A city upon a hill

Photos by Quoc Nguyen.

Two years BEFORE the Pilgrams landed at Plymouth Rock, the municipio of San Lorenzo de los Negros was granted a charter by the Spanish crown. Other than pointing out that colonialism and “civilization” were in the Americas long before the English bumbled on the scene, why is the founding of a small community outside Cordoba Veracruz so noteworthy?

The small city changed its name to Yanga back in the 1930s in honor of its founding father: an escaped slave who had organized a slave revolt back in the 1570s, establishing a refuge inthe hills over Cordoba and welcoming an influx of other escaped slaves. In 1609 (yes, that’s 9 years before 1618), and for a few years after, the Spanish sporadically attempted to capture the settlement, every attempt at re-enslaving the inhabitants, or destroying the refuge, failing.

In the interim, despite the occasional raid by the Spanish, the community was self-sufficient and a relatively prosperous rural town. One with slightly different customs than other Mexican communities perhaps, but ones lasting down to the present. Better to negotiate… “leave us alone, and we’ll leave you alone” compromise worked out, which — the new municipality NOT being an indigenous community that was expected to submit to the crown, besides being exempt from the usual tribute — making the small bit of free Africa the oldest community of its type in North America.