VENEZUELA UNDER SPANISH RULE AND BEFORE
Pre-Columbian times—No great empire—Primitive
Venezuelans—Picture rocks—Invasions—The Guatavitas and
the legend of El Dorado—Amalivaca—An Inca prince?—Ancient
roads—The discovery of _Tierra Firme_, 1498—Alonso de Ojeda—The
name Venezuela—A great geographical fraud—Discovery of the
treasures of the west—Arrival of the _conquistadores_—The
slave trade—Treacheries of the Cubagua colonists—Gonzalez de
Ocampo—Las Casas—First cities of the New World—Settlement
of Coro—The Welsers—Alfinger—Ingratitude of Charles
V.—New Andalusia—Exploration of the Orinoco—Cruelties
of Alfinger—Exploration of the Llanos—First Bishop of
Venezuela—Destruction of New Cadiz—Faxardo and the
Carácas—Cities of Western Venezuela—The rebellion
of Aguirre—Foundation of Carácas—Pimentel moves his
capital to the new city—Capture of Carácas by English
buccaneers—Inaccuracies of Spanish historians—Explorations of
Berrio in Guayana—Raleigh and El Dorado—Attempts to civilise
the Indians—Missions—University of Carácas—Guipuzcoana
Company—Revolution of Gual and España—Miranda—The last
Captain-General—The Junta—Appeals to England—The Declaration of
Independence.
The advanced civilisations of early Peru and Mexico have left us,
despite the vicious destruction of everything “heathen” by the
“Christian” _conquistadores_, in possession of sufficient documents of
one kind or another to glean a fairly complete and consecutive story
of those countries in pre-Columbian times, as we may term that period
before the discovery of the New World by Columbus. It is otherwise in
Venezuela; here there seems to have been no advanced civilisation; and
the _conquistadores_ were as incapable of noticing or recording details
of the social organisation and international relations of the savage
aborigines as of appreciating the knowledge and skill of Incas or Aztecs;
hence we have to depend mainly, if not entirely, on the information
gathered with difficulty from buried ruins, tombs, and sepulchre-caves.
Dr. G. Marcano has been one of the chief workers in this direction, and
his systematic and painstaking work may one day give us a fairly complete
picture of Venezuela before the Spaniards.
In the remote past, long (though we do not know how long) before the
arrival of the white men from the east, the land appears to have been
sparsely peopled by semi-nomadic, primitive tribes of a long-headed
race, whose social organisation was limited to a grouping in temporary
villages, while in the arts they had advanced as far as the making of
rude earthenware, and perhaps the use of curiously shaped stones for
personal adornment. They buried their dead in caves, either natural
or artificial, placing them in a sitting posture in palm-leaf frails
or earthenware urns, accompanied by small pieces of pottery and other
household matters. The names of “tribes” in Guayana appear to be far
too numerous to be really distinct races, and it is probable that they
represent merely the more permanent associations of villages or groups
of villages with slight differences of dialect. In Humboldt’s time there
were traditions of the internecine warfare of these “tribes,” and it is
possible that in times of strife they were guilty of cannibalism, though
in later days authentic occurrences of the eating of human flesh were
very rare, if existent at all.
Throughout Guayana there are crude rock inscriptions of comparatively
ancient date, apparently representing an early attempt at
picture-writing, and it is said that some of the shy and reticent Indian
tribes appear to know the meaning of these. As yet no one has obtained
any satisfactory clue to the purpose of these _rocas pintadas_.
We have said that these long-headed peoples occupied the land in the
remote past, though their descendants were to be found in parts of
Venezuela in comparatively recent times, and tribes of mixed race still
bear witness to their existence. Many years before the Spanish conquest,
however, there was a great influx of the more normal short-headed
peoples, divided into more or less civilised communities, and possessed
of some proficiency in the arts, with beliefs which were, in some
respects, an advance upon the Nature-worship of the earlier inhabitants.
These last were soon compelled to withdraw into the mountain fastnesses,
or the equally inaccessible forests of the south, while their conquerors
settled in the Caribbean Hills and the lower valleys of the Andes, where
at some points excavations have revealed something of their customs.
Though greatly inferior to the ruling nations of Peru and Mexico, these
races must still be looked upon as intermediate between them and the
savages already referred to.
The Guatavitas of the plateau of Bogotá, whose great religious festival
probably gave rise to the legend of El Dorado and his golden city of
Manoa, may be taken as representing their higher development. The
Guatavita chief, according to Acosta, used on the occasion of this
annual festival to smear his body with turpentine preparatory to rolling
in gold-dust; then, proceeding on a barge to the centre of their
sacred lake, he would cast into it gold ornaments, emeralds, and other
valuables, finally plunging into the waters himself, an action which was
the signal for shouts of applause from the worshippers on the banks.[1]
Whether the Incas ever really held any communication with these lowland
peoples it is impossible at present to say, but perhaps the legend of
Amalivaca, who, the Indians say, visited them and began to teach them
to write, finally sailing away to the east with a promise to return,
may be based upon an actual visit of a Peruvian leader, who left on an
exploratory voyage to the east, from which he never returned, at least
to these shores. It is strange that there was in Humboldt’s time on the
Llanos between Barinas and the River Apure some twenty miles of well-made
road, elevated about fifteen feet above the frequently flooded plains,
the remains of a causeway from the mountains made long before Spanish
times, and apparently the work of some nation far more advanced in the
arts than any living close at hand.
We emerge from these regions of conjecture into the definite historical
period rather more than five years after the first discovery of the
islands of the New Continent by Columbus, when the great explorer, on his
third westward journey, coasted along the south side of the Peninsula of
Paria on July 31, 1498. He did not land there, but his son tells us that
from the ships they could see men on the shore dressed in vari-coloured
turbans and loincloths. When he entered the Gulf of Paria, he had
expected to be able to pass out on the west side, believing the peninsula
to be an island; realising his error, he turned back and entered
the Caribbean through the Boca del Draco, “giving thanks to God who
delivered him from so many troubles and dangers, still showing him new
countries full of peaceful people, and great wealth.” On his way across
to Hispaniola (Santo Domingo), he passed by an island which he named
Margarita, knowing nothing, as it seems, of the rich pearl fisheries
which later rendered the name so appropriate.
Great enthusiasm was naturally kindled in Spain by the news of the
discovery of a mainland (_Tierra Firme_) west of the islands, and it was
decided to send a special exploratory expedition. Hence we have Alonso de
Ojeda setting sail in 1499, and landing several times on what is now the
Peninsula of Paria, though he knew it by the native name of Maracapana.
The region generally he designated Nueva Andalusia. Encouraged by what
he had seen, he sailed on westwards as far as Cabo de la Vela (now in
Colombia), and entered the Lake of Maracaibo or Coquibacoa. Here there
were at that time, as now, Indian pile-dwellings on the shores of the
lake, which so far reminded Ojeda of Venice or Venezia, that he gave to
the region the name of Little Venice, or Venezuela.
Thus we have the mainland of the New World or the Indies first sighted
by Columbus and partly examined and named by Ojeda, but we may here turn
aside from the story of Venezuela for a moment to see how, by a great
and successful geographical fraud, the whole of the continent came to be
called America.
There was on Ojeda’s ship a Florentine merchant by name Amerigo Vespucci,
who appeared to have contented himself on this voyage with gazing from
the deck at the shores of the new countries. After returning to Europe,
he developed sufficient zeal to make a voyage on his own account to
Brazil, and wrote a clever joint account of both voyages, in which he
represented himself as a leader in the first expedition which effected a
landing on the mainland of the New World. This _suggestio falsi_, if it
deserves no harsher term, led Martin Hylacomylus in his “Cosmographia,”
published in 1509, to say of the discovery of the different parts of the
globe: “_Alia quarta pars per Americū Vesputium ... inuenta est: qua
non video cur quis iure vetet ab Americo inventatore ... Amerigen quasi
Americi terram, siue Americam dicendam._”[2] Thus it comes that a third
of the land of the globe bears the name of a man who had no claim to be
considered as of any particular importance on the ship which bore the
first Spanish explorers who set foot in Venezuela.
Meanwhile, close behind Ojeda there was travelling an expedition
including Pedro Alonso Niño, Luis Guerra, and Christobal Guerra, who
visited Margarita and the adjacent islands of Cubagua, where they had
some intercourse with the natives and obtained from them by barter a
number of pearls. Next they touched the Cumanagoto coast, not far from
where Barcelona now stands, and sailed from there to the Coro district.
Here again they were well received by the natives, and exchanged European
trinkets with them for gold and pearls. They continued their voyage as
far as the Goajira Peninsula, but found the people there of a fierce and
menacing aspect, so they returned to Spain, bearing news of the wealth of
the West.
Had those natives only kept their pearls and golden trinkets from the
sight of these first genuine explorers, the history of Venezuela might
have been very different. The white men who next visited Venezuela were
little, if anything, more than rapacious brigands, consumed with a lust
for gain, before which any shreds of morality or good feeling they may
once have possessed went for nothing.
In the year 1500 some fifty adventurers, sailing from Hispaniola,
established a settlement on Cubagua for the pearl fisheries, and soon
a horde of nondescripts from all the countries of Europe flocked to
this source of easily won treasure, which under their uncontrolled and
extravagant exploitation began to fail rapidly. With appetites whetted,
these spoilt children of fortune turned to look for other means of
acquiring wealth, always provided these did not entail any honest toil,
and from this time begins the long black record of Spanish cruelties in
the Indies, with the fabricated excuses of cannibalism and ferocity among
the Indians.
To appreciate the position we must recall the infamous decree of Charles
V. of Spain, which permitted the Europeans in the Indies to capture and
enslave the natives who in any way opposed the “colonisation” of the
new countries, or who practised cannibalism. The Indians being found
most reprehensibly innocent of either of these crimes, the Cubaguans
pronounced their very presence an evidence of opposition, and further
assumed that they must all be cannibals. Carefully avoiding the
possibility of arousing the wrath of the fine and stalwart Guaiquerias of
Margarita, who lived in uncomfortable proximity to their town, they took
steps to enslave some of the more remote Indians of the mainland.
While the world, the flesh, and the devil had been having things to
themselves on Cubagua, the Church had been entering upon the new field
of missionary work on the mainland, and three Franciscan monks settled
on the Cumaná coast in 1513, while some Dominicans established a little
community at Manjar, near Píritu. At both places the monks were on the
most friendly terms with the natives, on whom, at that date, their
influence was wholly for good.
The Franciscans of Cumaná received one day a visit from a few of the
adventurers of Cubagua, who had previously, for obvious reasons, ignored
the existence of the missionaries. Notwithstanding, they were hospitably
treated, and entertained as well as might be by the monks and their
Indian friends for several days; then the most catholic and Christian
_conquistadores_ revealed themselves in their true colours. The cacique
of the district (christened Don Alonso by the friars) was invited with
his family to dine on board; he accepted, unsuspecting, and found
himself, his wife and children, captives on a ship making sail for Santo
Domingo. At sight of this treachery, the Indians naturally seized the
monks as partly responsible, but acceded to their request that before
taking summary vengeance they should allow time for a messenger to go
to Hispaniola and return with the cacique in safety; for this purpose
four months was granted. But justice in Santo Domingo was non-existent,
and legal decisions bought and sold. The pleas of the friars and their
superiors in the island were of no avail, and at the termination of the
stipulated period the monks of Cumaná were put to death by the mourning
Indians. The region remained abandoned by Spaniards till 1518, when a new
Franciscan community was established.
[Illustration: THE CHAMA VALLEY ABOVE MÉRIDA.]
[Illustration: MOUNTAIN STREAM BETWEEN CUMANACOA AND CUMANÁ.]
In 1520 the Dominicans of Chichirivichi, near Barcelona, also fell
victims to Spanish treachery; the Indians had previously recognised
their innocence of any possible complicity in the Cumaná affair, but
their turn came on this wise. One of the Cubagua colonists, Alonso de
Ojeda, said to have been the unworthy father of the author of the name
Venezuela, crossed to Chichirivichi, and was well received by friars and
Indians alike. Being, like most of his confrères, neither a gentleman
himself nor able to recognise one when he met him, he insulted one of his
hosts, the cacique of Maraguey, by asking whether any of his people ate
human flesh; the chief replied with some feeling that they did not, and
withdrew, recognising the motive of the question, as seeking the sanction
under the _codicia_ to enslave all cannibals. Ojeda departed, we may
believe unregretted, and sailed along the coast to Maracapana, where he
was well received by the cacique (christened Gil Gonzalez). Ojeda was,
or pretended to be, short of corn, and accordingly Gonzalez gave him
guides for ten or twelve miles inland to enable him to buy maize from the
Tageres Indians, while these lent him fifty men to carry the grain to
Maracapana. By way of return for the various favours received, Ojeda’s
men fell on the porters as they rested in the market-place and carried
them off to the caravel. On this occasion retribution fell, in part at
least, on the heads of those who deserved it, for Ojeda landed again
farther down the coast, where Gil Gonzalez met and killed him with six
of his fellow-scoundrels. Unfortunately, the reception accorded to their
countrymen by the friars of Chichirivichi made them appear privy to the
plot against the Indians, and they, too, fell victims to the vengeance of
Maraguey.
The Audiencia Real of Hispaniola, by way of brazening out the crimes of
the Cubaguans, now dispatched Gonzalez de Ocampo with an armed force to
settle the country. The leader of the expedition appears to have been
temperate and wise in his dealings, and succeeded in establishing peace,
founding a city where Cumaná now stands under the name of Nueva Toledo
(1520). Shortly afterwards, Bartolomé de las Casas, a noble figure in
the history of the period, reached these shores, and discovering for
himself the true history of what had been described as unprovoked attacks
by the Indians, suggested that a fortress should be built opposite
New Toledo, with a garrison under such control that it should protect
the Indians from the lawless gangs of Cubagua, and keep in check any
unprovoked manifestation of hostility on the part of the natives towards
well-intentioned Spaniards. As might be expected, the Cubaguans were
extremely hostile to such a project, and so hampered Las Casas that he
resolved to return to Hispaniola and thence to Spain, to lay before the
authorities a true account of the condition of affairs in the west.
Francisco de Soto was left in charge of affairs in New Toledo, and no
sooner was the good influence of Las Casas withdrawn than he recommenced
the slave traffic, which had been the cause of all the previous trouble,
and now resulted in the destruction of the new city after the massacre of
inhabitants and missionaries and an invasion of Cubagua by the Indians of
the mainland. A second semi-military expedition from Hispaniola in 1521,
under the leadership of Jacome Castellon, built the castle of Araya in
spite of the Cubaguans, and founded the city of _la gloriosa Santa Ines
de Nueva Córdoba_, the modern Cumaná. The fortress was reduced to ruins
by an earthquake in 1530.
In the meantime, orders had been received from Spain to name the already
existing city on Cubagua, Nueva Cadiz, and three years later, in 1524,
La Asunción was founded on the island of Margarita, while in 1527 the
inhabitants of New Cadiz received the right to elect annually an alcalde,
the Emperor giving 500 pesos for rebuilding the church there. Thus
we have three cities founded in Venezuela territory within the first
twenty-five years of the sixteenth century.
With the year 1527 the history of Venezuela as a colony, or rather a
group of colonies, under Spanish dominion, may be said to commence. We
have already seen a form of government established in Cubagua, which
for a time appears to have existed more or less irregularly apart from
the other provinces into which Venezuela, with Trinidad, was shortly
divided, namely, Nueva Andalusia in the east, Venezuela or Coro in the
west, and Trinidad and the Orinoco in the south.
Attracted by the reports of the first expedition, various merchants
and adventurers had settled in the Coro country, and lived on good
terms with the Caiquetia nation of Indians. Now, however, some of these
colonists, losing taste for a civilised life, made attempts to commence
the nefarious trade which was at that time disgracing all the countries
of the Old World in Africa and America. Having learned wisdom from the
disasters in Nueva Andalusia, the audience of Santo Domingo dispatched
a splendid man in Juan de Ampies to nip the evil in the bud; as a first
step he founded the city of Santa Ana de Coro on that Saint’s day in
1527, and in his administration sought steadily to foster the spirit
of amity between the Caiquetias (under their cacique Manaure) and the
Europeans. His good work was soon, however, destined to be ignored and
frustrated by the selfish policy of the King of Spain.
Charles V. had at various times raised heavy loans from the _Welser_,
the bankers of Augsburg, and now in part payment he handed over to them
the administration and exploitation of the newly-acquired province of
Venezuela. Ambrosius Alfinger was appointed first Governor of Coro, with
jurisdiction over all the country between the Gulf of Coquibacoa and the
western end of the Peninsula of Paria. He arrived at the seat of his
government with three hundred Spaniards, many of them of noble blood,
and fifty German miners, and found Juan de Ampies too patriotic to raise
difficulties on account of the ingratitude of a worthless king. The man
who had founded Coro and started administration on sound lines spent the
remainder of his days in retirement in Santo Domingo, though at a later
date the barren island of Curaçao was given to him as some return for
his services.
The following year saw Nueva Andalusia constituted a definite province,
under Don Diego de Ordaz as first Governor, who was given authority to
explore and conquer all the territory to the south. Sedeño was appointed
Governor of Trinidad, but as yet the Orinoco region was ignored or by
implication included in New Andalusia, and it was therefore Ordaz who,
upon his arrival, journeyed up the Orinoco as far as the rapids of
Carichana, near the mouth of the Meta, where he heard stories of the gold
and emeralds to be found in the country whence that river flowed. The
success of the voyage proved his death, however, for Sedeño was jealous
of his fame and in league with Matienza, then commander-in-chief in
Cubagua, managed to poison Ordaz in Nueva Cadiz on his return.
In the west Alfinger undertook a long journey of discovery towards what
is now Colombia, and in his greed for gold and precious stones committed
all manner of atrocities on the Indians who had none, or who refused to
be robbed. Making a permanent camp in the country to the west of the
Lake of Maracaibo, after founding the city of that name in 1529, he
sent a party of Spaniards and Germans to Coro for fresh supplies and
reinforcements. The party lost themselves in the forest-clad mountains at
the south end of the lake, and in their privations some of the members
turned cannibals, killing and eating their Indian servants. Apparently
the taste for human flesh, once acquired, was not easily overcome, for
the survivors, when given food by some Indians on the banks of the Chama,
fell upon their benefactors and devoured them! The few that reached
Coro found that Alfinger had been killed in his camp in 1531, and his
expedition had accomplished nothing beyond outraging the Indians.
Georg von Speyer (Jorge de Spira) was the next Governor, appointed in
1533, and with him came Alonso de Pacheco, and ancestors of many of the
modern Venezuelan families. Before his death, in 1540, von Speyer and his
equally energetic lieutenant, Nicolaus Federmann, carried out extensive
journeys in western and southern Venezuela, and the former reached the
banks of the Guaviare, which were never again visited by Europeans until
the middle of the nineteenth century. In the meantime Coro was made
the seat of a bishopric, and Don Rodrigo de Bastidas arrived as first
occupant of the see in 1536. The Bishop acted as interim Governor after
Speyer’s death until the new Governor, Philip von Huten (Felipe de Urre),
arrived in 1541. The latter also made extensive journeys into the Llanos
in search of El Dorado, but was killed in 1545 by Juan de Carvajal, the
founder of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción de el Tocuyo. With his death
the rule of the Welsers practically came to an end, though the King of
Spain only finally removed all claim to power on their part in 1558.
Their energy in exploration is indisputable, but their dominion was
marked throughout by cruelty and extravagance.
In Nueva Andalusia the new Governor after Ordaz, Gerónimo Ortal, and
after him Sedeño, Governor of Trinidad, were also exploring the Llanos
and endeavouring to settle that region, but the previous evil deeds of
the Cubaguans had made the task very difficult, if not impossible. Before
long these received a just reward for their crimes, in a succession of
natural catastrophes, which ultimately drove the remnant from the island.
In 1530 an earthquake shook the town and destroyed many buildings, not
without loss of life, and in 1543 earthquake and hurricane together
wrought so much havoc to life and property that only a few lingered on,
persisting in the slave trade, for which New Cadiz was notorious, until
at last the population decreased to nil in 1550; even the exact site of
the city is now unknown. One important man appears on the scene from
Margarita, about 1555, in Francisco Faxardo, the son of a Spaniard of
noble birth who had wedded a princess of the Guaiquerias. Crossing to
the coasts of the Carácas, he established friendly relations with the
Teques and other Indians, and in 1560 built the Villa de San Francisco,
approximately where the capital of Venezuela now stands, together with
the Villa de El Collado (Pablo Collado being the Governor in Coro),
afterwards Caraballeda, about eight miles east of La Guaira.
Under the Spanish Governors who succeeded the Welsers, the already
evident tendency to leave the barren plains of Coro for the more fruitful
territory to the east and south became more marked. Mérida had been
founded in 1542, Borburata (Puerto Cabello) in 1549, Nueva Segovia
(Barquisimeto) in 1552, and Nueva Valencia, on the shores of Lake
Tacarigua, in 1555, with Trujillo in 1556, while the mines of San Felipe
and Nirgua had been known and worked for some years.
In 1561 occurred the rebellion of the mad “traitor” Lope de Aguirre.
After journeying down the Amazon from Peru, he sailed up to Margarita,
and there robbed the treasury. With his booty he crossed to Borburata,
sacked the port, and climbed the mountain road to Valencia, from which
town he wrote his famous letter to Philip II. In this he upbraided the
monarch for his lack of practical interest in the colonists’ welfare,
in lands won by Spaniards for his father, while the latter lived at
his ease in Castile; the officials and priests sent out to guide them
sought, he said, only their own ends. The monkish historian Oviedo y
Baños, incensed by the reference to the laziness of the Churchmen, calls
him _aquel bruto_ (“that brute”), but it is probable that most of his
complaints were fully justified, though he was hardly fitted to found
a new and better order of things. He marched on Barquisimeto and took
it, and, hearing that the Governor was approaching with troops from the
direction of Tocuyo, wrote him a letter, the humour of which can best be
appreciated after reading the early writers’ accounts of the poltroonery
of Pablo Collado, for which he was subsequently deposed by the Audience
of Santo Domingo.
The letter opens: “_Muy magnífico Señor,—Entre otros papeles que de V.
md. en este Pueblo se han hallado, estaba una carta suya a mi dirigida,
con mas ofrecimientos, y preambulos, que Estrellas ay en el Cielo._”[3]
These offers he rejects because, he says, he has thrown off his
allegiance to Spain and therefore needs no pardon for rebellion; then he
closes with the sarcastic farewell:—
“_Nuestro Señor la muy magnifica persona de V. md. guarde_,
“_Su Servidor_,
“_Lope de Aguirre._”[4]
The Governor wept with vexation on reading this epistle, and, after the
manner of men of his stamp, said what he would do to Aguirre, were they
able to fight the matter out in single combat. Meanwhile the troops
surprised and took the town from the rebel, who fled towards San Felipe.
He met his daughter there, and killed her to save her from the disgrace
she might expect as the child of “the traitor.” Oviedo y Baños declaims
at length against the murder as the crowning act of cruelty of his life,
but while he was undoubtedly guilty during his career of many acts of
wild savagery, this final deed seems to an unbiased mind to be creditable
rather than otherwise. Be that as it may, he was captured and killed,
and his body was quartered and thrown to the dogs on the various roads
leading away from Barquisimeto.
Whether as a result of Aguirre’s protest or no, it is impossible to say,
but in 1564 Philip II. took steps to adequately reward one man who had
worked to develop his Caribbean colonies, in conferring upon Faxardo
the title of Don, and offering him the governorship of the lands he
had been so instrumental in opening to commerce. Unfortunately, before
the messenger arrived, Faxardo had been treacherously killed by Cobos,
alcalde of Cumaná, who was jealous of his exploits in the west.
The work of this first traveller in the Carácas was not entirely lost,
however, for three years later, during the governorship of Don Diego
Ponce de Leon, Diego de Losada, a native of Tocuyo, travelled across
through Villa Rica (Nirgua) to the Llanos, where his efforts, in spite of
many battles with the Indians, were directed rather towards settlement
than conquest. Returned to the Villa de San Francisco (of Faxardo), he
founded there—presumably in the latter part of 1567, though, strangely
enough, the exact date is not recorded—the city of Santiago de Leon de
Carácas. As he had on his travels adopted San Sebastian as his patron and
protector against the poisoned arrows of the Indians, that saint’s day
has been celebrated in a special manner in Carácas since its foundation.
Ten years later Don Juan Pimentel, the newly appointed Governor, moved
his seat from Coro to Carácas, and that city has remained since, with
one short break, the capital of Venezuela. For some years at this time
there seems to have been no Governor of Nueva Andalusia, and a captain of
considerable energy and tact, named Garcia-Gonzalez, was dispatched by
Pimentel to settle the countries near the boundaries of the two provinces.
Carácas is splendidly situated for defence, the steep range of the coast
making a natural 5,000-foot rampart against invaders from the sea. It was
taken once, however, and the story of its capture has, for some reason,
been wrongly described by nearly every writer on Venezuela, though
Kingsley’s reference in “Westward Ho!” avoids the current inaccuracies.
Generally it is briefly stated that Drake, or El Draque, took the city
at the beginning of June, 1595; but Sir Francis was then in England
preparing for what proved to be his last voyage, during which he died at
sea off Porto Bello in Panama, a place confused by an American writer on
Venezuela with Puerto Cabello. The true account may be read in Hakluyt’s
“Voyages” as it was given by one of the members of the party.
Briefly, Captain (afterwards Sir Amyas) Preston and Captain Sommers,
after putting Cumaná to ransom, landed on the Carácas coast and captured
a small fort, presumably near Naiguatá. Finding the Governor of the fort
asleep in the forest, they learned that the inhabitants of Carácas had
heard of the arrival of the corsairs, and were preparing to meet them on
the main road over the mountains from La Guaira. The fugitive, whose name
is given as Villalpando, was induced to act as guide along the “Indian
Way” to the city, which Preston entered on May 29th, after a difficult
journey through forests and over mountains. The only Spaniard found
in the place was an old gentleman, Don Alonso Andrea de Ledesma, who
gallantly tried to repel the invaders single-handed. The Englishmen had
orders to spare him for his chivalry, but his refusal to accept defeat
led to his death, and he was interred with honour by his foes. Meanwhile
messengers were carrying the news to the troops in the pass on the La
Guaira road, who returned to find such valuables as they had left in the
city gone with the invaders by the supposedly unknown Indian way. Preston
continued his way to Coro, found nothing there and burned the town, and
finally returned to England on September 10, 1595.
Here we must go back for a year or two to follow the course of events in
the east and south. In 1591 Don Antonio de Berrio y Oruña was appointed
Governor of Trinidad and the Orinoco, and very shortly after his arrival
he gave evidence of his energetic spirit by crossing to the mainland and
founding there the city of San Thomé de la Guayana, east of the mouth of
the Caroni, where the castle of Guayana Vieja stands to this day.[5] In
1595 Sir Walter Raleigh first visited these regions of Guayana or Guiana,
described so fully in his famous book. On his way he took Berrio prisoner
in Trinidad, but afterwards released him.
[Illustration: BARQUISIMETO.]
Both men, clever and energetic as they were, rapidly became fascinated
by the stories of Manoa, the city of El Dorado, which were being handed
on from one narrator to another, and losing nothing, by repetition; the
fabled wealth of the Golden Inca was eventually the cause of the death of
both. In 1615 Berrio led an expedition southward from San Thomé, but he
at length returned unsuccessful, with only thirty of his three hundred
men, and himself died of fever shortly afterwards. His son, Don Fernando
de Berrio, took charge temporarily, but was soon removed to Santa Fé de
Bogotá, as Viceroy of the New Kingdom of Granada, into which Venezuela
was now incorporated.
Raleigh’s final expedition in 1618 captured the fortress of San Thomé,
but this and other encounters with the Spanish colonists, who, owing to
a misunderstanding, appear to have commenced the attacks, led to his
execution by the poltroon James I. to appease the wrath of Spain. Thus
the fable of Manoa remained alive for two centuries more till finally
exposed by Humboldt.
The province of Venezuela by this time was completely conquered, but
New Andalusia, or Cumaná, which again had a Governor of its own, still
continued to be the scene of strife; and Vides, as Governor, did not
improve matters by his encouragement of the slave trade. At length, in
1652, the suggestion of one Francisco Rodriguez Liete to the bishops of
Puerto Rico, made four years previously, was adopted, and, all military
operations against the Indians were forbidden, with a view to carrying
out organised attempts to civilise them through the missions, and in
1656 a station was again founded at Barcelona by Franciscan monks. As an
indication of the success of these new methods it may be observed that
within 150 years (before 1799) the Franciscans founded 38 towns with
25,000 Indian inhabitants, while the previous equal period of aggression
and oppression had effected no settlement of a lasting nature. In 1686
missions were established round Cumaná and south of the Delta by the
Capuchins, while the Jesuits undertook to civilise the Orinoco. The
latter were obliged on account of ill-health to abandon their first
stations within a very short time, but returned again in 1725 to meet
with increased success. The inhuman cruelty which their creed allowed
some of them to practise towards the pagan Indians undid much of the good
they may have at first accomplished, and in the nineteenth century their
missions became deserted, with one or two exceptions, while the last of
the missionaries after the revolution seem to have been as licentious and
lazy as their predecessors had been cruel and energetic.
The founding of the University of Carácas by Philip V. in 1721 seemed to
promise development of the colony on sound lines, but three years later a
monopoly of trade was granted to the Compañía Guipuzcoana, a step which
probably did more than any other single act to bring about disaffection
towards Spain. The province was separated from New Granada in 1731, when
the whole of what is now Venezuela (with the exception of the Maracaibo
region, incorporated in 1777) was included in a new _Capitania-General_
of that name. The first Captain-General was Colonel Don Sebastian Garcia
de la Torre.
As a result of the evident discontent among the colonists the privileges
of the Guipuzcoana Company were taken away from them in 1778, but the
disregard by the mother country of Venezuela’s best interests could not
be atoned for by a negative act only, and nineteen years later, in 1797,
occurred the first definite attempt at revolt. Under the influence of
the French Revolution, some of the colonists banded themselves together
with the purpose of forming an independent Republic of Venezuela; the
leading spirits appear to have been Don Manuel Gual and Don José Maria
España, but one of the other leaders in his zeal to multiply adherents
disclosed the schemes to his barber, who straightway communicated the
fact to the authorities, Carbonell being Captain-General. Six of the
leaders were hanged, drawn, and quartered, many having voluntarily given
themselves up as their best hope of safety. Gual and España fled, but the
latter, returning from Trinidad in 1799 to visit his wife in La Guaira,
was captured, executed, and his body mutilated by order of the new
Captain-General, Manuel Guevara Vasconcelos.
The revolution of Gual and España thus being ended, nothing of special
note occurred in Venezuela for six years, but in the meantime a
Venezuelan, Don Francisco Miranda, who had relations in Europe and had
travelled in many lands, fighting in the American War of Independence,
and for France in the wars with Prussia in 1792-5, was conferring with
Pitt in England. From the British statesman he obtained promises of help,
but finally got practical assistance in America, and at last invaded
the colony at Ocumare oh March 25, 1806. Vasconcelos had been warned
of his arrival, and repulsed him without difficulty; Miranda retired
to Trinidad, but continued to work for his purpose there, and made an
unsuccessful landing in Coro some five months later. His resources were
exhausted, however, and he finally returned to Trinidad and thence to
Europe.
In the following year Vasconcelos died, and the interim Captain, Juan
de las Casas, recognised Prince Murat as regent in place of Charles
IV., the Prince’s commissioners reaching La Guaira in July, 1808. The
colonists, however, compelled him to swear allegiance to Prince Ferdinand
as Ferdinand VII., then captive in Bayonne. In May of the following year
Vicente Emparan arrived as new Captain-General, appointed by the Supreme
Junta of Spain, but finding the people unwilling to acknowledge that
authority, he was easily led by Madariaga, a Chilian, then canon of the
cathedral of Carácas, to appeal to them as to whether they wished him
to carry out his duties as Governor. It is said that Emparan came out
on a balcony to put the question to the crowd, and Madariaga, behind
him, signed to them to reply to him in the negative, “_No lo queremos_”
(“We do not wish it”), in answer to which Emparan said, “_Yo tampoco
quiero mandar_” (“Nor do I wish to command”), and so retired from the
captaincy, which he was the last to fill. He was finally deposed by a
local Junta formed to act in the name of Ferdinand VII. on April 19, 1810.
While this new Government had sworn allegiance to the rightful occupant
of the throne of Spain, it was inevitable, in view of the disturbed state
of that country and the insecurity of the reigning dynasty, that sooner
or later the colonies would break away completely. The Junta sent Simon
Bolivar to England to appeal for protection and to ask the Government
to urge Spain to avoid war with the colonists. Our statesmen, however,
were not then able to resist the temptation to secure the utmost from
Venezuela in return for such passive assistance as they might render,
even to the point of asking for a monopoly of trade, and negotiations
fell through. Spain declared Venezuela under blockade conditionally,
and appointed Miyares, Governor of Maracaibo, to be Captain-General, an
office which he never filled.
Later Miranda returned from Europe, being sent by Bolivar, and was
refused a landing by the Junta, in view of his avowed republican
principles. The people of La Guaira, however, insisted on his landing and
brought him ashore.
In 1811 forty-four deputies were elected by the seven provinces which
recognised the Junta (Carácas, Barinas, Barcelona, Cumaná, Margarita,
Mérida, and Trujillo), and they met on March 2nd. The names of the first
Congress of Venezuela (as it subsequently became) included, besides
Miranda, the Marquis del Toro, Martin Tovar, Fernando de Peñalver, and
many gentlemen of rank and standing in the colony. Miranda was elected
President of the Junta, and the combined effect of the inaction of
Miyares, a man of more vanity than talent, and such incidents as the
massacre of persons of republican inclinations by royalists in Cabruta
on April 2nd, led finally to the Declaration of Independence by the
deputies on July 5, 1811.
The seven provinces were declared to be a confederation of free,
sovereign, and independent States, governed in accordance with the will
of the inhabitants, and thus ended, in name at least, the long period of
Spain’s misrule. From this time onward, whatever has been the internal
policy of the country, the inhabitants, in theory if not in fact, have
had the government they chose for themselves.