Gaspar Yanga: Black Leaders Who Shaped the World

Gaspar Yanga: Black Leaders Who Shaped the World

Yanga was born around 1545 in West Africa. The exact date of his death is not clear, but he was alive in the first quarter of the 1600s. He was captured and later enslaved in Mexico. Yanga was a leader of a successful slave revolt in colonial Mexico and he built one of the first communities of free blacks in the Americas around 1570. Yanga carried out carefully planned military campaigns against the Spanish, often attacking caravans travelling between Veracruz at the coast and Mexico City, between 1570 and 1609. All Spanish attempts to defeat Yanga cimarrones (Maroons) militarily failed. A powerful force made up of 550 Spanish troops was sent on a mission to destroy the Yanga community in 1609; they failed miserably! Yanga selected Franscisco de la Matosa to lead his troops; Matosa was born in Angola. Yanga was very old then; he made the wise decision to carry out a guerilla campaign against the Spanish troops and instructed Matosa and his other lieutenants to utilize their knowledge of the terrain to defeat the Spanish. The well-equipped Spanish forces were defeated and forced to negotiate with Yanga for a peaceful resolution. Yanga determined the terms of the peace treaty; the Spanish eventually recognized the free African community and it became known as San Lorenco de Los Negros in 1618. The story of Yanga was first made popular in the 19th century by Vince Riva Palacio; another remarkable story in the arsenal of great black leaders: Palacio was a historian, soldier, and grandson of Mexico’s Second President and the first black President of North and Central America: Vincente Guerrero.

© Azaria Mbughuni