The Destiny Series: The History
The Destiny Series takes a look at a little known history that exists at the Texas Mexico border. We often hear about the Underground Railroad and how slaves escaped to the north and freedom, but there was also a movement for slaves to escape south to freedom. A movement started by the escaped slaves themselves around 1836.
As Texas is struggling to become a state, slave labor is being used to help build it. The Mexican government knows that the slaves give the Texans superior numbers. Mexico also knows that not many Mexicans want to move out to the borderlands and attempt to hold the border against the invading Indians and the whites willing to settle the lands. In an underhanded deal, one that does not make it to an official vote, the Senate decides to offer tracts of land to those that would settle it. Namely slaves, who they promise can claim Mexican citizenship and freedom in exchange. The land would still belong to the government, but no one would bother these escaped slaves on their land.
This offer of citizenship, however, does not guarantee extra protection or military assistance on the borders. If a patrol happens to be nearby enough to assist, then they may, otherwise the border towns are basically on their own. In 1819 the closing of the transatlantic slave trade forces plantation owners to become more resourceful in the purchase of slaves, thus driving up the prices at the slave markets.
Though the purchase of slaves from overseas has been banned, the sale of slaves within the borders of the United States is still permitted. This causes slave owners to become more territorial over their property, and incites them to place bounties on the heads of those slaves that escape. Money hungry bounty hunters soon begin to hunt more than just the escaped slaves they are commissioned to capture, however. Any unattended blacks become fair game. In the north freemen are even being kidnapped and sold into the market in the south. Though it is illegal for them to come into Mexico to capture slaves, they know that Mexican Patrols are few and far between.
As these escaped slaves begin to set up their colonies and towns on the Mexican border, bounty hunters begin to seek them out, inciting terrible border wars as the slaves fight for their land and their freedom. In 1855 “rangers” go into Mexico under the guise of capturing marauding Lipan Apaches but are driven out. It is still believed to this day that they were in fact the culprits of the burning of Piedras Negras, a respectable African colony in Mexico. It is believed they were in search of runaways (1989, Campbell).
The Destiny Series runs along the lines of this history. You meet and follow the Gray family through pre-civil war, civil war, and post civil war within the Mexican colonies. The first book, Destiny’s Purpose, introduces you to a young Destiny Gray. You meet him as he is sold away from his family in Alabama and how he arrives at the Texas Mexico border. Destiny Gray is the first to escape into Mexico and brings some of his family there to live as well. Destiny sets up the first Ranchos on the land, but fears to draw too much attention to himself or his land. Others are already being raided in nearby Ranches and they have so little as it is.
As time progresses, the Rancho flourishes and Destiny begins a family of his own. In book two, Destiny’s Hope, you meet the head strong Rosa Jewel Gray. She envisions building the Ranchos into a colony of freed blacks. She is repulsed by the institutions of slavery and desires to bring as many slaves to the land as she can. Tragically, she loses her husband and a child at the hands of bounty hunters and half their small town is burned to the ground. This only spurs her on more since they have capture her only son and taken him to the States to sell.
In Book Three, Destiny’s Legacy, Rosa Jewel begins the printing press, advertising freedom in the south. “Why go north when the south is closer,” the fliers claim. Word spreads and the colony grows stronger. This culminates in bloody fiery wars that birth strong black cowboys. Strong Gray, Rosa Jewel’s son, is set free as are all other slaves, with the emancipation proclamation. He finds his way back to his mother and his grandfather. Finally Destiny is old, but he looks at the town and people that he has birthed, and knows he has left a lasting legacy.
Campbell, Randolph B. An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas 1821-1865 Louisiana States University Press, 1989.