 Despite the lack of universal understanding of racial identification across New Spain, when they were faced with external threats to their organizations, free-colored militias showed great racial unity in these times, such as in the case of Huajolotitlan, a small town of Oaxaca in southern Mexico.After a decree was passed in 1784 calling for the retirement of every free-colored officer and the disbandment of their militia, the tows free-coloreds fiercely resisted.Free-colored soldiers refused to leave their posts and they dispatched to the capital in protests to defend their racially integrated organizations.