Bolívar calls on the Tuy’s formerly enslaved men to defend their freedom

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....

The Caracas provincial legislature ordered the conscription of one thousand enslaved men for the republican army. The state would purchase them when it could and promise freedom after four years of...

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...

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...

Responding to Bolívar’s appeal, the Congress of Angostura adopted a gradual abolition measure. The measure framed emancipation as a process and accommodated owners’ claims to compensation. The gap...

Writing from Valencia after Carabobo, Bolívar asked the Congress of Colombia to make children born to enslaved mothers free from birth. He argued that children belonged to their parents and to God,...

The Congress of Cúcuta, governing Gran Colombia including Venezuela, declared children born to enslaved mothers free at birth. They were nevertheless required to serve their mothers’ enslavers until...

A law dated 18 February 1825 treated Venezuelans who embarked, transported, or disembarked people taken from Africa as slaves as pirates and prescribed capital punishment. The 1839 Venezuela–Britain...