[2] In the late 19th century, Yanga was named as a "national hero of Mexico" and "The first liberator of America" ("El Primer Libertador de América").

Because the people survived in part by raiding caravans taking goods along the Camino Real (Royal Road) between Veracruz and Mexico City, in 1609 the Spanish colonial government decided to undertake a campaign to regain control of this territory.

[7]: 5 According to the historian Adriana Naveda, Nyanga fled his enslaver in approximately 1570 and took refuge close to what is now the city of Córdoba, leading a group of maroons that gradually grew in number.

De Velasco did not give this possibility much importance, responding only by ordering the whipping of several enslaved people who had already been imprisoned for other kinds of crimes.

Nyanga’s maroons not only plundered the haciendas and farms within their reach in order to survive: they also attacked the Viceroyalty-era Mexico-Veracruz road, which connected the Gulf’s main port with the capital of New Spain.

These attacks were worrisome for the authorities, as, throughout the colonial period, this road was one of the busiest transit and communication routes in the Americas and its economic importance was essential for the development of New Spain.

In 1609, news spread that the Africans intended to kill the inhabitants of the capital and crown one of their own (Yanga), leading the viceroy to take extreme measures against the rebels.

Three years later, rumors would come that many Blacks who had been defeated had been dismembered and nailed to pieces along the main roads to serve as an example to the rebels.

Yanga—who was quite old by this time—decided to use his troops' superior knowledge of the terrain to resist the Spaniards, with the goal of causing them enough pain to draw them to the negotiating table.

[2] He asked for a treaty akin to those that had settled hostilities between Indians and Spaniards: an area of self-rule in return for tribute and promises to support the Spanish if they were attacked.

[9] In 1871, five decades after Mexican independence, Yanga was designated as a "national hero of Mexico" and El Primer Libertador de las Americas.

In 2023, the United States National Endowment for the Arts awarded a grant to Cara Mia Theatre Company in Dallas, Texas to develop a drama about Yanga's story.