colored Citizens Held at Buffalo (New York: Piercy & Reed, 1843), 15–18.
61. Frederick Douglass, “Texas, Slavery, and American Prosperity: An Address Delivered in Belfast, Ireland, on January 2, 1846,” at John Blassingame et al, eds., The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One—Speeches, Debates, and Interviews, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, http://glc.yale.edu/texas-slavery-and-american-prosperity (accessed May 9, 2017).
62. “On Mexico,” Liberator, June 8, 1849. See also editorial in the North Star, January 21, 1848.
63. “M. R. Delany,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, May 19, 1848. See also “The Conduct of the War,” National Era, March 18, 1847; “An Appeal to the Friends of Justice, Humanity, Peace, and Liberty in the United States,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, May 21, 1846.
64. “Letter from Frederick Douglass,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, September 9, 1847.
65. “Anti-Slavery Petitions,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, February 4, 1848.
66. “The Feeling of Mexico,” National Era, August 31, 1848.
67. David E. Hayes-Bautista, El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 83–84.
68. “Revolution in Northern Mexico,” National Era, October 16, 1851. See also “Negro Conspiracy,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, July 24, 1851; Wendell G. Addington, “Slave Insurrections in Texas,” Journal of Negro History 35 (October 1950): 408–34; William W. White, “The Texas Slave Insurrection of 1860,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 52 (January 1949): 259–61.
69. “A New Plot of the Slave-Drivers,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, August 4, 1855; Addington, “Slave Insurrections in Texas,” 412.
70. “Negro in Latin America, Mexico and 1856 Slave Rebellion,” editorial, Philadelphia Tribune, January 15, 1944; Bill Stein, “Capital Punishment in Colorado County History,” Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal: A Journal of Colorado County History 1, no. 5 (June 1990): 131–32.
71. “Letter from B. F. Remington,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, February 19, 1852. Remington’s thesis is supported by Matthew Karp, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016).
72. William Walker, The War in Nicaragua (New York: S. H. Goetzel, 1860), 261. See also Karl Bermann, Under the Big Stick: Nicaragua and the United States Since 1848 (Boston: South End Press, 1986); Johnson, The River of Dark Dreams, 366–94.
73. “Annexation of Cuba,” Richmond Enquirer, June 3, 1854.
74. For anti-imperial and antislavery critiques of the filibusters, see “The Workings of the Compromise—More Slave Territory,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, July 24, 1851; “Let the People Be Roused,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, March 30, 1855; “Nicaragua as It Is,” Provincial Freeman, May 17, 1856; “Later for Nicaragua—The Plot Consummated,” National Era, October 23, 1856.
75. “Cuba and the United States,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, September 4, 1851.
76. Hayes-Bautista, El Cinco de Mayo, 83.
77. “Political Aspect of the Colored People,” Provincial Freeman, October 13, 1855.
78. Richard Newman, Patrick Rael, and Philip Lapansky, eds., Pamphlets of Protest: An Anthology of Early African-American Protest Literature, 1790–1860 (New York: Routledge, 2001), 98.
79. Dorothy Sterling, ed., The Trouble They Seen: The Story of Reconstruction in the Words of African Americans (1976; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 29.
80. “Interesting Letter.”
81. “An Address to the People of the United States,” Proceedings of the Colored National Convention Held in Franklin Hall, Philadelphia, October 16th, 17th and 18th, 1855 (Salem, NJ: National Standard, 1856), 32.
82. “What Is to Be Done?,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, May 6, 1852.
83. On the American Party, popularly known as the Know-Nothing Party, see Tyler Anbinder, Nativism & Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings & the Politics of the 1850s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
84. “Diplomatic Revelations,” New Orleans Tribune, June 9, 1865.
85. Henry Highland Garnet, “The Past and Present Condition, and Destiny of the Colored Race: A Discourse Delivered at the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Female Benevolent Society of Troy, N.Y., Feb. 14, 1848,” Electronic Texts in American Studies, Paper 13, h
ttp://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/13, 21 (accessed July 8, 2016).
86. José Martí, “The Washington Pan-American Congress,” in José Martí, Inside the Monster: Writings on the United States and American Imperialism, ed. Phillip S. Foner, trans. Elinor Randall et al. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975), 347.
87. Jack O’Dell, “Foundations of Racism in American Life,” Freedomways 4, no. 4 (Fall 1964): 98–99. For an overview of O’Dell’s writings, see Nikhil Pal Singh, ed., Climbin’ Jacob’s Ladder: The Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O’Dell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).
88. William Appleman Williams, Empire as a Way of Life: An Essay on the Causes and Character of America’s Present Predicament Along with a Few Thoughts About an Alternative (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); see also William Appleman Williams, “Empire as a Way of Life,” Nation 231 (August 2–9, 1980): 104–19. Williams’s thesis is supported by Steven Hahn in A Nation Without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars (New York: Viking, 2016).