Читать книгу The History of Texas - Robert A. Calvert - Страница 46

The nature of slavery in colonial Texas has yet to be studied adequately. According to the censuses conducted in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the number of black persons in the province (excluding the offspring of black and mestizo/indigenous people unions) barely exceeded fifty, the majority of which resided in East Texas, the region closest to Louisiana, from which some had run away. Most blacks were not slaves; whether they had arrived in Texas as fugitives or as free persons, they integrated themselves into colonial society, adopting Spanish surnames and learning the Spanish language. At least a few Tejano rancheros, however, did acquire slaves in New Orleans, exchanging cattle for bond‐people or acquiring them through barter with the French living in neighboring Louisiana communities. In the latter years of the century, some farmers living around Nacogdoches held slaves. Although Spain did not follow a pattern of exporting Africans to New Spain’s Far North, the Crown did extend its official policy on slavery to Texas. This prohibited Africans from congregating, lest they plan insurrection, and from possessing firearms. Given the dire need for free laborers to perform so many menial tasks on the frontier, however, doubt exists that colonials stringently enforced such slave codes. More plausibly, Africans worked alongside other day laborers in an integrated workforce.