Frequent slave revolts resulted from the slaves’ lack of freedom, unstable marital life, mistreatment, overwork, and their lack of effective legal means of obtaining freedom. The specter of slave rebellion kept the white population in fear. In 1553, former Viceroy Mendoza warned his successor, Luis de Velasco, “This land is full of Negroes and mestizos who exceed the Spaniard in great quantity, and all desire to purchase their liberty with the lives of their masters.”142
As early as 1523, slaves revolted and erected crosses to celebrate their freedom and “to let it be known that they were Christians.” In 1537, Viceroy Mendoza received warning of a plot by black slaves to kill all Spaniards and elect their own king. After eliciting confessions by torture, authorities identified leaders and had them drawn and quartered. Except for the “confessions,” authorities found no evidence for the plot. In 1612, after the death of a slave woman in Mexico City, which blacks attributed to mistreatment by her owner, blacks plotted to kill all Spanish men and force Spanish women to serve them. When authorities learned of the conspiracy, they located an arms cache using information from tortured suspects. They hung twenty-eight black men and seven black women for their role in the plot.143
After the discovery of the 1612 plot, authorities placed restrictions on slaves, free blacks, and mulattos, none of whom they trusted. They ordered Afro-Mexicans off the streets after dark and prohibited them from carrying arms or gathering in groups of four or more.144
Officials viewed slave revolts in the countryside as even more of a threat to Spaniards due to the large concentrations of rural slaves, their lack of close scrutiny by owners, and their having none of the conflicting loyalties that domestic servants sometimes had for their masters. In 1735, a false rumor that the king had freed all slaves sparked a widespread slave rebellion in the Cordoba area. The revolt lasted five months and involved pitched battles between whites and slaves. Some thirty years later, planters in the area referred to the revolt as “a seditious movement and general uprising of all the slaves in that district, which cost much money, spilled much blood, and ruined the countryside to such a degree that even today it has not recovered.” Between 1725 and 1768 alone, five major slave rebellions, each of which involved more than 2,000 slaves, broke out in the Cordoba area.145
Slaves often responded to their lack of liberty by running away from their owners. By the 1560s, fugitive slaves had allied with Indians to raid Spanish ranches. Other fugitives robbed pack-trains on the highway between Mexico City and Veracruz and retained their freedom by taking refuge in difficult terrain. Runaways would establish settlements, called palenques, which served as a base for their raids on plantations, roads, and towns. Owners attempted to discourage runaways by whipping captured fugitives, placing them in stocks, and other punishments. The Crown’s efforts at preventing slaves from running away generally failed. In 1571, the viceroy decreed that slaves missing from work for four days would receive fifty lashes. Those absent for more than eight days received a hundred lashes and had iron fetters placed around their feet for two months.146
By 1600, the slopes of the Pico de Orizaba and the lowlands stretching to Veracruz teemed with small settlements of fugitive slaves. The colonial government organized counter-insurgency campaigns against the runaway bands, but had little success because the rugged terrain prevented the use of mounted troops. Rather than succumbing to Spanish soldiers, runaway settlements often died an evolutionary death. Unattached runaway males found, or sometimes captured, women, became husbands and fathers, and subsequently devoted less energy to raiding.147
Runaways founded the most successful fugitive settlement near the Pico de Orizaba in about 1580. It existed for thirty years and contained more than a hundred adults. Yanga, an escaped slave born in Africa, reportedly of a royal family, became its king. In 1606, the viceroy commented on the settlement, which bore the name of its king:
I understood that many fugitive Negro slaves are gathered within the jurisdiction of Old and New Veracruz, Rio Blanco, and Punta de Anton Lizardo. They act as if they were free and are quite daring. They have entered the town of Tlalixcoyan to rob and sack houses and have seized domestic Negroes from their masters’ houses. They threaten Spaniards and set fire to their houses.148
Yanga taunted the Spanish, writing that his followers had fled the “cruelty and treachery of the Spaniards who, without any right, had become owners of their freedom.” In 1609, Spanish authorities sent a 450-man military force to eliminate the settlement. After a bloody battle, the Spaniards captured the settlement, which had been abandoned. After further combat, the Spanish concluded that they would be unable to subdue the fugitives.149
As a result, the viceroy accepted Yanga’s offer to stop raiding in exchange for his followers receiving not only their freedom but the right to found a legally recognized town. Yanga’s followers realized their own limits and did not try to end slavery. Rather, they made a pledge—almost impossible to enforce—to return future runaways. Colonial authorities kept their word and permitted the fugitives to found San Lorenzo de los Negros, where they lived in freedom. However, the town did suffer constant harassment by local authorities who resented the slaves’ successful struggle for freedom. Within a few generations, outsiders came into San Lorenzo and mingled with its original residents, making it racially indistinguishable from other settlements in the area.150
World History
