Gaspar Yanga (Yanga, Veracruz, Mexico)

Gaspar Yanga (Yanga, Veracruz, Mexico)

Subject (Topic)
Slavery-Emancipation
Middle Passage
Transatlantic Slave Trade
Slave Trade
Diaspora
Yanga, Veracruz, Mexico

Subject (Name)
Yanga, Gaspar

Subject (Object Type)
Commemorative sculpture

The muscular, semi-nude figure looks resolutely forward as he raises a machete in his right hand and holds a long (sugar cane?) in his left. A shackle with a broken chain is still attached to his left wrist. The work was created to celebrate Gaspar Yanga, a 17th century self-emancipated (former slave) leader of a maroon colony of self-emancipated people (former slaves) near Veracruz, Mexico. He successfully resisted a Spanish attack on the maroon colony in 1609 and later negotiated with the Spanish colonial government to secure self-rule for the maroon settlement.

Unknown

Wikipedia Commons

To read about UNSECO's decision to name the city of Yanga, Veracruz a World Heritage Site, click here.

JPEG

English

Visual Arts-Sculpture

Yanga Park, Av. 2, Centro, 94930 Yanga, Ver., Mexico

Sculpture