A Monument to Gaspar Yanga!

Gaspar Yanga! His name doesn’t include the exclamation point, but it should. He was said to have been a member of the royal family of Gabon (yes, some of us really did descend from royalty) and in 1570, he led a band of slaves in a revolt in Veracruz, Mexico.

They got away. Created a colony of slaves in the mountains where the Spaniards were reluctant to follow, and for 30 years they made lives miserable for the colonial slave holders. You know, hijacking caravans on their way to the city, and doing all kinds of Robin Hood stuff. He even split an avocado that was sitting on his son’s head with a machete throw. (There is no evidence that he split an avocado with a machete throw, but there is also no evidence against it.)

In 1609 the Spanish sent a regiment of 550 troops up to get him and his fellow Maroon. His soldiers numbered about 500; 100 with some sort of firearms and the rest with improvised weapons. But they possessed something that the Spanish lacked; an intimate knowledge of the terrain.

Yanga tried to make peace, sending the Spanish soldiers a treaty that would allow self rule, but the Spanish weren’t having it. They launched their attack and pressed deep into Yanga’s settlement, burning it to the ground. They even sent in Zorro and the Desparado (no they didn’t.) but Yanga was ready. He fully realized that in order to get them to negotiate, he would have to inflict damage, which is what his fighters did.

Though both sides suffered mightily, Yanga, and his lieutenant, an Angolan named Francisco de la Matosa, directed their people further into the difficult hill country.

Nine years later the Spanish signed that treaty, agreeing to all of the terms as well as recognizing Yanga and his family rule as the town’s rulers. And in 1630, the town of San Lorenzo de los Negros de Cerralvo was established. It’s still there, by the way, in Veracruz province of Mexico, though now it is simply called Yanga.