The sociodemographic transition of the mulattoes in Guanajuato at the beginning of the 19th century

Abstract

The various investigations on the city of Guanajuato have shown that, until the end of the colonial era, official documentation continued to register by the thousands the women and men of African origin who inhabited the city. Consequently, what happened to them and their descendants in independent Mexico? Between the period of the uprising of Miguel Hidalgo in 1810 to the abolition of the terms by castes in 1822, why are their records becoming more and more scarce until they almost disappear? What was the reason why the “traces” of Afro-descendants in the region seem less evident than in places where their presence has historically been located, such as in Veracruz, the sugar cane areas of Tabasco and Morelos, and on the coasts of Guerrero and Oaxaca? Although this work does not pretend to reach definitive answers to the aforementioned questions, they allowed us to reflect in the following pages (based on the tools of Social and Demographic History) on the transition of this sector of Guanajuato society in the colonial period, and its apparent "blurring" for the post-independent period.