STORY
Mexico: Yanga, the first community of free slaves in history
The statue of Ñyanga stands in the middle of Yanga Square, in the state of Veracruz, Mexico.
© Gwendolina Duval / RFI
Text by: Gwendolina Duval
5 mins
It's a story largely misunderstood in Mexico.
At the foot of the mountains of Veracruz, the small town of Yanga proudly claims to have sheltered, in the 17th century, the first people freed from slavery after thirty years of struggle against the Spanish viceroyalty.
Today, the heirs of this story try to promote it while many Mexicans are still unaware of their African ancestry.
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From our correspondent in Mexico,
"
Broken Chains Mean Black Man's Freedom Regained
".
Antonio Carrera points to a detail of a colorful fresco which covers a wall of the largest square in Yanga for some twenty meters.
This enthusiast, who defines himself as a cultural promoter, is one of the main defenders of the city's past: “
I was born here and I am fascinated by this history which freed us
.
It is also displayed by a large sign on the road as soon as you enter the municipality: “
Yanga, the first free people of the Americas
.
»
Its history dates back to the 16th century, when the Spaniards landed on the continent through the port of Veracruz and colonized Mexican territory.
It is then estimated that between 250,000 to 500,000 Africans were brought to New Spain for forced labor.
Among them, Ñyanga, his statue stands today in the middle of the square.
"
He was probably taken from West Africa around the year 1570
," says Antonio, "
to be sold as a slave to one of the farms in the area.
He works for nine years under the Spanish yoke, then escapes and hides in the mountains.
There he founded a
palenque
, a small community that brought together other runaway slaves.
“
They were about 700 men
living off agriculture and the fruits of the attacks they carried out against the Spanish stagecoaches on the road between Veracruz and Mexico.
“
In 1609, under the orders of the Viceroy of Spain, Don Luís de Velasco, a group of soldiers was sent to put an end to the rebellion of Ñyanga and his men.
The cultural promoter then tells the fiery story of the strategies and twists and turns of the battle.
Ñyanga finally emerges victorious and manages to negotiate with the Crown: “
A truce and an agreement are concluded, authorizing the rebels to live freely on these lands.
»
►
To read also: Slavery, slave trade and abolition
It will be necessary to wait twenty years for the foundation of the village of San Lorenzo de los Negros to be officially recorded in 1630, it will then be renamed Yanga in the middle of the 20th century.
"
It's a magnificent story
", marvels Oscar Malagón, the painter who created the fresco which recounts the rebellion.
Originally from Yanga, he dedicated all his art to transcribing the history of this community: “
For me, Ñyanga is a liberating symbol, because this man resisted and never surrendered.
Antonio Carrera adds: “
He is a precursor of human rights on the American continent
.
»
Told by a Jesuit priest in the chronicles of the Society of Jesus in New Spain, the story of the Ñyanga revolt was almost lost, having remained forgotten for three centuries in the archives of Córdoba, the large neighboring city.
“
In all the treaties of the region
, explains Antonio Carrera,
the name of Ñyanga has disappeared, they only mention the presence of the rebels and their attacks.
In the 1980s, a handful of men undertook to reveal this founding episode.
"
We have long remained invisible
," laments Oscar Malagón.
Some of us have always claimed our Afro-descendant roots, but even today racial segregation persists
.
»
Yanga's story saved from oblivion
In Mexico, some 2.5 million people recognize African ancestry, according to the last census of 2020, or about 2% of the population.
According to Antonio Carrera, this number is largely underestimated: “
We insist a lot on the fact that people must self-declare but, unfortunately, many do not.
In Veracruz as in the rest of the country, many Mexicans are simply unaware of their African origins.
Roots long forgotten, even by the state.
During Mexico's independence in 1821, the construction of a new national identity erased the specificities of indigenous and Afro-descendant communities.
For the latter, its existence was only recognized very recently: in 2019, when it was enshrined in the Mexican Constitution.
Two years earlier, Unesco had declared the city of Yanga as a place of memory of slavery.
“
It was here that the headquarters of the Afro movement was
“, Efrain Blanco Vera welcomes in Mata Clara, the juxtaposed village which was a former colony of forced laborers until the middle of the 19th century.
The majority of its 2,000 residents identify as Afro-descendant.
Within the Afro-Mexican Council of Veracruz, Efrain is in charge of defending their rights: “
Today, we are fighting for the aid allocated to members of the community to be the same as for the natives
.
»
Because poverty strikes more severely the forgotten populations.
In Yanga, the Mirador district is home to an independent community made up mainly of Afro-descendants.
She is in the most complete destitution.
“
This is the reality of Afro communities in Mexico
, regrets Antonio Carrera,
its residents live without infrastructure and without public services, justice has not yet reached them, because they were invisible.
So he asserts that whatever the physical appearance of the inhabitants of Yanga, all are descendants of the rebel who founded the city: "
The cradle of freedom in the Americas. "
»
Our selection on the same subject:
To read :
→ Slavery: the countries that apologized and those that did not
→ Auscultate slave-holding America, with Ta-Nehisi Coates
→ The worlds of slavery: a comparative history
→ Guyana: the history of the Boni, from slavery to maroonage
→ From abolition to modern slavery
To listen :
→ Ink and the chain: on the traces of the memory of slavery in La Rochelle
→ On the traces of slavery
→ Former servants of a member of the Saudi royal family recount the hell suffered
→ The new faces of “modern”
slavery → Slavery, colonialism, segregation: how to confront legacies?
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