Caracas legislature orders conscription of one thousand enslaved men

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...

The Supreme Junta of Caracas prohibited the international introduction and trade of enslaved people. The measure did not emancipate people already enslaved, end domestic sale, or dismantle...

The Congress of Venezuela declared independence from Spain. The declaration asserted sovereignty and criticized colonial conquest, but did not abolish slavery or free enslaved people. That omission...

The Federal Constitution prohibited the commercial introduction of enslaved people, reaffirming an 1810 Caracas decree. It did not abolish slavery inside Venezuela: people already enslaved remained...

Francisco de Miranda’s martial law, issued at La Victoria, called free men aged fifteen to fifty-five to take up arms. The rule excluded enslaved men while applying to free Black and mixed-race men....

Black people, including enslaved and free residents of Curiepe, Capaya, and nearby valleys, rose in Barlovento on Saint John’s Day against the conscription drive. The uprising included refusal to...

Bolívar declared freedom for enslaved people in Río Caribe, Carúpano, and Cariaco, but men aged 14–60 had to enlist within 24 hours. Refusal could return a man and his family to servitude; women,...

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...