Gaspar Yanga

Did you know that… Gaspar Yanga (which means a king of people who belongs to royalty) is said to have descended from royalty in Gabon and was brought to Veracruz, México as a slave. He led an uprising and escape of slaves from a sugar plantation in Veracruz in 1570. Established in Cofre de Perde in the mountains near Orizaba, the maroon settlement or palenque called San Lorenzo de los Negros (called Yanga in the present day) had sixty dwellings with eighty men and more than twenty-four women (African and Indian), and several children. At the settlement’s height there lived some five-hundred people. The Yangicos (as Yanga’s followers were termed) were farmers and raised livestock. They practiced a form of self-government fashioned upon several Central African models. It was hierarchical and oriented towards the needs of self-defense and retaliation The Yanguicos eluded capture for more than thirty years until the Spaniards decided to negotiate in 1608. The Yanguícos also secured provisions by raids upon the Spanish caravans bringing goods from the highlands to Veracruz. Yanga and the Spanish Crown signed a unique (for its time) treaty of accommodation and conciliation in September of that year. There was no surrender. The points of the treaty were as follows; 1) All of the Yanguicos who fled prior to September of 1608 were freed; those who fled after this date were returned to their masters; 2) the palenque was chartered as a free town with Yanga as governor; 3) only the Franciscan friar would minister to them; 4) the Yanguicos would return fugitive slaves and aid the Crown in case of external attack; 5) the Spaniards could only visit on market days and 6) they received a farmable grant of land. “Yanga’s maroon movement is a notable incident in the history of Negroes in Mexico—the only known example of a fully successful attempt by slaves to secure their freedom en masse by revolt and negotiation and to have it sanctioned and guaranteed by law” Yanga and his followers finally brokered a treaty with the Crown in 1630 which included freedom for the Yanguícos; self-government; and a farmable land grant on Mount Totutla. By the time of his death, Yanga secured from the Spaniards freedom for his followers and their own "free town." Today he is national hero in Mexico.