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
Did you know The real Betty Boop was inspired by a Black Harlem jazz singer named Esther Jones. Ever heard of “Baby Esther”?
She later sued the cartoonist but the court threw out the case and she was never compensated!
A THREAD
Esther Jones took Harlem’s Cotton Club by storm in the 1920s with her unique “baby” scat style. Her “boop-oop-a-doop” sounds were fresh, bold, and totally her own, making her a jazz sensation of the time.
In 1930, cartoonist Max Fleischer introduced Betty Boop, a flapper character who became animation’s first sex symbol. That playful “boop” in her voice? It was a direct echo of Esther’s lively performances on stage.
She refused to move to the back of a bus 9 months before Rosa Parks, the NAACP did not want to use her to represent them because she was 15 & pregnant.
Other women who refused to give up their seats before Rosa Parks
A THREAD!
A century before Rosa Parks, there was Elizabeth Jennings
In 1854, she refused to get off of a streetcar that only allowed white passengers.
She was arrested. She sued (and won), and her case led to the eventual desegregation of NYC's public transit.
In 1944, Irene Morgan refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Greyhound bus in Gloucester County, VA. She was charged with violating Virginia Jim Crow laws. In 1946, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in her favor, striking down Virginia’s law in Morgan v. Virginia case.
In 1969, the Black Panthers launched free breakfast programs across the US, feeding thousands of kids before school. The FBI called it a threat. In some cities, police raided kitchens, smashed food, and urinated on supplies to shut them down.
A THREAD
In January 1969, the Black Panther Party launched their Free Breakfast for Children Program, their first and most notable community effort, to feed kids who went to school hungry due to poverty. It was radical care in action. But the FBI called it a threat.
The Black Panthers, founded in 1966, built programs to tackle systemic issues like poverty and hunger. The Free Breakfast Program was a direct response to families unable to feed their kids before school. It aimed to nourish bodies and minds for learning.
Did you know Cornrows were used to help enslaved people escape slavery? They used cornrows to create maps to leave plantations. It’s most documented in Colombia where Benkos Bioho, came up with the idea to have women create maps & deliver messages through cornrows.
A THREAD.
Cornrows are ancient art. Found in 3000 B.C. Sahara paintings & on Ethiopian warriors like Tewodros II, braids showed community, age & status in African societies. In the Caribbean, “cane rows” linked to slaves planting sugar cane, tying style to survival.
During the slave trade, captors shaved enslaved Africans’ hair to strip identity. But many defied this by braiding cornrows tightly to stay neat & preserve culture. These braids became secret tools, hiding maps to escape plantations across South America.
62 years ago today, The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C.
A THREAD
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. It took place in Washington, D.C.
Martin Luther King, Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony during the march.