First Venezuelan Constitution abolishes the transatlantic slave trade

Francisco de Miranda landed with an expedition at La Vela de Coro, seized Fort San Pedro, and raised a tricolor flag challenging Spanish colonial rule. The expedition withdrew within days after...

At Puerto Cabello, officials documented the capture by the corsair La Constancia of a canoe and curiara carrying 13 fugitive Black enslaved people from Essequibo. The archive frames the event as...

Caracas’s cabildo removed Spanish officials and formed a new governing body, beginning the revolutionary process that led to independence. Pardo representation appeared in the municipal act, but the...

The Supreme Junta of Caracas prohibited the international introduction and trade of enslaved people. The measure did not emancipate people already enslaved, end domestic sale, or dismantle...

The Congress of Venezuela declared independence from Spain. The declaration asserted sovereignty and criticized colonial conquest, but did not abolish slavery or free enslaved people. That omission...

Francisco de Miranda’s martial law, issued at La Victoria, called free men aged fifteen to fifty-five to take up arms. The rule excluded enslaved men while applying to free Black and mixed-race men....

The Caracas provincial legislature ordered the conscription of one thousand enslaved men for the republican army. The state would purchase them when it could and promise freedom after four years of...

Black people, including enslaved and free residents of Curiepe, Capaya, and nearby valleys, rose in Barlovento on Saint John’s Day against the conscription drive. The uprising included refusal to...

Bolívar declared freedom for enslaved people in Río Caribe, Carúpano, and Cariaco, but men aged 14–60 had to enlist within 24 hours. Refusal could return a man and his family to servitude; women,...

A month after the Carúpano decree, Bolívar issued a broader proclamation at Ocumare de la Costa promising freedom to enslaved people who joined the republican cause. Like other wartime emancipation...