Officials review a request for 600 enslaved people for Margarita and Cumaná

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...

A royal cédula ordered the sending of 200 enslaved Africans to Nueva Andalucía. The order demonstrates colonial authorities' efforts to direct African forced labor to eastern Venezuela; the cited...

Caracas cabildo minutes identify Francisco, a Black man, as a public town crier. This official role makes visible a Black worker whose labor served public communication, even as the archive’s racial...

Caracas councilors discussed obtaining 500 enslaved people on credit for sale to local residents. The proposal reveals the cabildo's role in expanding the human trade through local credit; the meeting...

Church officials in Coro proposed using church funds to buy 12 enslaved Africans from Maracaibo to advance building work. Their appeal framed Indigenous population decline as a labor shortage,...

The Caracas cabildo petitioned the Crown for permission to bring 1,000 enslaved Africans into the province. This is a record of local officials seeking a larger coerced workforce, not evidence that...

A prosecutor of the Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo ordered the seizure of property belonging to former governors Pedro Fajardo and Alonso Suárez del Castillo. A related Caracas record involved a...

Royal officers investigated a slave ship lost near Capatárida on the Falcón coast. After an accident, only two enslaved Africans remained in the area; the ship continued to Maracaibo, where the...