Authorities expose Francisco Javier Pirela’s Maracaibo plot

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...

The Real Audiencia of Caracas sentenced Chirino after the suppression of the 1795 revolt. The case criminalized an anti-slavery rebellion that had challenged colonial rule, racial hierarchy, and...

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 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...

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...