January 30, 2025 • 23 mins
Black Seminoles were led to freedom in Northern Mexico where they settled in El Nacimiento in the 1800s. Their Mexican descendants, the Mascogos, have a transnational history that spans borders. Eva and Maite explore this rich history, the cookbook Recetario Mascogo de Coahuila, and Juneteenth, a federal holiday in the U.S. since 2021 that has been celebrated in El Nacimiento since 1865.
They welcome Dr. Maria Hammack, a scholar and historian whose work bridges histories of liberation and abolition, and Windy Goodloe and Corina Torralba of the Seminole Indian Scout Cemetery Association to the show.
- Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery Association: https://www.seminolecemeteryassociation.com
- Dr. María Esther Hammack: https://mariaestherhammack.me
- Recetario Mascogo de Coahuila: https://contigoenladistancia.cultura.gob.mx/detalle/recetario-mascogo-de-coahuila
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Even I grew up in South Texas, but in school
we're never taught that the underground railroad had a southern route,
or that June teenth has been celebrated in Nacimiento, a
community in northern Mexico, since eighteen sixty five. In this
special episode of Hungry for History, we'll talk about freedom, fighting,
June teenth, and a cookbook. We'll welcome doctor Madia Hammock,
(00:20):
a scholar and historian whose work bridges histories of liberation
and abolition, back to the show, along with Wendy Goodlow
and Corina too Raba of the Seminole Indian Scout Cemetery Association.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
My name is Eva Longoria and I am mate Remezrajon,
and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
our past and present through food.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
So make yourself at home. I ween Brecho. Like we've
talked about many times here on the show, a cook
book can tell us so much about a community, and
might think you brought a new one that you wanted
to share.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I came across the history that had never heard before.
And this is a story of the Black Seminoles and
their Mexican descendants, the Moscogos, and this really interesting cookbook
that Restario Moscowa so Guahilas is one of the states
that borders Texas.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
And so who are the Black Seminoles. I've never heard
of the Black Seminoles because is it the Seminoles like
the Seminole Indians? But these are the Black Seminoles. Yes, yes,
they're related. So the Seminoles are the descendants of many
different Native Americans who lived in Florida and Georgia and Alabama,
(01:43):
parts of South Carolina and Tennessee and Mississippi for centuries. Right,
these are the Native.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Americans that lived in these areas for centuries and centuries,
and they lived as different tribes. When the Spaniards, who
were who the Spaniards were the first Europeans to enter
North America arrived in the early fifteen hundreds. These groups
of people share the same linguistic family and shared many
of the same belief systems, and so over the last
(02:10):
I don't know, five hundred years or so, the survivors
of all of these tribes grouped together in Florida, around
a core of sin Marones, which were refugees from the
Spanish Florida missions, and they are called Seminoles. The first
English speakers, the first Anglos you know to this area
(02:31):
in Florida in the seventeen seventies called them seminoles. And
the word comes from the Spanish word cimron, which means
wild one. And so the black Seminoles or a group
of people with African and Native American ancestry that were
made up of free Africans, escape slaves and Seminole people.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So moscovo, which is a Spanish word for descendants of
black Seminoles who escaped the brutality of the Antebellum and
then they made their way into Mexico through this little
known southern route of the underground railroad, which was across
our beloved Rio Grande, and they created free communities in
northern Mexico. And this word Muscogo, it comes from Muscogi,
(03:17):
which was a language spoken by Seminoles and creeks in Florida.
And this is the crazy part that the Mexican government
gave them land and refuge in the state of Goahwila.
It's so crazy, I mean, that's amazing. It is.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's amazing. So moscows are descendants of freedom fighters and
they have African, Mexican and indigenous roots. We had the
opportunities to speak with doctor Maria Stramac, a Mexican scholar
of Black liberation in North America. She gives us details
on what the journey across the Rio Grande River would
(03:52):
have been like and argues that every enslaved person was
a freedom fighter.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
My name is Marito sar Hammock, and I am a
scholar of a Mexican scholar of Black liberation in North America,
and I am trying to recover or help recover what
I argue is the experiences but also the legacies, the
intellectual and physical legacies of black women who engineered channels
(04:21):
of liberation to Mexican spaces. I always argue that everyone,
every person in slave, was a freedom fighter. Freedom seeking
implies something cyclical. Someone who's seeking for something may may
not find it. But people who were enslave were always navigating,
and if not navigating or finding, they were creating ways
(04:42):
to be free. At the very many levels that freedom
materialized for them in Mexico or the US, or across
the borderlands. So freedom seekers were freedom fighters as well,
and many of them did claim their freedom on Mexican soil.
So they were bringing stuff, they were planning their journeys,
they were tracing actually where they were going through who
they may encounter. And I encounter records where they are
(05:05):
bringing ham, they're bringing bacon, they're bringing fruits, peaches, so
they can sell them along the way if they need money,
or they can barter for safe passage. And so I
do find that through the records. But also other records
that I found once they crossed the river into Mexico.
So there is a record of a black Seminole woman
describing during the WPI narratives they were into a lot
(05:28):
of people, elderly people were interviewed and she describes crossing
the river with seven hundred other people. The women and
children cross first and the men cross after, and so
she describes that though the feeling, her feeling as she
was crossing on these flatboats across the Rio Grande, and
that you know, she kept hearing the children cry, and
(05:50):
it's a very powerful story. But once on Mexican soul,
you also get records where people were, you know, they
made it there and they had no food, and so
so there is one record that I found were the
people in the town I think it was mont Globa,
or it must have been the town of Gerretro, one
of those two, when they arrived there. There's a group
of people that arrived and they didn't have any food.
(06:13):
They hadn't eaten in a few days, and so the
townspeople collected money to buy them food and buy them
shoes because they were also bare food, and give them
money to keep going because they didn't want to stay
in that town. They wanted to keep going further as
far away as they could so that slave hunters wouldn't
go and kidnap them, because that was also something that
was happening.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
We always talk about how everything is intermixed, all of
these cultures that we all exist, you know, together, and
this cookbook is super interesting in that sense. It includes
food really commonly associated with Americans, how things like potato
salad and pasta salad, also typical Northern Mexican foods like
gaviriito and machacado, but lots of stews, lots of galdos,
(06:59):
lots of off The cookbook has three different kinds of
menudo there's chicharron like porkskin ti taron but also ti
taron de viceras, so internal organs of pigs and goats
and they and they make ti tarones out of these organs,
so they use every single part of the animal.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So they use a wooden mortar and pestle, so instead
of the typical volcanic stone you know morcagete that we're
familiar with, they use like a big one, like it's
a huge wooden mortar that's carved from a trunk of
the tree, and then a really long pestle that's almost
like a baseball bat, and that's what they use as
a morteo. So they break down corn.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Seems very difficult because it's the volcanic stone that really
gets you to grind stuff. I don't know how they
could have done that with this wood wood.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, there are women that have donated that have shared
their recipes. But they're two really interesting dishes is that
I've never heard of, I don't know, something called which
is this white corn at torle and te boon, which
is sweet potato bread. And these are traditional foods.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
From the Afro Seminole culture.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, the words themselves come from this Afro Seminole language.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
But also sweet potato bread is not I've ever seen
that in Mexico either potato bread. I mean it would
be camote and I've never heard of me either.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
No, it's like sweet potato. They mix it with larred
with sugar, with clove, and with wheat flour. But they
also they make it in a metate.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
After the break, we hear from Windy Goodlow and Corina
Torobal Harrington of the Seminole Indian Scout Cemetery Association.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
We've got so much more, so don't go anywhere. Windy
god of the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery Association talks about
how Africans who were brought to America enslaved possessed a
wide range of engineering and scientific skills.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
My name is Wendy Goodlow. I am the secretary of
the Seminal Indian Scouts Cemetery Association. Something that I wish
was taught though that within slavery there were certain people
that were targeted for their skills. People from West Africa,
specifically Sierra Leona surrounding countries were rice growers, and they
(09:33):
weren't just simply growing rice. They were engineering rice. They
were figuring out conditions. If the conditions weren't good, they
would figure out how to make the conditions better so
if the rice would grow, and you know, their future
colonizers and slavers learned this, and so they specifically targeted
(09:54):
people from sier Leone to be brought to the low
country because the conditions were similar and they wanted rice
to be grown there. So these people were targeted, and
they had figured out methods to filter salt water in
order to make it, you know, where rest would grow.
But I think that's amazing. I feel like if I
(10:15):
had learned that when I was a kid, my perspective
on what slavery was would have been so different because
we're given this picture of what an enslaved person was,
and it just blew my mind because these were highly
intelligent people, engineers, scientists, you know, not just you know,
someone's property.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
For the National Geographic hundreds of enslaved people fled from
southern plantations to live among the seminoles in Florida Territory
during mid lighteen eighteenth century. Spain granted freedom to enslaved
people who escaped to Florida under their rule but the
US did not recognize this agreement.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
The Black Seminoles descend from these people. Primarily, these people
who were taken from West Africa brought to the Low Country,
which is South Carolina, into Georgia. Instead of going north
as we were taught in school, they went south into
what was at that time Spanish territory. The first earliest
(11:18):
records of people running into Florida for their freedom was
around sixteen eighty seven. It was about sixteen ninety three
when the King of Spain issued an ed it saying,
you know, if you want freedom, come to Florida and
help us protect Florida. And what we'll do is we'll
give you arms, and all you have to do is
(11:41):
convert to Catholicism. And then after a while they didn't
even require them to convert because it was more important
for their to be bodies. The Seminoles are essentially creaks.
What it happened was there was a schism happening between
two groups of Creeks, which are known as the Upper
and Lower Creeks. The Lower Creeks were taking on more
(12:04):
Eurocentric sensibilities, and one of those was slavery. They were
starting to enslave people the upper Creeks didn't agree with this,
so there was a fight. The lower Creeks pushed down
into Florida. So now we have that influx of Creeks
coming in and because of them running away from their group,
(12:26):
there was this word that came about. So linguists have
said that the word for seminole comes from the Spanish cimarron,
and it was also applied to the Maroons. So from
this one word, it was a Spanish word that was
broken up and used in sort of bastardized into the
Creek language to become civiynol. And then it was also
(12:48):
used to describe people who had run away who were
of African descent, and that's room. So essentially both groups
were seen as runaways and once they gain into Florida,
they learned to coexist with each other, and very soon
after that they will be fighting what's known as the
Three Seminal Wars. So the most significant war is the
(13:09):
Second Seminal War. And during that war, the United States
sees that they are fighting a very formidable opponent, and
General Thomas Jessup says, this is not an Indian war,
this is a Negro war because of how fiercely the
Black Seminoles and other Maroons, because there were other Maroons
(13:31):
who didn't necessarily join the Black Seminoles because of how
fiercely they fought, and he realized that he needed to
divide and conquer. So this war took place between eighteen
thirty five and eighteen forty two, so we've skipped, you know,
a lot ahead in history. But he realized that if
he didn't come to some kind of peace agreement with
the Black Seminoles, that the war would never end. So
(13:54):
he negotiated with three of the Black Seminole leaders, one
of them was John Horse, and they eventually agreed that
if they would be promised freedom when they got to Oklahoma,
that they would go. But the problem is, and you know,
it's a sad refrain within the Black Seminoles story, that
they will honor whatever promise they have to make, but
(14:17):
the entity making the promise to them doesn't ever honor
their side of the agreement. So the Black Siminals agree
to surrender, but there is a third semental war that
happens with the remaining people there in Florida, and they
continue to fight and eventually, you know, won their freedom.
They are unconquered, and that's the Seminole trid that we
(14:39):
know today. So there was a group that stayed in Florida,
and in eighteen twenty one there was actually a group
that went into the Bahamas. So this there was a
separate group that went straight into the Bahamas. So there's
a group of black seminals in the Bahamas as well.
So this group led by John Horset, they'd go into Oklahoma,
and as soon as they get there, they realized that
(15:00):
they were promised wasn't going to happen. They were first
of all, they were rice growers. They grew corn, they
had access to wild game. You know, Florida was its
own paradise for them. Oklahoma was a dust bowl. It
was barren. You couldn't grow anything. You had to rely
(15:20):
on rations from the government to eat and they weren't
used to that. So already just their food ways had
completely changed. On top of that, there were slave catchers
that were in the territory that were a constant threat.
On top of that, there were the creeks who they
didn't get along with all those decades ago, who were
their neighbors now. So the conditions were not favorable for them.
(15:44):
This was not going to be a place that they
could call home. So while some of them stayed, there
was a group in eighteen forty nine that decided the
best course of action if they wanted to survive was
to leave Oklahoma and take a seven hundred mile year
long trip our journey trek into Mexico. And that's what
(16:09):
they did. It took them a whole year, and the
group was led again by John Horst, and this time
by Wildcat, who was the leader of the Seminoles. So
there was a group of Cinnamols and black Seminoles that
went and they arrived in Mexico and they presented themselves
to the Mexican government. Their exploits in Florida had already
(16:30):
preceded them, so they would become what was essentially Mexico's
first border patrol. They would help to keep the border safe.
And Mexico is actually the only government or entity that
actually kept their promise. In exchange for their service, they
were given land that they still own today, which is Nacimento.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So Mexico had officially abolished slavery by this time. Yeah,
in eighteen twenty nine, and in eighteen fifty seven, Mexico
amended its constitution to reflect that all people are born free.
So this cookbook, the Mescogo Cookbook, it was written authored
by a woman named barlinad Moral that there's a part
(17:13):
of the cookbook where she mentions John Horse Huanga Bay,
the historical leader of the Moscovos. It is said to
have been very kind and generous and would sometimes kill
a cow or a pig, cook it and invite the
community to eat. And he is said to have said,
you were all my children. So he was a good guy. Wow,
he was a good guy. But he was a black
(17:35):
Seminole leader and one of the most successful freedom fighters
in American history. He was born into slavery in Florida
in eighteen twelve, and he was an African American, Native
American and Spanish descent. John Horse led enslaved people to
freedom on the underground railroad to Mexico, and so in
(17:58):
his lifetime he fought as a sub chief during the
Second Seminole War. He served as a decorated officer in
the Mexican military. He met to president, and he spent
most of his life on a quest to secure a
free homeland for his people. In Mexico.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
I think where we're so lucky to have this time.
You know, we've been very lucky to have our ancestors
who left behind, even though we won't ever know everything
about them, they left little nuggets, and we've been very
lucky to be able to have the desire to want
to know more about who we are, where we come from.
(18:34):
And you know, I'm just excited about what more time
will give us. You know, what other answers and people
will rEFInd with the time that we have. And I think,
you know, anybody who was afraid of, you know, being black,
we're in a whole different time now. People are proud
of their mixture who they are, So I think it'll
only you know, I just hope it gets better with time.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Don't go anywhere. History will be right back after the break.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
This community where the all of the recipes are from,
the Recitaria Moscogo is from a community called Nacimiento de
los Negros, which literally it's sort of the birth, and
this community is where many of these Moscogos settled in.
This area of Nasimiento de los Negros has been celebrating
(19:35):
Juneteenth since eighteen sixty four and the sosq and the
te tepun. These are festive foods that are served at
the June teenth festival. It's been a federal holiday in
the US since twenty twenty one, but June Teeth has
been celebrated since eighteen sixty five in Nasimiento. And so
(19:57):
here is Corinat hearing the treasure of the Seminole Indian
Scout Cemetery Association and founder of La Casa Lauta Black
Seminoles and Nacimiento reminiscing of our trips to Nacimento every
summer to celebrate La Fies. The food's consumed and also
how the Moscow was are about much more than their food.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
I've been going back and forth to Mexico since I
was little. That's you know, that's where we had our
summer vacations. And so our vacations were going back to Mexico,
especially June nineteenth for the Negro or the Los Negros
that we caught it. And I never knew that that
(20:40):
was due nineteenth here in Texas. I learned that until
I got older. So when people were going to Disneyland
and you know other places, we're going back to you
know where we were from.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
June teenth is celebrated in solidarity with the African American
community in Texas, and it's a symbolic remembrance of their
own fight for freedom. So there are celebrations that take
place in Brackettville, Texas and on a much larger scale
in Nasimiento. So families from both sides of the border
(21:15):
that come together. There's a parade, there's music. Neighboring Kickapoo
tribes come over and are part of the celebration. But
this is where we see things like the soske and
the te tepun and the chicharon and the manulo and
you know, potato salad and all of this stuff.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
We are more than food in Natimiento. And that's why
I like to I opened up a there, and you know,
I like to take back everything that I've learned that
I've learned here in the books and reading, and you know,
teach it to the to the women that want to
know the history, to the kids and the young adults
(21:56):
that are interested. But food is very important for us.
I mean, like I said, the soke, the tapoon and
those foods like connect us with you know, Oklahoma. It
connects us with Florida, It connects us with you know,
(22:17):
South Carolina, Georgia.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
In twenty seventeen, the then Governor of Guahuila, Mexico, Ruen
Morera Aalez, signed a decree that recognized the Moscogos as
indigenous people of Guahuila. A huge thanks to our special
guest doctor Maria Hammock, Wendy Goodlow, and Griina Torralba for
sharing their time, memories and expertise. You can find links
to their work in the episode description.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
As always, thank you all for listening and joining us today.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
If you have any dishes or foods you want to
hear about on the show, please send us a message.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Thank you. Bye. Hungary for History is a hyphen media
production in partnership with Iheart's Michael Bura podcast network.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Even I grew up in South Texas, but in school
we're never taught that the underground railroad had a southern route,
or that June teenth has been celebrated in Nacimiento, a
community in northern Mexico, since eighteen sixty five. In this
special episode of Hungry for History, we'll talk about freedom, fighting,
June teenth, and a cookbook. We'll welcome doctor Madia Hammock,
(00:20):
a scholar and historian whose work bridges histories of liberation
and abolition, back to the show, along with Wendy Goodlow
and Corina too Raba of the Seminole Indian Scout Cemetery Association.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
My name is Eva Longoria and I am mate Remezrajon,
and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
our past and present through food.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
So make yourself at home. I ween Brecho. Like we've
talked about many times here on the show, a cook
book can tell us so much about a community, and
might think you brought a new one that you wanted
to share.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I came across the history that had never heard before.
And this is a story of the Black Seminoles and
their Mexican descendants, the Moscogos, and this really interesting cookbook
that Restario Moscowa so Guahilas is one of the states
that borders Texas.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
And so who are the Black Seminoles. I've never heard
of the Black Seminoles because is it the Seminoles like
the Seminole Indians? But these are the Black Seminoles. Yes, yes,
they're related. So the Seminoles are the descendants of many
different Native Americans who lived in Florida and Georgia and Alabama,
(01:43):
parts of South Carolina and Tennessee and Mississippi for centuries. Right,
these are the Native.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Americans that lived in these areas for centuries and centuries,
and they lived as different tribes. When the Spaniards, who
were who the Spaniards were the first Europeans to enter
North America arrived in the early fifteen hundreds. These groups
of people share the same linguistic family and shared many
of the same belief systems, and so over the last
(02:10):
I don't know, five hundred years or so, the survivors
of all of these tribes grouped together in Florida, around
a core of sin Marones, which were refugees from the
Spanish Florida missions, and they are called Seminoles. The first
English speakers, the first Anglos you know to this area
(02:31):
in Florida in the seventeen seventies called them seminoles. And
the word comes from the Spanish word cimron, which means
wild one. And so the black Seminoles or a group
of people with African and Native American ancestry that were
made up of free Africans, escape slaves and Seminole people.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So moscovo, which is a Spanish word for descendants of
black Seminoles who escaped the brutality of the Antebellum and
then they made their way into Mexico through this little
known southern route of the underground railroad, which was across
our beloved Rio Grande, and they created free communities in
northern Mexico. And this word Muscogo, it comes from Muscogi,
(03:17):
which was a language spoken by Seminoles and creeks in Florida.
And this is the crazy part that the Mexican government
gave them land and refuge in the state of Goahwila.
It's so crazy, I mean, that's amazing. It is.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's amazing. So moscows are descendants of freedom fighters and
they have African, Mexican and indigenous roots. We had the
opportunities to speak with doctor Maria Stramac, a Mexican scholar
of Black liberation in North America. She gives us details
on what the journey across the Rio Grande River would
(03:52):
have been like and argues that every enslaved person was
a freedom fighter.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
My name is Marito sar Hammock, and I am a
scholar of a Mexican scholar of Black liberation in North America,
and I am trying to recover or help recover what
I argue is the experiences but also the legacies, the
intellectual and physical legacies of black women who engineered channels
(04:21):
of liberation to Mexican spaces. I always argue that everyone,
every person in slave, was a freedom fighter. Freedom seeking
implies something cyclical. Someone who's seeking for something may may
not find it. But people who were enslave were always navigating,
and if not navigating or finding, they were creating ways
(04:42):
to be free. At the very many levels that freedom
materialized for them in Mexico or the US, or across
the borderlands. So freedom seekers were freedom fighters as well,
and many of them did claim their freedom on Mexican soil.
So they were bringing stuff, they were planning their journeys,
they were tracing actually where they were going through who
they may encounter. And I encounter records where they are
(05:05):
bringing ham, they're bringing bacon, they're bringing fruits, peaches, so
they can sell them along the way if they need money,
or they can barter for safe passage. And so I
do find that through the records. But also other records
that I found once they crossed the river into Mexico.
So there is a record of a black Seminole woman
describing during the WPI narratives they were into a lot
(05:28):
of people, elderly people were interviewed and she describes crossing
the river with seven hundred other people. The women and
children cross first and the men cross after, and so
she describes that though the feeling, her feeling as she
was crossing on these flatboats across the Rio Grande, and
that you know, she kept hearing the children cry, and
(05:50):
it's a very powerful story. But once on Mexican soul,
you also get records where people were, you know, they
made it there and they had no food, and so
so there is one record that I found were the
people in the town I think it was mont Globa,
or it must have been the town of Gerretro, one
of those two, when they arrived there. There's a group
of people that arrived and they didn't have any food.
(06:13):
They hadn't eaten in a few days, and so the
townspeople collected money to buy them food and buy them
shoes because they were also bare food, and give them
money to keep going because they didn't want to stay
in that town. They wanted to keep going further as
far away as they could so that slave hunters wouldn't
go and kidnap them, because that was also something that
was happening.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
We always talk about how everything is intermixed, all of
these cultures that we all exist, you know, together, and
this cookbook is super interesting in that sense. It includes
food really commonly associated with Americans, how things like potato
salad and pasta salad, also typical Northern Mexican foods like
gaviriito and machacado, but lots of stews, lots of galdos,
(06:59):
lots of off The cookbook has three different kinds of
menudo there's chicharron like porkskin ti taron but also ti
taron de viceras, so internal organs of pigs and goats
and they and they make ti tarones out of these organs,
so they use every single part of the animal.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So they use a wooden mortar and pestle, so instead
of the typical volcanic stone you know morcagete that we're
familiar with, they use like a big one, like it's
a huge wooden mortar that's carved from a trunk of
the tree, and then a really long pestle that's almost
like a baseball bat, and that's what they use as
a morteo. So they break down corn.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Seems very difficult because it's the volcanic stone that really
gets you to grind stuff. I don't know how they
could have done that with this wood wood.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, there are women that have donated that have shared
their recipes. But they're two really interesting dishes is that
I've never heard of, I don't know, something called which
is this white corn at torle and te boon, which
is sweet potato bread. And these are traditional foods.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
From the Afro Seminole culture.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, the words themselves come from this Afro Seminole language.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
But also sweet potato bread is not I've ever seen
that in Mexico either potato bread. I mean it would
be camote and I've never heard of me either.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
No, it's like sweet potato. They mix it with larred
with sugar, with clove, and with wheat flour. But they
also they make it in a metate.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
After the break, we hear from Windy Goodlow and Corina
Torobal Harrington of the Seminole Indian Scout Cemetery Association.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
We've got so much more, so don't go anywhere. Windy
god of the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery Association talks about
how Africans who were brought to America enslaved possessed a
wide range of engineering and scientific skills.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
My name is Wendy Goodlow. I am the secretary of
the Seminal Indian Scouts Cemetery Association. Something that I wish
was taught though that within slavery there were certain people
that were targeted for their skills. People from West Africa,
specifically Sierra Leona surrounding countries were rice growers, and they
(09:33):
weren't just simply growing rice. They were engineering rice. They
were figuring out conditions. If the conditions weren't good, they
would figure out how to make the conditions better so
if the rice would grow, and you know, their future
colonizers and slavers learned this, and so they specifically targeted
(09:54):
people from sier Leone to be brought to the low
country because the conditions were similar and they wanted rice
to be grown there. So these people were targeted, and
they had figured out methods to filter salt water in
order to make it, you know, where rest would grow.
But I think that's amazing. I feel like if I
(10:15):
had learned that when I was a kid, my perspective
on what slavery was would have been so different because
we're given this picture of what an enslaved person was,
and it just blew my mind because these were highly
intelligent people, engineers, scientists, you know, not just you know,
someone's property.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
For the National Geographic hundreds of enslaved people fled from
southern plantations to live among the seminoles in Florida Territory
during mid lighteen eighteenth century. Spain granted freedom to enslaved
people who escaped to Florida under their rule but the
US did not recognize this agreement.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
The Black Seminoles descend from these people. Primarily, these people
who were taken from West Africa brought to the Low Country,
which is South Carolina, into Georgia. Instead of going north
as we were taught in school, they went south into
what was at that time Spanish territory. The first earliest
(11:18):
records of people running into Florida for their freedom was
around sixteen eighty seven. It was about sixteen ninety three
when the King of Spain issued an ed it saying,
you know, if you want freedom, come to Florida and
help us protect Florida. And what we'll do is we'll
give you arms, and all you have to do is
(11:41):
convert to Catholicism. And then after a while they didn't
even require them to convert because it was more important
for their to be bodies. The Seminoles are essentially creaks.
What it happened was there was a schism happening between
two groups of Creeks, which are known as the Upper
and Lower Creeks. The Lower Creeks were taking on more
(12:04):
Eurocentric sensibilities, and one of those was slavery. They were
starting to enslave people the upper Creeks didn't agree with this,
so there was a fight. The lower Creeks pushed down
into Florida. So now we have that influx of Creeks
coming in and because of them running away from their group,
(12:26):
there was this word that came about. So linguists have
said that the word for seminole comes from the Spanish cimarron,
and it was also applied to the Maroons. So from
this one word, it was a Spanish word that was
broken up and used in sort of bastardized into the
Creek language to become civiynol. And then it was also
(12:48):
used to describe people who had run away who were
of African descent, and that's room. So essentially both groups
were seen as runaways and once they gain into Florida,
they learned to coexist with each other, and very soon
after that they will be fighting what's known as the
Three Seminal Wars. So the most significant war is the
(13:09):
Second Seminal War. And during that war, the United States
sees that they are fighting a very formidable opponent, and
General Thomas Jessup says, this is not an Indian war,
this is a Negro war because of how fiercely the
Black Seminoles and other Maroons, because there were other Maroons
(13:31):
who didn't necessarily join the Black Seminoles because of how
fiercely they fought, and he realized that he needed to
divide and conquer. So this war took place between eighteen
thirty five and eighteen forty two, so we've skipped, you know,
a lot ahead in history. But he realized that if
he didn't come to some kind of peace agreement with
the Black Seminoles, that the war would never end. So
(13:54):
he negotiated with three of the Black Seminole leaders, one
of them was John Horse, and they eventually agreed that
if they would be promised freedom when they got to Oklahoma,
that they would go. But the problem is, and you know,
it's a sad refrain within the Black Seminoles story, that
they will honor whatever promise they have to make, but
(14:17):
the entity making the promise to them doesn't ever honor
their side of the agreement. So the Black Siminals agree
to surrender, but there is a third semental war that
happens with the remaining people there in Florida, and they
continue to fight and eventually, you know, won their freedom.
They are unconquered, and that's the Seminole trid that we
(14:39):
know today. So there was a group that stayed in Florida,
and in eighteen twenty one there was actually a group
that went into the Bahamas. So this there was a
separate group that went straight into the Bahamas. So there's
a group of black seminals in the Bahamas as well.
So this group led by John Horset, they'd go into Oklahoma,
and as soon as they get there, they realized that
(15:00):
they were promised wasn't going to happen. They were first
of all, they were rice growers. They grew corn, they
had access to wild game. You know, Florida was its
own paradise for them. Oklahoma was a dust bowl. It
was barren. You couldn't grow anything. You had to rely
(15:20):
on rations from the government to eat and they weren't
used to that. So already just their food ways had
completely changed. On top of that, there were slave catchers
that were in the territory that were a constant threat.
On top of that, there were the creeks who they
didn't get along with all those decades ago, who were
their neighbors now. So the conditions were not favorable for them.
(15:44):
This was not going to be a place that they
could call home. So while some of them stayed, there
was a group in eighteen forty nine that decided the
best course of action if they wanted to survive was
to leave Oklahoma and take a seven hundred mile year
long trip our journey trek into Mexico. And that's what
(16:09):
they did. It took them a whole year, and the
group was led again by John Horst, and this time
by Wildcat, who was the leader of the Seminoles. So
there was a group of Cinnamols and black Seminoles that
went and they arrived in Mexico and they presented themselves
to the Mexican government. Their exploits in Florida had already
(16:30):
preceded them, so they would become what was essentially Mexico's
first border patrol. They would help to keep the border safe.
And Mexico is actually the only government or entity that
actually kept their promise. In exchange for their service, they
were given land that they still own today, which is Nacimento.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So Mexico had officially abolished slavery by this time. Yeah,
in eighteen twenty nine, and in eighteen fifty seven, Mexico
amended its constitution to reflect that all people are born free.
So this cookbook, the Mescogo Cookbook, it was written authored
by a woman named barlinad Moral that there's a part
(17:13):
of the cookbook where she mentions John Horse Huanga Bay,
the historical leader of the Moscovos. It is said to
have been very kind and generous and would sometimes kill
a cow or a pig, cook it and invite the
community to eat. And he is said to have said,
you were all my children. So he was a good guy. Wow,
he was a good guy. But he was a black
(17:35):
Seminole leader and one of the most successful freedom fighters
in American history. He was born into slavery in Florida
in eighteen twelve, and he was an African American, Native
American and Spanish descent. John Horse led enslaved people to
freedom on the underground railroad to Mexico, and so in
(17:58):
his lifetime he fought as a sub chief during the
Second Seminole War. He served as a decorated officer in
the Mexican military. He met to president, and he spent
most of his life on a quest to secure a
free homeland for his people. In Mexico.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
I think where we're so lucky to have this time.
You know, we've been very lucky to have our ancestors
who left behind, even though we won't ever know everything
about them, they left little nuggets, and we've been very
lucky to be able to have the desire to want
to know more about who we are, where we come from.
(18:34):
And you know, I'm just excited about what more time
will give us. You know, what other answers and people
will rEFInd with the time that we have. And I think,
you know, anybody who was afraid of, you know, being black,
we're in a whole different time now. People are proud
of their mixture who they are, So I think it'll
only you know, I just hope it gets better with time.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Don't go anywhere. History will be right back after the break.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
This community where the all of the recipes are from,
the Recitaria Moscogo is from a community called Nacimiento de
los Negros, which literally it's sort of the birth, and
this community is where many of these Moscogos settled in.
This area of Nasimiento de los Negros has been celebrating
(19:35):
Juneteenth since eighteen sixty four and the sosq and the
te tepun. These are festive foods that are served at
the June teenth festival. It's been a federal holiday in
the US since twenty twenty one, but June Teeth has
been celebrated since eighteen sixty five in Nasimiento. And so
(19:57):
here is Corinat hearing the treasure of the Seminole Indian
Scout Cemetery Association and founder of La Casa Lauta Black
Seminoles and Nacimiento reminiscing of our trips to Nacimento every
summer to celebrate La Fies. The food's consumed and also
how the Moscow was are about much more than their food.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
I've been going back and forth to Mexico since I
was little. That's you know, that's where we had our
summer vacations. And so our vacations were going back to Mexico,
especially June nineteenth for the Negro or the Los Negros
that we caught it. And I never knew that that
(20:40):
was due nineteenth here in Texas. I learned that until
I got older. So when people were going to Disneyland
and you know other places, we're going back to you
know where we were from.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
June teenth is celebrated in solidarity with the African American
community in Texas, and it's a symbolic remembrance of their
own fight for freedom. So there are celebrations that take
place in Brackettville, Texas and on a much larger scale
in Nasimiento. So families from both sides of the border
(21:15):
that come together. There's a parade, there's music. Neighboring Kickapoo
tribes come over and are part of the celebration. But
this is where we see things like the soske and
the te tepun and the chicharon and the manulo and
you know, potato salad and all of this stuff.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
We are more than food in Natimiento. And that's why
I like to I opened up a there, and you know,
I like to take back everything that I've learned that
I've learned here in the books and reading, and you know,
teach it to the to the women that want to
know the history, to the kids and the young adults
(21:56):
that are interested. But food is very important for us.
I mean, like I said, the soke, the tapoon and
those foods like connect us with you know, Oklahoma. It
connects us with Florida, It connects us with you know,
(22:17):
South Carolina, Georgia.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
In twenty seventeen, the then Governor of Guahuila, Mexico, Ruen
Morera Aalez, signed a decree that recognized the Moscogos as
indigenous people of Guahuila. A huge thanks to our special
guest doctor Maria Hammock, Wendy Goodlow, and Griina Torralba for
sharing their time, memories and expertise. You can find links
to their work in the episode description.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
As always, thank you all for listening and joining us today.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
If you have any dishes or foods you want to
hear about on the show, please send us a message.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Thank you. Bye. Hungary for History is a hyphen media
production in partnership with Iheart's Michael Bura podcast network.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
MAITE GOMEZ-REJÓN
Eva Longoria
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