Black Mexicans

• Posted by J W August 9, 2012 - Filed in Society - 4,508 views

  
  

  

  
  

  Pío de Jesús Pico (May 5, 1801 – September 11, 1894) was the last Governor of Alta California (now the State of California) under Mexican rule. Píco was a third-generation Californio. He was born at the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel to José María Pico and his wife María Eustaquia Gutiérrez, with the aid of midwife Eulalia Pérez de Guillén Mariné. His paternal grandmother, María Jacinta de la Basti

  da, was listed in the 1790 census as mulata, meaning mixed race with some African ancestry. His paternal grandfather, Santiago de la Cruz Pico, was described as a Mestizo (Native American-Spanish) in the same census. He was one of the soldiers who accompanied Juan Bautista de Anza on the expedition that left Tubac, Arizona for California in 1775 to explore the region and colonize it. Pio Pico was thus of Spanish, African and Native American ancestry