Maracaibo seeks 250 enslaved people on credit for cattle and agriculture

A royal decree of 25 June 1558 prohibited the future use of Indigenous people in pearl fishing and specified that Africans could be used for the work. In practice, the measure shifted the burden of...

Royal officers accounted for 123 pesos and one tomín arising from a debt owed by Pedro de Ursúa. The debt was linked to Diego, an enslaved man reportedly brought to the province by Lope de Aguirre and...

On 4 February 1573, Agustín de Ancona asked Caracas’s cabildo for permission to use his enslaved man Francisco as a miner with his own crew. The petition records both the extraction economy and the...

A royal cédula authorized the purchase in Cabo Verde and Guinea and transport of 150 enslaved Africans to Margarita's pearl fishery. The order shows the Crown's role in organizing coerced labor across...

The Crown authorized the transport of 25 additional enslaved Africans to Margarita for fortification construction. Their coerced labor was to serve colonial defense infrastructure; the surviving...

Representatives of the province’s cabildos instructed procurator Simón de Bolívar to present 27 petitions to the Council of the Indies. These included a request to import 3,000 enslaved people from...

Caracas cabildo minutes noted that Portuguese trader Rui Gómez Bravo, sailing with a licensed slave ship bound for Cartagena, was forced to disembark at La Guaira. The source does not establish a...

Caracas’s municipal council had bought Antonio for service at the convent of San Francisco. After he escaped, the council ordered that he be sold wherever he was captured and that the proceeds be sent...

A royal cédula dated 13 May refers to a Portuguese holder of a canoe with thirty enslaved divers and service workers, including people described as from Guinea, as well as Indigenous people brought...

The Archivo General de Indias catalog identifies a royal cédula dated 23 November 1592 addressed to Governor Diego de Osorio, in connection with a petition made by Simón de Bolívar. The archival...