When Americans celebrate Juneteenth each year, they commemorate June 19, 1865, the day Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and informed enslaved Black people that they were free. What many Americans do not know is that slavery had already been abolished in neighboring Mexico more than three decades earlier.
Juneteenth marks the day Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston at the end of the Civil War and issued General Order No. 3.
"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free," the order declared. The announcement brought freedom to an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
But by the time Juneteenth happened, Texas had already undergone a dramatic political transformation.
Before becoming part of the United States, Texas belonged to Mexico.
After winning independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico inherited a vast territory that included present-day Texas. Unlike the United States, where slavery remained legal in Southern states, Mexico gradually moved toward abolition.
The turning point came in 1829, when Mexican President Vicente Guerrero issued a decree ending slavery throughout most of the country.
Guerrero was himself a remarkable figure. Historians describe him as having both African and Indigenous ancestry, making him one of the highest-ranking Afro-descendant leaders in the Americas during the 19th century.
"The slaves are free," Guerrero's decree declared, creating immediate tension in Texas.
Many Anglo-American settlers who had moved into the region from Southern states relied on enslaved labor and opposed Mexico's anti-slavery policies. Although Mexico later granted Texas a temporary exemption from the decree, the dispute became one of several growing conflicts between Mexican authorities and settlers.
According to historians at the National Endowment for the Humanities, slavery was a significant issue in the deteriorating relationship between Texas colonists and the Mexican government before the Texas Revolution of 1835-36.
The outcome reshaped North American history.
Texas broke away from Mexico in 1836 and established the Republic of Texas. The new republic legalized slavery and expanded protections for slaveholders. When Texas joined the United States in 1845, it entered as a slave state.
The irony is difficult to miss. A territory that had once been governed by a country moving toward abolition ultimately became the place where some of the last enslaved people in the United States learned they were free.
The connection between Mexico and emancipation extended beyond politics
For thousands of enslaved people living in Texas before the Civil War, Mexico represented freedom. Because slavery had been outlawed south of the border, many freedom seekers escaped across the Rio Grande.
Historians estimate that thousands of enslaved people fled to Mexico during the decades before the Civil War, creating what some scholars describe as a southern freedom route that operated alongside the more famous Underground Railroad.
"Mexico was a land of freedom for enslaved people escaping Texas," according to the National Park Service.
Today, Juneteenth is rightly celebrated as a Black American holiday honoring freedom, resilience and the end of slavery.
Yet the history behind it is also a reminder that Black and Latino stories have long been intertwined, as long before Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021, the paths of African Americans and Mexicans crossed in Texas through slavery, migration, abolition, and the fight for freedom.
Understanding that history deepens the meaning of Juneteenth, as the road that led to June 19, 1865, did not begin in Galveston. Part of it ran through Mexico.
