This article provides a concise overview of data comparing Mexico and South Africa, highlighting their similarities and differences across various aspects. It draws upon detailed information from respective country pages, offering a condensed summary of numerous data points.
A country comparison like this can be based on several hundred individual data items from dozens of different sources. All data are based on the most recent data available. Most of them refer to the previous year and are updated around March of the following year.
If a country has not yet published data for the most recent or penultimate year, we present the most recent official data. Updates are made on an ongoing basis depending on the subject area or source, so there is no single "cutoff date" for this comparison. Sources for almost all data can be found on our respective country pages.
It is impossible to explain all the details here. There are links to explanations and further information on this page alone.
General Information
Details for Mexico and South Africa regarding general information and population can be found on their respective country pages.
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Quality of Life
Values range from 0 (bad) to 100 (very good). See also: Explanations and country ranking on quality of life.
Economy
Details for Mexico and South Africa regarding the economy can be found on their respective country pages.
Infrastructure
Details for Mexico and South Africa regarding infrastructure can be found on their respective country pages.
Energy Balance
Details for Mexico and South Africa regarding energy balance can be found on their respective country pages.
Telecommunication
Details for Mexico and South Africa regarding telecommunication can be found on their respective country pages.
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Healthcare System
Details for Mexico and South Africa regarding the healthcare system can be found on their respective country pages.
Education
Details for Mexico and South Africa regarding education can be found on their respective country pages.
Climate
A more detailed climate comparison of both countries is available. The data for each country can be found here: Mexico and South Africa.
Maximum daily temperatures in comparison Mexico South Africa Native languages Religions
Afro-Mexicans: A Cultural Bridge
Afro-Mexicans, also known as Black Mexicans, are Mexicans of total or predominantly Sub-Saharan African ancestry. As a single population, Afro-Mexicans include individuals descended from both free and enslaved Africans who arrived in Mexico during the colonial era, as well as post-independence migrants.
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Throughout the century following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire of 1519, a significant number of African slaves were brought to Veracruz. The creation of a national Mexican identity, especially after the Mexican Revolution, emphasized Mexico's indigenous Amerindians and Spanish European heritage, excluding African history and contributions from Mexico's national consciousness.
By the mid-20th century, Mexican scholars were advocating for Black visibility. The genetic legacy of Mexico's once significant number of colonial-era enslaved Africans is evidenced in non-Black Mexicans as trace amounts of sub-Saharan African DNA found in the average Mexican.
In the 2015 census, 64.9% (896,829) of Afro-Mexicans also identified as indigenous Amerindian Mexicans. About 2.4-3% of Mexico's population has significantly large African ancestry, with 2.5 million self-recognized during the 2020 Inter-census Estimate. However, some sources put the official number at around 5% of the total population.
In the 21st century, some people who identify as Afro-Mexicans are the children and grandchildren of naturalized Black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. The 2015 Inter-census Estimate was the first time in which Afro-Mexicans could identify themselves as such and was a preliminary effort to include the identity before the 2020 census which now shows the country's population is 2.04%.
Afro-Mexicans engaged in a variety of economic activities as slaves and as free persons. Mexico never became a society based on slavery, as happened in the Anglo-American southern colonies or Caribbean islands, where plantations utilized large numbers of field slaves. At conquest, central Mexico had a large, hierarchically organized Indian population that provided largely coerced labor.
Mexico's economy utilized African slave labor during the colonial period, particularly in Spanish cities as domestic workers, artisans, and laborers in textile workshops (obrajes). Although Mexico has celebrated its mixed indigenous and European roots mestizaje, Africans' presence and contributions until recently were not part of the national discourse.
Although Spanish subjects were not allowed to partake in the Atlantic slave trade, the asiento de negros (a monopoly contract issued by the Spanish Crown to other European nations to supply enslaved Africans to Spain's colonies in the Americas) ensured a significant Black presence in Spanish America, including Mexico. The vast majority had their roots in Africa, not all slaves made the trip directly to New Spain, some came from other Spanish territories, particularly the Caribbean.
Nueva España or New Spain which is now Mexico, there were slaves who were transported through ships from 1521 to 1810. The origin of the slaves is known through various documents such as transcripts of sales. To decide the sex of the slaves that would be sent to the New World, calculations that included physical performance and reproduction were performed. At first, half of the slaves imported were women and the other half men. From the African continent dark skinned slaves were taken; "the first true blacks were extracted from Arguin." Later in the sixteenth century, Black slaves came from Bran, biafadas and Gelofe (in Cape Verde).
Black slaves were classified into several types, depending on their ethnic group and origin, but mostly from physical characteristics. There were two main groups. The first, called Retintos, also called swarthy, came from Sudan and the Guinean Coast.
The demand for slaves came in the early colonial period, especially between 1580 and 1640, when the indigenous population declined due to new infectious diseases. Carlos V began to issue an increasing number of contracts (asientos) between the Spanish Crown and private slavers specifically to bring Africans to Spanish colonies.
Africans were brought to Mexico by Spanish conquistadors and were auxiliaries in the conquest. One is shown in Codex Azcatitlan as part of the entourage of conqueror Hernán Cortés. In the account of the conquest of the Aztec Empire compiled by Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún, Nahua informants noted the presence of Africans with kinky, curly hair in contrast to the straight "yellow" and black hair of the Spaniards.
Notable among them was Juan Garrido, a free Black soldier born in Africa, Christianized in Portugal, who participated in the conquest of Tenochtitlan and Western Mexico. The slave of another conquistador, Pánfilo de Narváez, has been blamed for the transmission of smallpox to Nahuas in 1520.
While a number of indigenous people were enslaved during the conquest period, indigenous slavery as an institution was forbidden by the crown except in the cases of rebellion. Indigenous labor was coerced in the early period, mobilized by the encomienda, private grants to individual Spaniards, was the initial workforce, with black overseers often supervising indigenous laborers.
Franciscan Toribio de Benavente Motolinia (1482-1568), who arrived in Mexico in 1524 to evangelize the Nahuas, considered Blacks the "Fourth Plague" (in the manner of Biblical plagues) on Mexican Natives. He wrote "In the first years these Black overseers were so absolute in their maltreatment of the Indians, over-loading them, sending them far from their land and giving them many other tasks that many Indians died because of them and at their hands, which is the worst feature of the situation."
Blacks classified as part of the "Republic of Spaniards" (República de Españoles), that is the Hispanic sector of Europeans, Africans, and mixed-race castas, while the indigenous were members of the "Republic of Indians" (República de Indios), and under the protection of the Spanish crown. Although there was coming to be an association between Blackness and enslavement, there were Africans who achieved the formal status of vecino (resident, citizen), a designation of great importance in colonial society.
Legal freedom could be achieved by manumission, with liberty purchased by the enslaved person. A 1585 deed of emancipation (Carta de libertad) in Mexico City shows that the formerly enslaved woman, Juana, (a negra criolla, i.e., born in Mexico), paid her owner for her freedom with the help of Juana's husband Andrés Moreno. The price of liberty was the large sum of 200 gold pesos. Her former owner, Doña Inéz de León, declared that "it is my will that [Juana] shall be free now and for all time and not subject to servitude.
Black slave rebellions occurred in Mexico as in other parts of the Americas, with one in Veracruz in 1537 and another in the Spanish capital of Mexico City. Runaway slaves were called cimarrones, who mostly fled to the highlands between Veracruz and Puebla, with a number making their way to the Costa Chica region in what are now Guerrero and Oaxaca.
UNESCO wrote a book which spoke about the history of the slave trade and the ways in which Latin America was involved. In the chapter titled "The slave trade in the Caribbean and Latin America" they mention that Spain's biggest goal was to explore "newly discovered tropical territories" in order to help them gain resources and generate wealth and power. In this chapter, they also mention different reasons as to why the slave trade developed along the coasts.
Runaways in Veracruz formed settlements called palenques which would fight off Spanish authorities. The most famous of these was led by Gaspar Yanga. Gaspar Yanga entered Mexico because he was a slave who was working in the sugar plantains in Orizaba during the year of 1540. Yanga was able to escape this plantation in the year of 1579 and he left to hide in the mountains. There Yanga founded a palenque.
By the 17th century, the free Black population already outnumbered the enslaved population, despite slavery being at its greatest extent in the colony during this time. Scholar Herman L. Bennet records that 17th-century colonial Mexico was "home to the most diverse Black population in the Americas." Mexico City, built on the ruins of the Mexica capital city of Tenochtitlan became the center for diverse communities, all of which served the wealthy Spaniards as "artisans, domestic servants, day laborers, and slaves".
Catholicism shaped life among the vast majority of Africans in colonial society. Enslaved Blacks were simultaneously members of the Christian community and chattel, private property of their owners. In general, the church did not take a stance against African slavery as institution. However, Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas campaigned against their forced serviture later in life; further, the second archbishop of Mexico, Alonso de Montúfar, argued against the practice.
With the establishment of the Inquisition in 1571, Africans appeared before the tribunal in disproportionate numbers. Although Frank Tannenbaum posits that the church intervened in master-slave relations for humanitarian reasons, Herman L. Bennett argues that the church was more interested in regulating and controlling Africans in the religious sphere.
Although Mexico has one of the largest populations of African-descended people in Latin America, Afro-Mexicans are still a relatively small community in comparison to the overall population. In addition, most of the enslaved Africans brought to Mexico by the Spaniards were men who ended up marrying into other, primarily Indigenous ethnic groups, resulting in a large mestizo, or mixed, population. After Mexico gained independence from Spain, it was this mestizo heritage that was embraced.
Afro-Mexicans: One of the world’s most forgotten Black communities
The port of Veracruz, which borders the Caribbean, was the primary arrival point for these ships and as a result, the city continues to reflect a strong influence in its music, dance, cultures, and food. This amalgamation can be witnessed every year during the city’s Carnaval celebrations. The annual pre-Lenten festival serves as a week-long reminder of the region’s revolutionary spirit and remains one of the largest and most well-known Carnaval events in Mexico.
Veracruz celebrates African-heritage with musicSon Jarocho is a folk music style that dates back 250 years and draws influence from a blend of Mexican, African, and Indigenous cultures that thrive in the Veracruz region. A rock-and-roll version of the son jarocho song 'La Bamba' popularized the genre in 1958 and it was resurrected again in the late 80s by the group Los Lobos for the hit film by the same name.
In 1570, Yanga led a revolt and after a successful escape, he settled in the highlands. By 1600, his settlement had joined with another group of escaped enslaved people led by Francisco de la Matosa, and for decades they resisted capture from Spanish colonialists. In 1618, Yanga negotiated with Spanish officials to grant freedom to the fugitive slaves and independence to their village, which became known as San Lorenzo de los Negros. In 1932, the small town changed its name to honor its founder and is now known as Yanga in the state of Veracruz. In 2017, Yanga became a Unesco World Heritage site.
Born to an Afro-Mexican father and Indigenous-Mexican mother, Vicente Guerrero fought in the Mexican Revolution, eventually helping the country gain independence from Spanish rule. He became president in 1829. This move angered American slaveholders, and in 1830, he was forcibly removed from office.
Pío Pico, the last Mexican governor of California, was Afro-MexicanOne of the most recognized names in Los Angeles, Pío Pico, the last governor of California under Mexican rule, is a prominent figure in Afro-Mexican history. The businessman and politician became governor of Alta California (now the state of California) in 1845.
The Costa Chica region, which encompasses the southern states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, has the largest concentration of Afro-Mexican citizens. In Afro-Mexican communities in Costa Chica, the Dance of the Devils is performed as a form of ancestor reverence during Dia de Muertos celebrations. The dance has roots in the traditional dances of Enugu State in Nigeria and is typically characterized by the sounds of horns, rattles and drums.
Experiencing the cuisine and culture of Afro-Mexicans in the Costa ChicaA visit to the Costa Chica will also uncover the storied, rich Afro-Mexican culinary influences in the region. An influx of enslaved Africans to Mexico during the 16th and 17th centuries eventually led to a concentrated settlement of Afromexicanos along the southern coast of the Guerrero and Oaxaca states.
Much of the region’s food traditions stem from its proximity to the sea and geographical isolation that made it a safe haven when escaping slavery. As a result, many Afro-Mexican dishes incorporate the use of fresh fruits and vegetables grown locally along with foraged mussels, oysters, and fish or rich, hearty meat dishes. Mole de pescado and mole de camarón are two traditional dishes that you’ll find everywhere but have distinct origins in Afro-Mexican cooking.
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