Gaspar Yanga was a liberator and one of Mexico’s heroes, enslaved from West Africa. He fought for the abolition of slavery in Mexico. He was known as “America’s First Liberator” or “El Primer Libertador de las Americas.”
The town of Yanga, Mexico is named after him.
THREAD
El Yanga was an African abolitionist and a leader of a slave rebellion in Mexico during the early period of Spanish colonial rule. Mexico was called 'New Spain'.
Gaspar Yanga, often called Yanga, El Yanga, or Nyanga, was said to be a member of the royal family of Gabon, Africa, before being kidnapped and placed in the Middle Passage to the new world.
He came to be the head of a group of slaves who were revolting near Vera Cruz, around 1570. Escaping to the highland terrain, he and his people built a small free colony. For more than 30 years it grew, partially surviving by capturing caravans bringing goods to Vera Cruz.
In 1609, however, the Spanish colonial government sent troops from Pueblo to enslave Yanga and his people again. The Spanish numbered around 550, of which perhaps 100 were Spanish regulars.
Yanga and the Maroons facing them were an irregular force of 100 fighters with some type of firearm, and 400 more with stones, machetes, and bows and arrows.
These troops were led by Francisco de la Matosa, an Angolan. Yanga, who was quite old at this time, employed his troops' superior knowledge of the area to draw them to the negotiating table.
Yanga’s terms of peace asked for a treaty akin to those that had settled hostilities between Indians and Spaniards: an area of self-rule, in return for tribute, and promises to support the Spanish if they were attacked.
He proposed his district would return any slaves which might flee to it to soothe the worries of the many slave owners in the region. The Spaniards refused the terms, a battle was fought, and the Spaniards advanced into the settlement and burned it.
Yanga’s people fled into the surrounding highlands, and the Spaniards could not achieve a conclusive victory. Unable to win definitively, they agreed to a conference.
Eventually, Yanga's terms were agreed to, with the additional condition that only Franciscan priests would tend to the people, and that Yanga's family would be granted the right of rule. Finally, in 1630, the town of Yanga was officially established. It remains to this day.
🖋️if you love our content, please consider supporting our page on (follow the ko-fi page too for weekly posts roundup) AfricanArchives.Support
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
One in every four cowboys was believed to be a Black man released from slavery despite the stories told in popular books and movies although the most famous cowboys of the old west were white.
Some notable cowboys!
A THREAD
Many of the enslaved african men were familiar with cattle herding from Africa.
a highlight of some famous black cowboys:
Bill Pickett (1871-1932), rodeo performer.
World famous black cowboy Bill Pickett "Dusky Demon" invented the rodeo sport, bulldogging (steer wrestling). In 1989 was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.
Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche and his children were the only black passengers on RMS Titanic.
A THREAD
Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche was the son of a white French army captain and a Haitian woman who was a descendant of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first ruler of independent Haiti.
Laroche’s uncle, Dessalines M. Cincinnatus, was president of Haiti from 1911 to 1912.
German colonizers in Namibia, due to their interest in evolutionary theory & missing links executed inmates and decapitated them.
Herero women were required to remove all flesh from the heads to create clean skulls suitable for shipment for study in German Institutes.
A THREAD
The German missionaries began working in Southern Africa in the late 1820s and experienced significant success in evangelizing and educating their converts. But toward the end of the 19th century, a new ‘gospel’ was increasingly introduced to Africa.
Germans, many indoctrinated in Social Darwinian ideas, colonized South West Africa (Namibia) in the 1880s.
They generally regarded the Herero people as primitive and frequently referred to them as 'subhuman' and 'baboons!'
The Banyole of the ancient kingdom Of Uganda practiced and perfected C-Section long before the Europeans.
While Europeans mainly concentrated on saving the baby, the ugandans were performing the operation successfully saving both.
A THREAD
Caesarean section was considered a life-threatening procedure in England that was only to be undertaken in the direst of circumstances and facing the decision on whether to save the life of the mother or baby.
The first successful C-section done in Africa ("success" defined as both surviving) is usually credited to Irish surgeon James Barry (Margaret Ann Bulkley), who performed the operation in Cape Town, South Africa.
In 1939 Billie Holiday recorded the first great protest song of the Civil Rights Movement, 'Strange Fruit’
The Chilling Story of Strange Fruit and Billie Holiday.
A THREAD!
"Strange Fruit" was originally a poem written by Jewish-American writer, teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol, under his pseudonym Lewis Allan, as a protest against lynchings and later set it to music.
The song soon came to Billie Holiday's attention & after so many frequent requests of that song, she closed out EVERY performance with it. The waiters would stop serving ahead of time for complete silence, the room would darken, a spotlight would shine on Holiday's face…
On this day in 1865, the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution is ratified, abolishing slavery.
This picture is 25 years after the end of slavery.
How Slavery continued after the 13th amendment ‘abolished slavery’
A THREAD
In 1866, a year after the amendment was ratified, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina began to lease out convicts for labor.
This made the business of arresting black people very lucrative, thus hundreds of white men were hired by these states as police officers.
Their primary responsibility being to search out and arrest black peoples who were in violation of ‘Black Codes’