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.
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In Louisiana, black women were put in cells with male prisoners and some became pregnant.
All children born in the penitentiary to blacks were property of the state.
At 10 years, they would be auctioned off. The proceeds were used to fund schools for white children.
-THREAD-
Before the Civil War, most prisoners in the South were white. The punishment of enslaved African Americans was generally left up to their owners. Louisiana, however, did imprison enslaved people for "serious" crimes, generally involving acts of rebellion against the slave system.
A number of these imprisoned slaves were women. Penitentiary records show a number of women imprisoned for "assaulting a white," arson, or attempting to poison someone, most likely their enslavers.
On this day in 1942, Job Maseko, a WW2 hero, sank a NAZI ship with a bomb made from a tin can with condensed milk. He was denied the highest military decoration, due to his race.
A THREAD
Maseko was working as a delivery driver when he volunteered for service in the South African Native Military Corps during WWII (NMC). Later he was sent to the 2nd South African Infantry Division after finishing basic training in North Africa.
Due to South African race regulations at the time, they were unable to carry firearms. They were only allowed traditional weapons such as spears for guard and ceremonial duty.
On this day in 1865, enslaved people in Texas were notified by Union Civil War soldiers about the abolition of slavery. This was 2.5 years after the final Emancipation Proclamation which freed all enslaved Black Americans. #Juneteenth
But Slavery continued…
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’
On this day in 1944, George Stinney, 14, became the youngest person executed in the US in the 20th century. He was so small they had to stack books on the electric chair.
Due to no evidence, his conviction was posthumously vacated 70 years after his execution!
A THREAD!
George was accused of killing two white missing girls, 11-Year-old Betty and 7-year-old Mary, their bodies were found near the house where he lived with his parents in Alcolu, South Carolina march 1944.
The sheriff arrested George and his brother John (later released), because he claimed that George confessed and led officers to the 'place where he hid the murder weapon'. His father was fired from his job at a local sawmill and ordered to vacate the company house.
In 1951, Henrietta Lacks' cells were taken without her knowledge (HeLa Cells) at Johns Hopkins Hospital and they became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, gene mapping, vitro fertilization and more...
A THREAD
Henrietta Lacks was black woman who unknowingly was the source of cells (from her cancerous tumor) which were cultured by George Otto Gey to create the 1st known human immortal cell line for medical research.
The Diagnosis:
On January 29, 1951, Henrietta went to Johns Hopkins Hospital because she felt a knot inside her. It all started when she asked her cousins to feel her belly, asking if they felt the lump that she did. Her cousins assumed correctly that she was pregnant.
Sarah Saartjie Baartman was cruelly exploited in Europe by being exhibited as a freak show attraction because of her protruding butt. After her death, her body was displayed in a Paris museum for over 100yrs.
The exploitation of Sarah Baartman.
A THREAD!
SARAH "Saarjte" Baartman of the khoikhoi people of South Africa was born in 1789 and was one of 2 women put on display as a "FREAK SHOW" act in England and then later France.
The men who promised her a life of pride in sharing her culture with the World tricked her, and though she was given pay she often was at the expense of verbal, sexual, and physical abuse.