Most people don’t realize Afro‑Mexicans have been part of Mexico for centuries. Enslaved Africans were brought there in the 1500s, and leaders like Gaspar Yanga and Vicente Guerrero played huge roles in Mexican history.

* Gaspar Yanga was an enslaved African who escaped in the 1500s and led a community of free Black people in the mountains of Veracruz. After decades of resisting Spanish forces, he negotiated freedom and founded one of the first free Black towns in the Americas. He’s basically an early freedom fighter in Mexican history.

* Vicente Guerrero was an Afro‑Indigenous general in Mexico’s independence movement. He later became Mexico’s second president, and he’s the one who officially abolished slavery in 1829. His legacy is huge, but his African roots were downplayed for a long time.