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communities were commonly established in hard to reach isolated areas in order to protect the inhabitants from Re enslavement.

Yanga's relative concealment has also led to it being forgotten by most historians. The Afro-Mexicans have been dispersed throughout states of Veracruz on the gulf coast, Oaxaca, and south to Guerro. There has been an underlining feeling that if the people and culture remain out of site that they will also remain out of mind. Many argue that Mexico's African past has been marginalized to an ambiguous mark in time, pushed aside in the interest of national pride based on a mixture of indigenous reality with European cultural idealization. In practice the ideology of racial integration is more often a myth with European hegemony dominating the halls of power within the society. Even the nation's glorious indigenous past is often reduced to folklore and ceremonial projection. The recognition of an African "third root" is even more challenging and often times dismissive.

As I spoke with my guide named Ale Bravo and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that since 1986 the town of Yanga has celebrated its very inception in an annual "Festival of Negritude" in the month of August. It's true that it took five decades after the Mexican revolution for Yanga to be considered a national hero of Mexico rediscovered by Vicente Riva Palacio. The grandson of Vicente Guerreo, "Mexico's so called first black president! The inquisitive Riva Palacio retrieved old Inquisition archives accounts of Yanga and of the expedition against him. From this research Yanga's story was reborn into the public's consciousness and made into an official anthology in 1870.

Historic records inform us that Yanga was quite old in 1609, upon learning that the Spanish garrison had left Mexico City in order to end the rebel movement once and for all; Yanga had assembled his fighters for the mother of all battles. This rebel force had but a few hundred fighters with firearms, and some were using old muskets of the conquistadors. Five hundred others were prepared to fight with machetes, poles, bow and arrows, and even rocks. Standing up to the large Spanish garrison would be extremely risky for Yanga, especially since a larger number of elderly and children made up a large part of his maroon army.

Historic reports show that Yanga was more interested in simply inflicting enough damage on the Spanish army not to completely defeat them, but to simply force them to the negotiating table.

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