1790-Sept.: The arrival of thirty-one enslaved people trafficked from Curaçao prompted Venezuelan officials to prohibit nine of them from landing because the…

1790-Sept.: The arrival of thirty-one enslaved people trafficked from Curaçao prompted Venezuelan officials to prohibit nine of them from landing because they had been “educated” in the Dutch colony. Intendente Juan Guillelmi argued that enslaved creoles brought up in foreign territories were inherently harmful to the security of the province. This specific fear of “creole contagion” was validated five years later when a man who had escaped from Curaçao led the largest insurrection of the enslaved in Venezuelan history. These landing prohibitions reflected a broader Caribbean-wide effort to restrict the movement of politically aware or “refractory” laborers.