Abolitionists, Smugglers and Scapegoats: Assistance Networks for Fugitive Slaves in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, 1836-1861

Abstract

This article analyses the nature of assistance networks for slave refugees absconding from Texas to the Mexican border between 1836 and 1861. It argues that, by contrast with the more densely organized Underground Railroad that connected the US South to the northern states and Canada, structures of assistance remained fairly loosely organized and inconsistent in the Texas-Mexican borderlands, in great part due to the almost complete absence of an established and influential abolitionist network in its midst. A wide variety of actors facilitated slaves’ escape attempts to the Rio Grande/Bravo, for multiple reasons. In this expanding slavery frontier, ideological grounds to support fugitive slaves largely coexisted with economic incentives, self-interest and socio-economic proximity. Convinced abolitionists, low-skilled Mexican workers, German settlers, smugglers and frontier bandits shaped weak, unstable and ambiguous assistance networks in which the boundaries between protection, violence and exploitation often overlapped.