History Asia and Mexico: the Story of Asian Slaves in Colonial New Spain

In today's video, we explore the history of Asian slavery in colonial Mexico (New Spain) under the Spanish empire and the most famous Asian Mexican Catarina de San Juan, or more famously, La China Poblana. Please enjoy the video!!
For more information on Catarina de San Juan and the image of La China Poblana see:
Kate Risse, "Catarina de San Juan and the China Poblana: From Spiritual Humility to Civil Obedience," (2002) (English)
Gutierre Tibon, "Los dos chinas: Catarina de San Juan y la attractiva mestiza," (2003) (Spanish)
Pedro Angel Palou, "La Puebla de Mirrah-Catarina," (2003) (Spanish)
For more information on Asian slavery in colonial Mexico see:
Deborah Oropeza Keresey, "La Esclavitud Asiatica en el Virreinato de la Nueva Espana, 1565-1673," (2011) (Spanish)
Tatiana Seijas, Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico, (2014) (English)

[@LaggingGames]

Another great video on a underrated topic!! The term Chino itself is fascinating as during most of the colonial period in Mexico going back to the sixteenth century it's most common usage was to refer to people of mixed descent (usually strongly indigenous and african), at the same time in the Phillipines the term Chino, which may derive from the mercantile Chinese-Filipino name Sangley you went over in another video, came to refer to people of Asian decent in the Spanish eye. At Acapulco where both of these regions met, Chino was used generally to refer to any slave being imported no matter if they were Asian or not. Only later did the association with Asia and China win out in common usage.

[@storiesinhistory]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed the video! Many slaves coming to Acapulco were also of East African descent, so it makes sense why chino would come to be associated with slavery.

[@blackloki9]

Regardless of that indigenous people and east asians were classified the same and then those Asian slaves were reclassified as indios. Black africans and light and dark skin asians were classified as indios.

[@SomasAcademy]

Ooh, I recently came across Seijas' piece about this topic while writing a paper on a related subject, so it's cool to see a video covering it!

[@storiesinhistory]

Seijas was one of the first to write extensively on Asian slaves in Mexico, I believe. Her book on the subject was a good read

[@SomasAcademy]

In English colonial sources there's similar situation making it difficult to track the precise origins of Asian servants and slaves, but instead of using China as interchangeable with all of Asia, they did so with India, calling all Asians terms like "East Indian" or "Asiatic Indian" to distinguish them from Indigenous Americans.

[@storiesinhistory]

Very interesting!

[@sonnystaton]

Ask my Mexican friends what their family calls Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai, Cambodian, Indonesian, even today they still call them "Chino". Even Filipinos until Pacquiao started knocking out Mexicos top boxers called them "chino" and if it wasn't for Pacquiao they still would be called that.

[@storiesinhistory]

Very interesting!

[@antonexx]

Pacquiao and Mexicans?? Pacquia was lucky not to have died on the ring 😂

[@sonnystaton]

@antonexx Well thats what's happens when you fight a steroid freak. I mean a lot of 35 y"old go through a miraculous 2nd puberty after they start training with a known steroid pusher. Lol. Pacquiao already beat him twice & he Marquez didn't want to fight again because he knew he was going to get busted juicing since it would be an Olympic level blood test not just piss. When he refused another fight after clearly juicing that pretty much invalidated the win.

[@moonlettek73]

​@@antonexxlol dis you watch 5 filipinos vs 20 Mexican lucky they don't die

[@antonexx]

@@moonlettek73 I don't know what you're talking about, Willis, but we know the whole world saw Pacquiao be put to sleep.

[@theultimateartist4153]

Do a video on, Asians in Jamaica!!!!!!!!!!

[@matthewmann8969]

East Asians And South East Asians may face lots of gross sentimentals in Latin America but it is significantly less then Amerindians And Sub Saharan Africans have to take on yeah.

[@blackloki9]

So here my thing 300 k slave came to usa and there descendants rank 40 million today asians slave brought 120k and we gonna pretend like the numbers add up. 250 k slaves in mexico turned into 2.5 million black mexicans. While in usa only 300 k slave came and they have 40 milion descendants. Where are the asian slaves because it sound like they got reclassified as native american. Dna test cant tell native americans apart from east asians. And many populations today are gentically European or indo european. Asian and native american number dont add up also when african maroon escape and resettle in hard to reach areas did asians slaves to. It sound like asian slaves were not in the field and had better life expectancies. But the numbers are not adding up and it sound like the people we call native are mixed just like black americans yet in dna analysis they seen as a distinct native group when there mixed race indigenous and chinese slave.

[@carbon6951]

BINGO!

[@TheReal628]

Native American is a legal and political status all across the Americas, those people are nothing but of chinese, japanese, etc descent and it wasn't that many naturally dark-skinned africans here in the Americas including in the United States and that wasn't until the early 1870's/1904 and that was during those World's Fairs and it was a very small number of them that came willingly also "Black/African-American" is a socio and political construct