Enslaved messenger delivers warning of thirteen enemy ships

A Cocorote mine register recorded a birth on 9 August 1643 in a ledger titled “Memoria de los negros y negras que nacen en mi tiempo.” The child’s name is not preserved in the published summary. The...

Francisca González, identified as a free mulatta, petitioned Caracas’s cabildo for half a lot; the council granted it. Her successful claim shows a free woman of African descent negotiating for...

The Cocorote mine record of births lists a child born on 15 May 1646. No name or details of the parents survive in the published summary. Read alongside the other dated entries in the same register,...

A Caracas cabildo report supported Ana de Guevara, identified as a free Black woman, in her request for a plot of land. The council granted her half a lot. Her case records a free Black woman...

Juana de Villanueva, identified in Caracas records as a free Black woman, petitioned the cabildo for a portion of a lot. Her request appears in the same set of municipal records that register other...

A census of the Chama Valley listed enslaved people by estate and recorded marriages, children, and family ties. It also noted spouses living in Mérida or on another property, showing how ownership...

A census dated 19 November covered enslaved Black men in the towns of Tucani and Torondoy, in the jurisdiction of Mérida. The record’s date and place connect the counting of enslaved people to rural...

A census for the Valle del Río de Castro, within Mérida’s jurisdiction, listed twenty-one enslaved Black men across estates. Some entries preserve names, kin relationships, and African or locally born...

Pedro Hernández Galarza’s census in the Valle de los Bobures listed enslaved people by estate, naming people identified as Angola, Congo, Matamba, Malemba, and locally born. The document reports sixty...

A Caracas cabildo land register, described as a “sensuario a solares,” names nineteen Black, mulatto, and morena women. Some are explicitly identified as free; the record does not establish that every...