The First Enslaved Africans in Mexico

Top 10 Discoveries of 2020 January/February 2021

Mexico City, Mexico
(R. Barquera and N. Bernal)
SHARE:

Details from the lives of three young men buried in a sixteenth-century mass grave in Mexico City have finally been brought to light by researchers who conducted isotope, genetic, and osteological analysis of their remains. Most notably, all three appear to have been born in West Africa. The men’s teeth were filed into shapes similar to those described by contemporaneous European travelers to West Africa and to dental modifications still performed by some groups in the region today. The skeletons were originally discovered in the 1980s, when subway construction revealed a colonial-era hospital for Indigenous people. “We know there were a large number of Africans who were abducted and transported to New Spain, but they did not generally live in Mexico City,” says archaeogeneticist Rodrigo Barquera of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. “That’s why it’s surprising to find these three individuals there.”

The skeletons also show evidence of strenuous physical labor and violent trauma. According to Barquera, the men were likely among the first generation of enslaved Africans brought to coastal Mexico in the 1520s. They may have toiled on a sugar plantation or in a mine before possibly becoming sick during an epidemic, which could explain their presence at the hospital. Isotope analysis of their teeth—which can determine where a person originated and what kind of food they consumed as a child—was consistent with West African ecosystems, and their DNA revealed that all three shared West African ancestry. However, the men weren’t related to each other, and the team couldn’t connect them to a specific population. It is possible, Barquera explains, that “after the community in Africa was raided, it disappeared from the historical record.”

MORE FROM Top 10 Discoveries of 2020

  • Top 10 Discoveries of 2020 January/February 2021

    Largest Viking DNA Study

    Northern Europe and Greenland

    Read Article
    (Dorset County Council/Oxford Archaeology)
  • Top 10 Discoveries of 2020 January/February 2021

    Luwian Royal Inscription

    Türkmen-Karahöyük, Turkey

    Read Article
    (Copyright by James Osborne (above left) and copyright by Jennifer Jackson (above right))
  • Features January/February 2021

    Top 10 Discoveries of the Decade

    The best finds of the past 10 years

    Read Article
  • Features January/February 2021

    Return to the River

    Members of Virginia’s Rappahannock tribe are at work with archaeologists to document the landscape they call home

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Julia King)
  • Letter from Woodhenge January/February 2021

    Stonehenge's Continental Cousin

    A 4,000-year-old ringed sanctuary reveals a German village’s surprising connections with Britain

    Read Article
    (Photo Matthias Zirn)
  • Artifacts January/February 2021

    Inca Box with Votive Offerings

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Teddy Seguin/Université Libre de Bruxelles)