It is very likely that its formation results from the diverse economic components whose Spanish colonial roots created a strong African slave labor force in the region of Xalapa. Its geographical proximity and the close socio-economic relationship with the sugar mill of Our Lady of the Conception (The Concha), which sustains this community, and with the former ranch and mill of San Miguel Almolonga-both created in the last decade of the nineteenth century (Bermudez, 1988: 68-69)-suggest the existence of relevant historical connections between those productive centers and the formation of Coyolillo. A mill in close proximity to San Miguel Almolonga, San Sebastian, became operational at the close of the sixteenth century and from then on was occupied by manual African slave labor until at least the middle of the seventeenth century (Ibid, 70). On property belonging to this ranch, even now in the twentieth century, the common land of the people3 was formed, having as its town center, or nucleus, San Nicolas, a neighboring community of Coyolillo. The important presence of African slave labor in these productive areas and some present-day characteristics of the community are able to provide us with clues regarding its origin. At the same time, many interrogations are created in that it deals with conflicting explanations concerning the events and people of the land. In this respect, there exists data that can serve as signposts about its foundation. On one hand, the oldest available data show that in the last decade of the seventeenth century (1695, to be exact), there already existed a ranch with the name Santa Rosa of Coyolillo (Garcia Mundo, 1985: 97). Additional information indicates that during the eighteenth century, the town of San Carlos (known today as Ursuo Galvan) was founded as a result of the migration of "blacks" from the Pensacola military prison that rejected North American nationality when that territory was passed to the United States after having been in Spanish possession. Its descendents were later dispersed throughout La Antigua, Mozomboa and Coyolillo (Ramirez Lavoignet, cited in Garcia Mundo, Op. Cit.). Toward the last three decades of the eighteenth century, in the full decline of slavery, the presence of free blacks was very visible, not only in the