A new historical sci-fi drama commissioned by the Latino Theater Company will spotlight the rarely told story of the Mascogo people: an ethnic community descended from Black Seminoles who fled American slavery in the 19th century and settled in the free region of Coahuila, Mexico.
Written by Miranda González and directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela, “Mascogos” (pronounced Mahs-KO-gohs) will officially premiere Oct. 11 at the the Los Angeles Theatre Center.
The play, which will run through Nov. 9, follows an 18-year-old named Jamari, played by Black Costa Rican multi-hyphenate Rogelio Douglas III. As the west side Chicago teen experiences hallucinations, he leaps from the present-day city to 1864’s Múzquiz, Coahuila — home to the Mascogo people. Trapped in a historical loop, Jamari and his loved ones must seek answers to break free from the shackles of time.
Speculative fiction is a concept that playwright González has always wanted to work with, as an avid fan of novelist Octavia Butler and the 1989 sci-fi show “Quantum Leap.”
“I asked myself, are we just repeating history in different regions?” says González on a call with De Los.”When will we ever disrupt harm to one another?”
As a member of the Latino Theater Company’s “Circle of Imaginistas,” a writing circle aiming to uplift early and mid-career Latinx voices, González looked to encapsulate what it means to be Black and Indigenous in a world that often looks to pigeonhole people for their identities — or erase them entirely from mainstream narratives.
“ For Indigenous people, African American people, and Black people in many parts of the world, a lot of our records have been burned,” says González, whose family is African American and Mexican. “There is this calling to find what you can to remember and remind yourself of the path that people before you have paved.”
The history of the Mascogo people can be traced back to Florida — then under Spanish control — where runaway slaves integrated and banded with Indigenous Seminole groups around the 17th century, forming a unique ethnic group with parallels to the Gullah people, known as Black Seminoles.
Following the Indian Removal Act in 1830 and the Second Seminole War (1835–1842), both Indigenous and Black Seminole groups were forced to relocate west of the Mississippi. However, fearing re-enslavement, Seminole leader Wild Cat and Black Seminole Chief John Horse led an exodus to Mexico in 1850, where slavery had been outlawed since 1829.
Settling predominantly in the Muzquiz, Coahuila, municipality, the Mexican government granted Black Seminoles land in exchange for military protection against northern frontier raids, including against the Lipan Apache and Comanches tribes in Texas. The Mascogo term comes from the Muscogee language, which is spoken by many Seminoles, though many elders in the community also speak Afro-Seminole Creole.
By 1852, the Mascogos established Nacimiento de los Negros (meaning: “Birth of the Blacks”), an Afro-Mexican village in the Coahuila region that exists today. Many of its residents have retained oral traditions, including knowledge of English-language freedom hymns from the U.S. For more than 100 years, Mascogo descendants in the town have also celebrated their own version of Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S, although in Spanish it is referred to as “El Día de Los Negros” or “Day of the Blacks.”
“ When I was commissioned to write a play about the Underground Railroad to Mexico, this particular place was what intrigued me the most,” says González, whose Yaqui grandmother was born in Múzquiz, Coahuila, near Nacimiento de los Negros. “It really was something that I felt really resonated with my DNA and I felt compelled to write it in this framework.”
In 2017, the Coahuila government officially recognized the Mascogos as its own Indigenous tribe, which would allow the group to receive federal funding allocated for Indigenous communities. Many Mascogos have moved away from the small town to seek better opportunities elsewhere — especially as droughts have impacted the area’s agricultural economy.
The struggle for Afro-Mexicans — who make up 1.2 % of the country’s population — continues as they are often faced with structural racism that prevents many from gaining economic and educational advancement. The demographic as a whole had not been federally recognized in the Mexican census until 2020, which followed decades-long campaigns by grassroots organizations and advocacy groups.
“What it means to be Black and Indigenous in this world is about searching for resources, comfort, safety, connection and the right to celebrate who we are,” says González. “For whatever circumstances, whether its system, environmental, we are not allowed to be fully expressed because of our bodies, because of how we look, because of the assumptions.”
The Chicagoan storyteller hopes the themes in “Mascogos” can spark curiosity about one’s ancestral lineage and bring audiences closer to humanity.
“A lot of us have forgotten what it’s taken us to get to where we are today,” says González. “We are forgetting our humanity.”
“Mascogos” opens Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Ends Nov. 9. Tickets begin at $10.
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