Cúcuta law creates “free womb” status while binding children to labor

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...

A bando dated at El Consejo on 14 March 1818 called residents of the Tuy valleys to organize for the Republic. It stated that slavery had been abolished and directed men formerly enslaved to serve...

In his inaugural address to the Congress of Angostura, Bolívar argued for the abolition of slavery and the proscription of privileges. The speech placed emancipation within the design of a new...

Responding to Bolívar’s appeal, the Congress of Angostura adopted a gradual abolition measure. The measure framed emancipation as a process and accommodated owners’ claims to compensation. The gap...

Writing from Valencia after Carabobo, Bolívar asked the Congress of Colombia to make children born to enslaved mothers free from birth. He argued that children belonged to their parents and to God,...

A law dated 18 February 1825 treated Venezuelans who embarked, transported, or disembarked people taken from Africa as slaves as pirates and prescribed capital punishment. The 1839 Venezuela–Britain...

Bolívar’s decree of 28 June 1827 sought to make the 1821 manumission law work by improving the finances and operation of provincial manumission boards. Fundación Empresas Polar reports that only about...

A decree of 1 October 1830 ended the alcabala on sales of enslaved people and locally consumed produce, while lowering the general rate on certain remaining transactions. The fiscal measure treated...

After Venezuela separated from Gran Colombia, Congress revised the manumission law. Children born to enslaved mothers remained legally free, but the required service to their mothers’ enslavers was...

On 25 June 1835 the Interior and Justice ministry decreed that enslaved people who entered military service remained enslaved. The rule reversed the wartime promise that service could bring freedom...