As May 5 rolls around each year, a familiar scene plays out across the United States: bars packed with revelers, fake sombreros, and Instagram stories filled with tequila shots and vaguely “Mexican” party aesthetics. But while Cinco de Mayo has become a commercialized spectacle in the U.S., the real question for many Black Americans is: Does this holiday actually have anything to do with us?
Is it simply a marketing tool divorced from its roots? Or is there something deeper—something lost in translation that connects our people to the battle, the resistance, and the history?
The answer lies in centuries of overlooked alliances, borderland kinship, and a long tradition of Black Americans who didn’t just observe history—they crossed borders and made it.
The Real Cinco de Mayo: A Battle Against Empire
Cinco de Mayo commemorates Mexico’s victory over French imperial forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Outnumbered and under-equipped, Mexican troops led by General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated the French army—a moment that became a powerful symbol of anti-colonial resistance.
While often misunderstood as Mexico’s Independence Day (which is actually September 16), Cinco de Mayo represents something more specific yet equally meaningful: the fight against foreign domination in a time when much of the Americas was still navigating the legacy of colonialism and slavery.
For Mexico, the victory at Puebla was proof that sovereignty could be defended—even when the odds were stacked. For Black Americans watching from a still-enslaved or barely free United States, the message was clear: resistance is not futile.
Juan Caballo: Black Seminole General, Mexican Defender
History books often ignore him, but John Horse—known in Mexico as Juan Caballo—embodies one of the strongest links between Black Americans and the story of Mexican resistance.
Born into slavery in Florida around 1812, John Horse was an Afro-Indigenous freedom fighter and a leader of the Black Seminoles, a group of escaped African American slaves who forged military alliances with Seminole tribes in resistance against U.S. aggression.
After decades of conflict with the U.S. military and repeated betrayals by the federal government, John Horse led a large migration of Black Seminoles across the U.S.–Mexico border into Coahuila in the 1850s. There, they were granted land, rights, and freedom by the Mexican government in exchange for defending its northern frontier from both U.S. encroachment and Apache raids.
The community they built—El Nacimiento de los Negros—still exists today.
Juan Caballo served as a military leader, protector of Afro-Indigenous rights, and cross-cultural ambassador, blending the strategic knowledge of American frontier warfare with the radical promise of Mexican freedom.
He and his people were Black Americans who chose Mexico over the United States, not just as a place of refuge, but as a place to build.
Black Soldiers Who Defected to Mexico
Black resistance wasn’t limited to the Black Seminoles. During the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), as the U.S. sought to annex large swaths of Mexican territory, some Black soldiers—both enslaved and free—abandoned the American side to fight alongside Mexican forces.
Why? Because Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829, decades before the U.S. did. For many, this made Mexico a beacon of freedom in a time when their own nation viewed them as property.
In this context, Cinco de Mayo becomes more than a battle commemoration—it becomes a symbol of ideological alignment. While the U.S. was still wrestling with the morality of slavery, Mexico had already drawn a line in the sand. And Black Americans noticed.
Afro-Mexican Communities: Living Legacies of Diasporic Survival
The descendants of John Horse and other Afro-Americans who settled in Mexico are still there. Afro-Mexican communities in Coahuila, Veracruz, Guerrero, and Oaxaca have preserved traditions that blend African American customs, Indigenous knowledge, and Mexican identity.
In El Nacimiento, you’ll find families who trace their lineage directly back to the Seminole warriors of Florida and the escaped slaves of the American South. Many speak a version of Afro-Seminole Creole and still honor their ancestors with ritual drumming, dance, and storytelling. Their story is part of our story—an offshoot of Black survival that took root beyond the U.S. border.
And yet, these communities are often excluded from Mexican history textbooks and denied visibility in mainstream narratives—just as Black Americans often are at home.
Pan-Diasporic Resistance: Haiti, Mexico, Maroons, and Us
Black resistance is global. We’ve fought alongside revolutionaries in Haiti, established autonomous communities like the Maroons of Jamaica, resisted apartheid in South Africa, and yes—bled and built in Mexico.
What unites these threads is not just the color of our skin, but the clarity of our purpose: to live free, with dignity, under our own terms.
Sometimes we’ve fought together. Sometimes we’ve fractured. But always, we’ve moved through the world carrying a fire that colonialism couldn’t extinguish.
Cinco de Mayo as a Mirror, Not a Costume
The commercialization of Cinco de Mayo in the U.S. strips it of its radical legacy. The sombreros, the tacos, the tequila shots—it’s a shell of a story that deserves to be told in full. But for Black Americans, there’s an opportunity here:
Not to appropriate.
Not to parody.
But to remember.
Remember the Black soldiers who defected for freedom.
Remember Juan Caballo and the Black towns that still exist.
Remember that we’ve always been bigger than national borders.
So, Should Black Americans Celebrate Cinco de Mayo?
Yes—but not how they told you to.
Don’t show up to bars in fake accents. Don’t repost memes of “Cinco de Drinko.”
Instead:
- Educate your friends on John Horse and El Nacimiento
- Share the story of Black defectors and Afro-Mexican communities
- Recognize how global Black resistance has always included alliances across the diaspora
- Support Afro-Mexican cultural preservation efforts and Black-led scholarship
Cinco de Mayo may not be a “Black holiday” in the traditional sense. But our fingerprints are all over it. And in a country that rarely honors our depth or global footprint, choosing to remember is a revolutionary act.
Final Word: We Are Not Outsiders to Global Liberation
To be Black in America is to be told your history began with bondage and ends with civil rights. But the truth is we were border crossers, empire disruptors, and cultural builders long before hashtags and textbooks caught up.
Cinco de Mayo is not ours to claim. But it is ours to honor—because our people were there. And they fought.
🕯️ If you want to dive deeper into the story of Afro-Mexican communities, Black Seminoles, or Juan Caballo, follow our archive at BLKsignal.com/history.
📚 Recommended reading:
- Slavery in the Americas: The Global Resistance
- The Legacy of John Horse: A Forgotten Hero of Freedom
- Afro-Mexicans: A Diaspora Within a Diaspora
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