In 1815, as warfare raged throughout Spanish South America and an increasing number of the inhabitants, regardless of race or class, began accepting the idea of independence, a Venezuelan black named Juan Izaguirre was telling slaves on the Valle de Onato estate that they were as free as anyone else. At the best of times, language and ideas such as these were considered inflammable and subversive. In the midst of the events of the early nineteenth century, they aroused even more concern, particularly in Venezuela where slaves had taken up arms some years earlier and were engaged in a struggle that threatened to develop into a race war, so that Izaguirre’s prompt arrest must have produced widespread relief.1 Yet, while actionable and disturbing, the words that he used should not have been unfamiliar to anyone, for Izaguirre was simply repeating what was then very much in vogue. His were...
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