Enslaved people who enlist are denied freedom through military service

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...

Bolívar’s decree of 28 June 1827 sought to make the 1821 manumission law work by improving the finances and operation of provincial manumission boards. Fundación Empresas Polar reports that only about...

A decree of 1 October 1830 ended the alcabala on sales of enslaved people and locally consumed produce, while lowering the general rate on certain remaining transactions. The fiscal measure treated...

After Venezuela separated from Gran Colombia, Congress revised the manumission law. Children born to enslaved mothers remained legally free, but the required service to their mothers’ enslavers was...

A law approved on 23 May 1836 expanded owners’ authority to punish enslaved people and raised the permitted maximum from 29 to 100 lashes. Fundación Empresas Polar describes it as a regression...

The treaty signed in Caracas on 15 March 1839 declared the African slave trade permanently abolished and allowed specified searches of suspected ships. It defined the prohibited trade narrowly:...

A decree of 27 April 1840 addressed what happened to manumisos after leaving their owners’ custody. It directed that they be trained in industrial or rural occupations, returned to free parents when...

On 2 September 1846 Francisco Rangel began an armed uprising near Magdaleno. The movement drew in hacendados, renters, peons, muleteers, enslaved people, and others facing economic and political...

Congress passed a new manumission law on 21 April 1848; it was ordered into effect on 28 April. It reorganized local boards and reporting, and continued a system that freed people through limited...