Slavery San Antonio Style



By Mario Salas

In San Antonio, African American slaves were sold twice a week at the auction houses of such well known names as Henry Burns, John M. Carolan, Charles F. King, George Collamer, WD. Greenwood and Company, J. N. Henriques, E. J. McLane, and Francis Giraud. Reportedly, in the 1800s, the first slave in San Antonio was William Baylor, though this appears untrue because of the Spanish slave system that existed with the arrival of the Canary Islanders in the 1700s, and the Spanish slave system that existed in Mexico in the 1500s. There were many slaves in San Antonio long before the 1800s and free blacks as well.

Interestingly, the slave situation was tempered in San Antonio by the large number of "mulattos" in Bexar County that was about 25% of the population in 1860. Mulatto is a negative word and racist, for it means "little mule." Blacks were often given animal names by the Spaniard system of slavery. The Black population was as high as 16% in 1870, thus refuting the false conception that the African American population was never higher than it is now at 7-8%. Because the mulatto population was so high in San Antonio, along with free blacks and Afro-Mexicans, whites could not differentiate between free and slave blacks. This caused the racial situation to be somewhat subdued as compared to other Southern cities. It also caused confusion, because racist minded people always want to fit individuals into categories. There were a lot of ethnically vague people in San Antonio as a result of intermarriage between Indians and Blacks and other mixtures.

There was a lot of interracial mixing in San Antonio which resulted in less policing of slaves and confusion among whites. Additionally, the slave population was small in 1860 making up only 7% of the population. Many slaves in Texas ran away to places like Piedras Negras and Monclova in Mexico increasing the black population in Mexico. By the middle 1860s the slave population in San Antonio grew. This led to more slaves in the state than had escaped. This also led to an increase in San Antonio’s Black population by 1870 to almost 16%.

Interestingly, the reason why we never had full blown packed ghettoes was because the employment patterns in San Antonio encouraged clustering of families and friends residing in neighborhoods that were near to their white employers. This directly contradicts the idea that blacks were treated better because whites were more sympathetic. FALSE! Many whites in San Antonio are still under the mistaken conception as to why we never had full-blown ghettoes. Another misconception maintained by some whites, and sometimes by racist whites that want to distort history, is that we never had a "race riot" in San Antonio. Though this is partially true in the sense that whites did not rampage through the streets and lynch blacks as in other cities, or riots on the scale of Watts in California, we nevertheless had a least four major riots. Whites did rampage through Bexar County during Reconstruction threatening blacks that were attempting to vote.

Another riot was at the Kings River Parade in 1969 over the Killing of Bobby Joe Phillips, a black man beaten to death by SAPD. The others occurred in the 1870s by black soldiers in the downtown area, and when Sam Houston High School was desegregated. Historians may indeed find other riots, as the veil of the secret history of African Americans San Antonio is finally lifted. Because blacks sought housing near where they worked, they settled near military installations, railroad lines, lumber yards, cemeteries, rock quarries, and along the San Antonio River and Salado Creek. In fact, some blacks lived in caves along the San Antonio River.

With the change in neighborhoods, because of the expansion of the business district, and the arrival of the railroad, developers began to develop all white neighborhoods in the 1880s. These neighborhoods developed near the present site of San Antonio College and near Woodlawn Lake. When whites began to complain about living near railroads, because of the noise and pollution, the white business community ignored them. Rich whites left these areas, and blacks moved into these houses and neighborhoods next to the dumps and railroad lines. Before the railroad, the Denver Heights was quiet and clean. Not so today, though there is an attempt to create a "Quiet Zone" for incoming whites and middle class minorities. The whites that could afford to move left for the North side in the 1880s.

With street cars lines being built, the whites on the Eastside could now move North onto the best land, which was rocky and higher in elevation. This rocky land provided a solid foundation for houses, and the higher elevations prevented flooding. The dirt on the Eastside and in eastern Bexar County is mainly black clay, which is unstable and prone to flooding. Thus, the whites that could afford to leave did so, leaving behind African Americans, Mexican Americans, Germans, and poor whites to the South and Eastside of the city.
http://www.aframnews.com/html/2006-08-23/lead8.htm