During the sixteenth century, Mexico had more African slaves than any country in the Americas. For a nation whose cultural identity has long been based upon Mestizaje -- its blend of European and Native American ancestry -- the existence of this "third root" has often been obscured. Today, just a small number of African-Mexicans remain, living in a scattering of towns at the base of the Mixteca mountains in southern Mexico -- their communities a remnant of a history rarely told and very nearly forgotten.