Map - Yanga, Veracruz (Yanga)

Yanga Municipality is a municipality located in the southern area of the State of Veracruz, Mexico, about 80 km from the state capital of Xalapa. It was formerly known as San Lorenzo de los Negros (after a colony of cimarrons in the early 17th century) or San Lorenzo de Cerralvo (after a 17th-century Spanish colonial priest). In 1932 it was renamed after Gaspar Yanga, the cimarron leader who in 1609 resisted attack by Spanish forces trying to regain control of the area.

Gaspar Yanga was an Punu/Punu chief in present-day Gabon in Central Africa before being sold into slavery and sent to Mexico. As early as Yangah reportedly arrived in Mexico - before 1570 - it is very likely that he shipped by way of the Elmina Castle, the first ever European slave-trading post established on the west coast of Africa (1482). After leading an escape by a band of slaves in 1570, Yanga and his group settled in the highlands. They fought off Spanish forces in 1609, with further bloody skirmishes over nearly a decade.

In 1618 he finally negotiated with Spanish officials to grant freedom to the fugitive slaves and independence to their village, a few kilometers from the city of Cordoba, Veracruz. It became known as San Lorenzo de los Negros (named after the cimmarons) or San Lorenzo de Cerralvo (named after Juan Laurencio, a Jesuit cleric who had accompanied the 1609 expedition sent by the Viceroy). They gave the town of San Lorenzo its "small independence".

The black inhabitants of San Lorenzo proclaimed their loyalty to the Catholic Church and the King of Spain, but refused to pay tribute to the Spanish government.