Los Mascogos

At the same time that the fight for black liberty was reaching a climax in the United States, in Mexico, America’s most successful black freedom fighters were persevering through another series of violent civil upheavals in their new country. Like the U.S., Mexico was wracked by civil conflicts. John Horse had practiced neutrality in the affairs of his adopted country, but both the War of the Reform (1858-1861) and the War of the Intervention (1861-1864) tested his approach. By 1864, Mexico was so weak that France was able to install a foreign emperor, Maximilian I of Austria. According to Black Seminole traditions, John Horse forsook neutrality to help expel the French, fighting on the side of the Mexican patriot Benito Juárez.