Caribbean Cultural Center Celebrates 30th Anniversary
With African By Legacy – Mexican By Birth Exhibition
Article and photography © Kwame Brathwaite
The opening of the first exhibition during the 30th anniversary celebration of the Franklin H. Williams Caribbean Cultural Center (408 W. 58th Street), drew an overflow crowd for the show, “African By Legacy, Mexican By Birth”, a photographic presentation featuring the
extraordinary photography of Ayana V. Jackson and the powerful narrative of Marco Villalobos. Marco’s writings and poetry addresse the role of racial and cultural citizenship as it impacts the lives of African descendents in Mexico and throughout the Americas. Together
they traveled throughout Mexico, including the town founded in 1608 as San Lorenzo de Los Negros, and which is now the town of Yanga, named for the maroon leader who established the town in the face of Spanish colonialism. They collaborated on this exhibition for the
Caribbean Cultural Center, a journey that resulted in the show that opened January 9 and will run through May 12, before touring to The Mexican Museum in San Francisco and the Guadaloupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, Texas.
Ayana’s photos reveal the Africaness of the people of that area of Mexico and shows the retention of many aspects of their African heritage. Ayana’s vivid color and
distinctive black and white prints shot with 35mm and medium format cameras, reflect the mix of African, Spanish and Amerindian cultures. A Spelman College, class of 99 graduate in sociology with a concentration in Latin American and international studies, she picked up
an interest in photography from her father who gave her the basics. Later, in her junior year at Spelman, she took a class in photography that helped her develop her craft. After graduation, she headed for Miami and worked for A T & T in Latin America and the Caribbean
before leaving to tour Africa twice, spending seven months in South Africa, Zambia and Ghana, which resulted in an exhibition showing the influence of Hip Hop in Ghana. Some of those photos were purchased by the World Bank for their DC headquarters.
Marcos writes, “Gaspar Nyanga (also called Yanga) was a native of Gabon, West Africa. He was brought to Veracruz, Mexico, as one of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans shipped to the country’s gulf and pacific coasts to work the sugar cane fields and mines
controlled by the Spanish crown during the mid 16th and late 17th century. As with other instances of slavery throughout the new world, no sooner did the initial ships disembark in 1537 that the first uprisings began on Mexican Soil. Throughout Mexico, Africans and
Indigenous alike escaped from mines and haciendas to create ‘maroon’ societies in the mountains. After one of Mexico’s most brutal rebellions, it was to the mountains of Veracruz that Yanga led 500 other self-liberated peoples. For more than thirty years this community
lived off goods secured through raids on caravans in route to Mexico City. As the community grew and the raids became more frequent, Yanga and his community became increasingly hunted. So fierce was this hunt that eventually over 500 armed men were sent to destroy the
maroon colony.
Yanga and hundreds of men living in the highlands of Veracruz battled against the troops sent to capture them by order of the Spanish Crown. With hopes of causing enough destruction to force the Spaniards into negotiations that would help protect his people, Yanga sent
a message via a prisoner captured by his men. This message asked that a free homeland be granted upon fertile soil for his community of self liberated Africans and African descendants to settle. At the end of a battle that suffered many casualties on each side, Yanga
and those under his care arranged a move to the lowlands of Veracruz. All African descendants and their offspring who had liberated themselves prior to 1608 were granted legal freedom to settle in this town, San Lorenzo de los Negros. In exchange, Yanga assumed the
position of mayor and agreed to pay taxes to the Crown. Thus, Yanga and his townsmen became the settlers of the first free town for Africans in the western hemisphere.
Based on existing historical research and personal field research, the proceeding text from “El Negro Mas Chulo: African by legacy, Mexican by birth,” recounts this story through fictionalized letters
written in the voice of Gaspar Nyanga, addressed to a contemporary African American woman living in North America. The images that accompany were photographed in the town of Yanga, as well as in parts of Guerrero, and Oaxaca on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.
Marcos writes his version of how Yanga felt, with a letter, in Yanga’s “voice” detailing the approaching military conflict.
“As we near confrontation with the Spanish king’s forces I spend my days counting children and adults, counting able-bodied men and women, counting those I trust to lead and those who will need to be led. If I count our years then we are a troop of young and old, but
years I do not count, for while they can be determined to a finite end, the elements that most drive our spirits remain countless always. What can be said of my peoples’ ages is that their years are full with a common experience that has granted certain wisdom to even
the youngest among them. What they have each seen and endured connects us all to a higher level of perseverance.
Of my own age all that can be said is that like an ancient tree overlooking this mountainside it grows ever upward, affording a clear view of each arroyo that once threatened to halt our routes to this palenque we may soon leave behind. And as my age heightens I am
compelled to tell my story in full, before your ears grow more distant, before my voice rises beyond the clouds.
My story is a message sent to you in a dove’s beak, a simple wish for peace that may go unheard here where it most matters. In sending you my account, I hope my desire for tranquility finds amplification in the space traversed between us. Let it be known that what I
want for each of my brothers is Liberty, and what I want for each of my sisters is Liberty; Let it be known that what I want for each of our sons and daughters is no less than that same Liberty, and what I want for each of my distant selves, people like yourself whom I
consider of the same flesh and blood as me, people like ourselves, of similar African and Human origin who find ourselves removed by degree from homes where our warmest fires once burned, what I wish for us all is Liberty and nothing more than the responsibility that
such Liberty delivers—
It is this exact hope that I send here in this letter, imagining that upon reaching your hands it bounds upon you as would a wave traveled from a distant shore where not long ago our tears first mingled with the ocean that carried us here. It is this single wave that I
wish to wash over us all, at once reminding us of how we arrived here and cleansing us of that voyage in order to meet the approaching tempest.
May the spirit of our fathers carry these words to you with love.
Your brother by birth,
Gaspar Nyanga
Palenque San Lorenzo De Los Negros
Yanga’s memory is remembered as the first African liberation movement in the new world, predating Haiti’s rebelling by 200 years.
