Colonial court condemns José Leonardo Chirino

Juana Ignacia, described in the file as enslaved, sought through the Caracas Síndico Procurador to be sold by her owner Rafael Arjona. The surviving case is a legal appeal about a change of owner, not...

A royal cédula dated 24 November 1791 granted Spanish and foreign traders conditional permission to traffic enslaved Africans with the Captaincy General of Caracas and other Spanish American...

Francisca Mesones, an enslaved woman, presented a case to the Audiencia of Caracas concerning her son Simón, a free man, and his marriage to Soledad Ponce, who was enslaved. The court ruled for...

At the Macanillas estate in Curimagua, enslaved and free Afro-descendant and Indigenous people rose against colonial rule. The insurgents called for abolition of slavery, an end to alcabala...

After new outbreaks of violence on 12 May, colonial authorities intensified repression. The Coro revolt was defeated, but its demands for freedom, abolition of slavery, and the removal of burdensome...

Spanish colonial authorities uncovered a republican conspiracy organized by Manuel Gual and José María España. Its participants included pardos, free people of African descent, and some enslaved...

After Spain returned clandestinely to Venezuela and was captured, a special colonial tribunal sentenced him to death. The sentence prescribed a public execution and the display of his severed head and...

Colonial officials uncovered a plot involving Francisco Javier Pirela, a pardo militia sublieutenant, and French privateers from Saint-Domingue. Historical accounts describe a planned uprising for...

Colonial authorities carried out the death sentence in Caracas’s Plaza Mayor, publicly hanging and dismembering España. His head and body parts were sent to La Guaira and other places named in the...

The intended date for the Maracaibo rising arrived, but the plot was thwarted before the plan could be carried out. The account describes Pirela confessing hours before the expected start, followed by...