Episode 8.9 - Gaspar Yanga

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Gaspar Yanga was possibly born as royalty, although no one is sure, but when he died he was certainly considered by many to be a king. Captured in Africa, brought to the Americas, he soon escaped enslavement near Veracruz in today’s Mexico. He soon became the leader of a community of others who escaped, but they were hunted by the Spanish authorities. Yanga led the resistance, and won, not only the freedom of him and his people, but also official recognition by the crown.

Sources

  • Marisela Jiménez Ramos, Black Mexico: Nineteenth-Century Discourses of Race and Nation

  • “El Primer Libertador de las Americas"/The First Liberator of the Americas”, Callaloo, Yanga, Mata Clara and Nearby Villages: Africa in Contemporary Mexico

  • David M. Davidson, Negro Slave Control and Resistance in Colonial Mexico, 1519-1650

  • Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion, “Gaspar Yanga’

Names Mentioned