The Underground Railroad to the North promised salvation to many American slaves before the Civil War. But thousands of people in the south-central United States escaped slavery not by heading north but by crossing the southern border into Mexico, where slavery was abolished in 1837. 

The Webber Family Preservation Project is an organization that was established to preserve and educate about the Webber Family of Texas and the Freedom Fighters they aided in the Underground Railroad into Texas. This organization is comprised of descendants, scholars, and other experts in an effort to reclaim the dispossessed history of the Webber Family

Biography of Silvia Webber, written by Dr. María Hammack

Drawing on rich narratives and primary source documents, Ortiz links racial segregation in the Southwest and the rise and violent fall of a powerful tradition of Mexican labor organizing in the twentieth century, to May 1, 2006, known as International Workers’ Day, when migrant laborers—Chicana/os, Afrocubanos, and immigrants from every continent on earth—united in resistance on the first “Day Without Immigrants.

Long known as a place of cross-border intrigue, the Rio Grande’s unique role in the history of the American Civil War has been largely forgotten or overlooked. Few know of the dramatic events that took place here or the complex history of ethnic tensions and international intrigue and the clash of colorful characters that marked the unfolding and aftermath of the Civil War in the Lone Star State.

To understand the American Civil War in Texas also requires an understanding of the history of Mexico. The Civil War on the Rio Grande focuses on the region’s forced annexation from Mexico in 1848 through the Civil War and Reconstruction. In a very real sense, the Lower Rio Grande Valley was a microcosm not only of the United States but also of increasing globalization as revealed by the intersections of races, cultures, economic forces, historical dynamics, and individual destinies.

Free Black man requests permission to reside in Texas

In the early 1830s, Joseph Tate was a free Black man from Jasper County enjoying the full rights of citizenship provided him, and all free persons of color, by the Mexican government in Texas. His immigration to Texas had been encouraged by the government who had offered him liberty and land. 

Black women were not "passive or unconscious observers of men's radical resistance." Their radical actions rebelled against the institutions of enslaver society and powered many "Underground Railroads," through land and water, proverbial or other­ wise. An appreciation of their legacies should not be limited by the parameters of American Exceptionalism.

Silvia Hector was a freedom fighter who shaped Underground Railroad networks to freedom southward, to Mexico, during the antebellum era. She was born in Louisiana, present-day Baton Rouge, in 1807 and was the first free Black woman settler of Webberville, Texas, a town located 20 miles east of present-day Austin, Texas.1 As Harriet Tubman did in northern geographies, Silvia played a foundational role assisting people to freedom across the US-Mexico borderlands. She ferried countless people to Mexico, where they could claim freedom.2

Afrochingonas es un podcast creado, producido y postproducido por tres mujeres jóvenes afrodescendientes: Marbella Figueroa, Scarlet Estrada y Valeria Angola. Este proyecto autogestivo surgió a raíz de la cuarentena para compartir nuestras reflexiones sobre lo que significa ser una mujer negra en la Ciudad de México. En Afrochingonas trabajamos para consolidar un espacio de creación y comunicación. Este proyecto más que un podcast es una posibilidad colectiva de construir el mundo que queremos habitar. Abordamos los temas con un enfoque antirracista.

Cross borders and learn about the histories they didn't teach you in school with Maria Esther Hammack on Hour of History. Maria Esther Hammack is doctoral candidate in the department of History at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation under the direction of Professor Daina Ramey Berry, “South of Slavery: Enslaved and Free Black Movement in a Global Frontier, Mexico, The United States, and Beyond, 1803-1868,” traces the journeys of escapees and migrants who crossed the Mexico-US borderlands because they saw Mexico as a safe haven.

This film showcases stories about the Texas-Mexico border and its connection to the Underground Railroad. Rooted in pre-Civil War Texas along the Rio Grande between the emerging cities of Laredo and Brownsville, this film highlights mixed-race ranches in Hidalgo County and illustrates how culturally diverse the Rio Grande Valley really is. Lifeways developed during that time still influence life along the border and across the US today. Featured in the film are community leaders, ranchers, scholars, and historians who find out how a just a ferry ride across the border to freedom altered the course of US history.