The African American Community in Albuquerque

Overview and Brief History:
At the time of the 2000 Census, 13,854 African-Americans lived in Albuquerque, representing 3% of the city’s population. The African continent was the original home of this ethnic community, but most of its members are many centuries and multiple generations away from their African roots. Although there are a few overt remnants of African tribal cultures that remain at this point in the United States, most notably among the Gullah people in East Georgia, most African Americans have assimilated into American culture. However, there are a few outward manifestations of African culture that do remain, many of which manifest themselves in foods still common in African-American cuisine.

Immigration to the United States and Albuquerque:
The sad history of the forced immigration of the African American people to the United States is well-known at this point in time. Almost all were brought to this country as slaves, first by the Spanish and the Dutch West India Company, and later by a multitude of other slave traders, including the Portugese, British, and the Americans themselves..

The first African to arrive in New Mexico was the slave, Esteban, who after his capture by the Spanish in Morocco, accompanied the few survivors of the shipwrecked exploration led by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca in his epic 1530's journey across the American Southwest to Mexico. Esteban, also known as Estevanico, returned to New Mexico in 1539 as a guide for the Franciscan priest Marcos di Niza in his unsuccessful search for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola, and was killed at the Zuni Pueblo of Hawikuh.

According to surviving Spanish documents, there were several African slaves on the Coronado Expedition. Only two of them, another Moor named Esteban who served under Alarcón, and one named Sebastián, who remained behind at Tiguex, are identified. There were five unknown male and three unknown African slaves, and male mulatto named Cristobal Lopez, in Don Juan de Oñate’s party of settlers in 1598. One of these five Negroes, possibly named Juan, fought alongside Vicente Záldivar at the battle of Acoma. A mulatto female named Ísabel de Olvera accompanied the Juan Guerra de Resa’s relief expedition in 1600. De Vargas’ party in the 1692 reconquest of New Mexico after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt was accompanied by two Africans, a Congolese named Francisco Rico, and an Angolan named Sebastian Rodriguez Brito. Brito served as De Vargas’ personal drummer and accompanied him on many military campaigns.

In 1828, shortly following its independence from Spain, Mexico outlawed the practice of slavery in the Southwest. The few blacks who came to New Mexico under Mexican rule were typically fur trappers like the legendary James Beckwourth. Beckwourth resided in Fort Vasquez 1836-40 and married a Santa Fe women. He left the state but returned as a member of Kearney’s conquering army in 1847. Soon after New Mexico became a part of the United States, an unratified constitution drafted in 1850 banned slavery in New Mexico. Slavery was officially abolished in New Mexico in 1861, one year before the U.S. Congress outlawed it.

In the 1870's, the town of Dora, in the Cimarron Valley, was first settled by freed slaves. Black cowboys, and Buffalo Soldiers were some of the late nineteenth century African-Americans who came to New Mexico. At the turn of the twentieth century, an ex-slave named Francis Boyer from Georgia established an all black town near Roswell named Blackdom whose eventual populace of 500 was recruited from the surrounding states of Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Sadly, Blackdom was a victim of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression and was abandoned; but Boyer successfully recreated the experiment south of Las Cruces in a town named Vado, which survives to this day.

The first significant wave African-Americans immigration to Albuquerque occurred in the late 1870's with the coming of the Santa Fe Railroad. Black railroad employees mostly lived in the downtown area. A Negro man was involved in helping to establish the University of New Mexico. By 1910, when the Black population reached 244, they had expanded to all quadrants of the city except for the southeast Huning Highland neighborhood, which was predominantly occupied by Anglo railroad workers. Hispanic railroad worker’s primarily lived in the barrio of Barelas south of downtown but also in an area known as San Jose across the tracks. Those African Americans not occupied by the railroad became entrepreneurs by necessity, starting up their own businesses when discriminatory whites refused to employ them. These small business people offered a broad spectrum of services, from contracting and construction to housing travelers in boarding houses. They even published their own newspapers, such as the Plain Dealer.

In the 1930's-40's, Black families began moving into the Huning Highland neighborhood as Whites migrated eastward. Aided by a community network of informal financing, they were able to purchase homes. This entrepreneurship was necessary as local banks refused to offer mortgage loans to African Americans. Discrimination was still quite common and legal. Many of the properties were in need of repair and their values were dropping; but the new Black owners were unable to obtain loans to renovate them. Eventually most of them sold the houses and moved into newer houses that were being built south of Huning Highland and east of South Broadway. For many years the black community was segregated and was only “allowed” to live in a few neighborhoods in the city, notably South Broadway and the Kirtland Addition although there was a small Black neighborhood north of Lomas. This began to change in the 1950's, even before the Civil Rights Act came into being.

In 1940, there were 547 African Americans and by 1950, only 613. From this point forward the population grew exponentially, reaching 3,563 in 1960, 6,689 in 1970, 11,487 in 1990, and 13,864 today. Most people interviewed in our survey came to Albuquerque after 1970 and many of these people learned of New Mexico and Albuquerque during military service in the state. Many stayed or relocated to Albuquerque from other bases following their discharge from the service.

For the rest of this article go here Albuquerque Arts Alliance

Peace.

To find out how I got a ticket on the train go here

If you don't know what the heck I am talking about - last year Studly Dudly and some other awesome bloggers started a 360 train ride - posts on Black History month. I was educated and uplifted. I took the ride. (check the tagcloud- Black History Month) I'm happy to go again...and again...until we learn we are all one...

Peace