His reign was brief, but his and his followers’ opposition in what would become one of the first threats to Spanish colonial control in Venezuela and Latin America spawned thousands of slave revolts over the next three centuries. Miguel de Buria’s story is thought to be Venezuela’s first and only king of African descent.
According to history, enslaved men and women were shipped all over the World in the 16th century. About 100,000 slaves were brought from Africa to work on sugar and indigo plantations and mines run by the Spanish crown in Venezuela. The famous Real de Minas de San Felipe de Buria was one of these mines, where both African slaves and indigenous Jirajara natives worked to remove precious minerals from the soil.
Miguel was one of the staff. Miguel was born around 1510 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was taken to Venezuela by slaveowner Damian del Barrio, whose uncle, Pedro del Barrio, later inherited him. Miguel, who had acquired notoriety as a rebellious slave while serving on the Real de Minas de San Felipe de Buria in the province of Yaracuy, defied an effort by a Spanish foreman, Diego Hernandez de Serpa, to punish him.
According to legend, Miguel took the foreman’s sword and battled him before fleeing to the neighboring Cordillera de Merida mountains. Miguel founded a maroon colony and eventually led a revolt of enslaved workers in the San Felipe Mines from his mountain base. Miguel’s troops numbered 1,500 people, including liberated Africans, mulattoes, Zambos, and Jirajara indigenous Americans. The precise location of his maroon colony, which became known as the kingdom of Buria, is unknown, but it is known that Miguel was made king of the colony in 1552, with his wife and son serving as queen and prince.
Miguel was able to assault Spanish guards at the San Felipe Mines with his arms and supporters. Many of them were arrested, and those who had been inhuman to the enslaved workers were executed. Miguel and his supporters then launched raids on other plantations and mines in the Yaracuy province, freeing enslaved laborers and bringing them to his colony, where some became officials, governors, and military officers.
At this point, Miguel had begun to irritate the Spaniards, who had made many efforts to expel him and his newfound empire. Miguel and his allies, on the other hand, were still willing to strike back, and a source claims that during one of the Spanish colonial troops’ assaults at Nueva Segovia de Barquisimeto, Miguel, and his troops painted their faces with genipa Americana, a local plant, to scare the Spanish armies.
According to the paper, Miguel and his men raided the town in 1555, burning a church and killing a priest, Toribio Ruiz, and six settlers.
The conflict between Miguel’s followers and Spanish colonial forces raged on until Miguel was killed by Spanish troops led by Captain Diego de Losada in 1555. His realm collapsed after his death, and most of his supporters who fled the war were slaves again.
Miguel only ruled for three years, but he became a liberator during that time, leading enslaved men and women back into his colony’s protection. His narrative has since become part of Venezuelan folklore and literature, and it continues to influence many people.
His defiance, of course, inspired other enslaved workers to leave mines and plantations in the 1800s to establish their maroon groups. Maroons is a unique breed of “runaways” in general. They did not seek shelter in “sanctuary cities,” as they are now called, for various reasons. Instead, they abandoned the cities and towns built by whites to establish large and tiny villages in rough climates where whites were unable to follow them. Their new homes were swamps and bayous, mountains and woods.
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