IMPERIALIST, REBEL AGREEMENT DIDN'T INCLUDE SLAVERY

 (Ed.'s Note: We thank our seven readers for leading us to priceless documents dealing with local history. This one was provided to us by former Brownsville Herald reporter and local broadcaster and City of Brownsville Public Information Officer Bill Young. Bill's collection of vintage newspaper includes the July 2, 1865 issue of the New York Herald, often associated with its owner Joseph Pulitzer. However, when this issue was published, it was owned and edited by Mable Menton and had extensive coverage of the Rio Grande and the border. To give the reader an idea of how long it took for news to reach the metropolis, the letter from Imperialist General Tomas Mejia who occupied Matamoros for Maximilian to Confederate General J.E. Slaughter, who held Brownsville was written December 7, 1864 – 157 years ago – but wasn't published until July the next year, after the Civil War was over. We thank Bill for allowing us to peruse his hard copy of this historical document.)

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

For as long as local history buffs can remember, the alliance between the Confederates occupying Brownsville and the Mexican and French forces under Imperialist General Tomas Mejia that occupied Matamoros and resulted in the defeat of Union forces at Palmito Hill included agreement on slavery.

French forces attacked Mexican constitutional forces who had allied with the Union forces on Brazos Island from across the Rio Grande near Puerto Bagdad on May 12-13,1865, at the tail end of the Civil War. It is listed as the last battle of the Civil War that happened a month after Robert E. Lee had signed the surrender of his forces to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865.

But as the letter from Mejia to Slaughter indicates, there was a gulf of difference in their view of slavery. Mejia's response to an earlier Slaughter correspondence where the rebel commander asks Mejia to turn over criminals, deserters and stolen property that had been crossed the Rio Grande – including slaves who were seen as "property" by the confederate commander – was not agreed to by the Imperialist general.

Mejia refuses the request on the grounds that the agreement between the two forces does not include the return of slaves.

"Allow me General, to manifest to you that these agreements have not been adjusted yet, for two serious difficulties have presented themselves in this respect," Mejia's letter states. "The Confederacy claims as stolen property the slaves who have escaped from the domination of their masters; but the laws of Mexico do consider as free the slaves that put a foot on our territory. I cannot, for this reason allow the delivery of slaves."

Mejia also refuses to turn over Confederate deserters on the grounds that Mexico needs immigrants who are "immensely necessary to our country."

He states that since the Confederacy has declared as soldiers "all men capable of bearing arms" within their territory, his delivery of the deserting soldiers would be tantamount to him delivering the men who "to avoid the calamities of war, come to seek refuge in Mexico."

(In a previous correspondence with his superiors, Slaughter noted that Mejia had previously turned over three confederate deserters who had been arrested for theft in Mexico.)

It is noteworthy to point out here that Mexico outlawed the importation of slavery in 1829, but allowed Texas to continue until 1830. From the 1830s up to emancipation, historians estimate that 3,000 to 5,000 enslaved people fled south and crossed over to free Mexican soil.

Alice Baumgartner, a historian at the University of Southern California, the author of a groundbreaking new book, "South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War," wrote: 

"Enslaved sailors and stowaways from New Orleans and Galveston, Texas, jumped ship in Mexican ports. Slaves drove wagons of cotton to market in Brownsville, Texas, and then slipped across the muddy river to Matamoros, Mexico. But their main mode of transportation was on horseback traversing the vast, feral stretches of South Texas down to the border."

It is also noteworthy that Mejia was of Otomi indigenous origin and came from a humble background, a status in Mexico that almost equated that of a slave and was dark complected. Did that play any role in his refusing to deliver the runaway slaves to the confederates in Texas?

Mejia ultimately was captured with Maximilian and fellow general Miguel Miramon and executed by Juarista forces on June 19, 1867 in Cerro de las Campanas, Santiago de Queretaro. 

After the Confederacy defeat, Slaughter fled to Mexico and didn't return to the U.S. until years later. 

While visiting Mexico City, Slaughter became ill and ultimately died of pneumonia on January 1, 1901. He is buried in the Mexico City National Cemetery.