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Venezuela and the Atlantic World (Atlantic History)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. The geo-historical region of Venezuela, like other Latin American territories during the modern age, has been most frequently studied from an Atlantic perspective by scholars working on different subjects such as slavery, colonialism, revolutions, and imperialism. Nevertheless, the scholarly production for the period about that territory is still small compared to that for Cuba, Brazil, Peru, New Granada, New Spain, and Río de la Plata. This is mainly due to the slight interest that European and, most particularly, US academia has traditionally shown for the past of that region of the world. Paradoxically enough, there is probably no other geo-historical space in Spanish America—with the exception of Cuba—with as many transnational connections as had the mainland of northern South America. Moreover, its geographical location facing the Caribbean Sea, its numerous afro-descendant population, and the many connections it established with the Lesser Antilles (especially with the Dutch island of Curaçao) created a particular dynamic which made it a part of the historical system of the Caribbean and to develop strong ties, mainly through contraband, with other non-Hispanic regions in the Atlantic world. Despite that, only a handful of Venezuelan and non-Venezuelan historians have developed transnational approaches for the study of the referred mainland in the period in question. There are of course honorable exceptions, which in most cases can be found in works that carry out true historiographical dialogues, especially regarding Curaçao and, during the early stages of the Age of Revolution, the French Antilles. An important crossroads in the study of the mainland is the island of Trinidad, which remained part of the Captaincy General of Venezuela until it fell into British hands in 1797. Thus it joined other regions in the Caribbean and the Atlantic world not studied by scholars working on Venezuela, other than to identify the ideological “roots” of the revolutions in the mainland, to study the circulation of patriots in the Antilles, or, and most frequently, to follow the paths of certain revolutionary leaders. The two most studied cases are those of Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Miranda, whose lives and travels throughout the Atlantic world have inspired a great number of studies. Finally, the historiography on the wars of Independence and the post-independence period in the 19th century, in spite of its research potential, remains largely dominated by local national or Latin American perspectives. Something similar could be argued regarding the 16th and 17th centuries, with the exception of certain seminal works on the Welser expeditions and the formation of the white Creole elite of Caracas, respectively.
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  5. General Overviews
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  7. During the first half of the 20th century a nationalist approach to Venezuelan history prevented scholars from making connections between local events and global processes. For this reason there are no general surveys which specifically study the history of Venezuela as a whole connected to the Atlantic world. However, as well as other Latin American historiographies, we found several works focused on local, regional, or national subjects from transnational or imperial approaches. The focus of these studies may be categorized and defined as Spanish Atlantic perspectives. Most of the works in this section accomplish this refreshing approach, such as continental, entangled, or comparative histories, and cover a wide range of topics on colonial and postcolonial Venezuela from the Age of Revolutions until the early 20th century. The opportunity has been taken to include some seminal overviews of the history of Venezuela. Straka 2012 explores the historiographical problems and possibilities of an Atlantic approach to the history of Venezuela, and Boersner 1978 notices the impossibility of understanding local history if the four-century-long intellectual, economic, and political connections within the Caribbean are denied. Baralt 1841 is a classic book that provides a detailed overview of the process of transition of a colonial society of the Spanish Empire into an independent republic. Caballero 1997 offers a brief compendium of the history of Venezuela from the conquest to the 20th-century dictatorships. Langue 1999 connects the local with the global and focuses on the sociocultural changes and political conflicts in the different phases of colonial and revolutionary Venezuela, and later the author looked inside the Federal War and contemporary Bolivarian Socialism. Meanwhile, Lieuwen 1961 checks a similar historical chronology but offers a valuable macro view of political tensions among liberal and federals in the 19th century and of the oil economy in the 20th. Morón 1963 offers a better perspective on the indigenous societies and the Spanish colonization, but at the same time it evaluates the 19th century and the projection of the caudillismo onto the autocratic governments. The monumental work Brito Figueroa 1986 is a must-read to understand the structural dynamics of capitalism from the 16th to the 20th century. Lombardi and Carrera Damas 1977 offers to scholars and students a useful bibliographic compilation that can be complemented with the excellent Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela.
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  9. Baralt, Rafael. Resumen de la historia de Venezuela. 3 vols. Paris: Imprenta de H. Fournier y Compañía, 1841.
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  11. A classic historical compendium focused on the history of early modern and modern Venezuela. Inspired by European Romantic historiography, this book explores the consolidation, crisis, and dissolution of the Spanish colonial system and investigates the key political and military leaders of the War of Independence.
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  13. Boersner, Demetrio. Venezuela y el Caribe: Presencia cambiante. Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1978.
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  15. In this study, Boersner shows that from the age of the conquest the history of Venezuela can’t be understood without considering the geopolitical and commercial connections with the Caribbean and the Atlantic world. These connections are strongly influenced by a changing political scenario where international relations have played a role of mediator between the colonial and neocolonial Empires.
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  17. Brito Figueroa, Federico. Historia económica y social de Venezuela. 4 vols. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1986.
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  19. One of the first interdisciplinary studies on colonial and postcolonial Venezuela in a global context. From a socioeconomic approach, based on major documentary and statistical sources, this exhaustive research examines the structural dynamics of capitalism in Venezuela in the longue durée.
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  21. Caballero, Manuel. De la pequeña Venecia a la Gran Venezuela. Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1997.
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  23. A brief overview that summarizes the history of Venezuelan society from the early colonial era to the 20th century. This work is a good starting point for understanding the complexities of the conquest, the fate of the revolution of Independence, the collapse of the Gran Colombia project, the making of the republic, the modernization of the state, and the outbreak of dictatorial governments.
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  25. Diccionario de historia de Venezuela. 4 vols. Caracas: Fundación Polar, 2007–2011.
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  27. Deeply informed, this dictionary is the best place to start any historical research on Venezuela. Each entry has been written by several Venezuelan scholars, and the work includes an extensive bibliography. It is composed of four volumes ordered alphabetically by entry. Available also in CD format.
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  29. Langue, Frédérique. Histoire du Venezuela, de la conquête à nos jours. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999.
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  31. Connecting local with global history, this book analyzes the socioeconomic, political, and cultural changes of a country faced with socio-ethnic and military conflicts. Langue argues that throughout four centuries, various phases of violence can be traced through different historical conjunctures such as the plantation economy in the Spanish imperial era, the Independence revolution that became a civil war, and the Bolivarian Socialism led by Hugo Chavez.
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  33. Lieuwen, Edwin. Venezuela. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
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  35. The author writes a concise reference work aimed at a wide audience. Although Lieuwen gives relatively little attention to the colonial era, instead his purpose is to analyze the economic and political problems of contemporary Venezuela as a set of conflicts over liberalism and federalism, the oil economy, and the international relations of the Betancourt government.
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  37. Lombardi, John, and Germán Carrera Damas. Venezuelan History: A Comprehensive Working Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977.
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  39. Due to its more than four thousand references, this compilation is the gateway that all researchers interested in the history of Venezuela need. Carrera Damas and Lombardi organize the extensive bibliography not only by chronology, with chapters on the history of the 1810s to the 1930s, but also thematically, with chapters focused on issues such as “Bolívar” or “petroleum.”
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  41. Morón, Guillermo. A History of Venezuela. New York: Roy Publishers, 1963.
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  43. Morón reviews the composition of indigenous societies and the exploration of the coasts and lands of this strategic colony of the Spanish Empire. Furthermore, this book examines the process of integration and disintegration that determined the transformation of a colonial society into an independent nation. For the author, in the 19th and 20th centuries the people play a key role in the achievement of different political regimes such as autocracy, dictatorship, and representative democracy.
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  45. Straka, Tomás. “Venezuela en la revolución atlántica: Algunos problemas y posibilidades.” Anuario de Estudios Atlánticos 58 (2012): 185–214.
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  47. A historiographical overview which undoubtedly constitutes the first serious attempt to reconcile the Venezuelan historiography of the revolutionary period with the many paradigms of Atlantic history and also with what the author defines as the “Caribbean revolutions.”
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  49. Resources and Journals
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  51. A good starting point for inquiries on secondary sources regarding any period of Venezuelan history is the hemerographic catalogue available at the website of the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas BOLIVARIUM. Also of use for bibliographical purposes is the comprehensive chronological guide to Venezuelan history at the personal website of John V. Lombardi. In regard to primary sources, although there are countless published collections, especially by the Academia Nacional de la Historia de Venezuela, there is almost a total lack of online resources. Among the few available, it worth mentioning those dedicated to the personal and public papers of Simón Bolívar (Archivo del Libertador) and Francisco de Miranda (Colombeia). The John Carter Brown Library (Venezuela Collection) and the Archivo Digital Prensa de la Independencia at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello make available a large variety of 19th-century imprints. Regarding the historical journals containing material of potential interest for Atlanticists, some like Tierra Firme: Revista de Historia y Ciencias Sociales and Tiempo y Espacio are fully or partially available through Scielo’s electronic library of Latin American scientific reviews. Others can be consulted (again, fully or partially) on websites conceived for the consultation of scientific materials generated by the universities and other institutions that publish them, as in the cases of Ensayos Históricos. Anuario del Instituto de Estudios Hispanoamericanos (Universidad Central de Venezuela), Montalbán (Universidad Católica Andrés Bello), Presente y Pasado: Revista de Historia and Procesos Históricos: Revista de Historia y Ciencias Sociales (Universidad de los Andes), the Anuario de Estudios Bolivarianos (published by Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas BOLIVARIUM), and the Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia.
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  53. Academia Nacional de la Historia de Venezuela.
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  55. The Academia Nacional de la Historia is one of the oldest institutions dedicated to the preservation of heritage and historical research in Venezuela. On their website you can find historical documents, digitized books, and the Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, a historical journal which provides articles by leading historians of the colonial and republican era.
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  57. Archivo del Libertador.
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  59. This impressive collection, at present hosted at the Archivo General de la Nación de Venezuela, deserves a separate entry given the richness and diversity of its contents. Indeed, it makes available not only the public and personal papers of Simón Bolívar, but also a large variety of documents covering the entire revolutionary period, from the early conflicts in the 1790s to the collapse of Greater Colombia.
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  61. Archivo Digital Prensa de la Independencia.
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  63. Digitization project of the Venezuelan press during the Spanish-American Independence, hosted by Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. On this website you can find some volumes of the Gaceta de Caracas, El Semanario de Caracas, El Patriota de Venezuela, and El Correo del Orinoco, among other important newspapers of the 19th century.
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  65. Colombeia: Archivos del General Francisco de Miranda.
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  67. Doubtlessly one of the most emblematic figures of the Atlantic Revolutions, Francisco de Miranda’s collection of papers (declared humanity’s heritage by UNESCO) is an incredible resource for studying that conflictive process. Although the website’s design complicates the research, it provides full access to the digitalized images and the transcriptions of the documents contained in this impressive sixty-three-volume collection.
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  69. Ensayos Históricos. Anuario del Instituto de Estudios Hispanoamericanos. 1988–.
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  71. Ensayos Históricos is the yearbook published by the Institute of Hispanic Studies at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. There are published articles on ethnohistory, cultural history of the colonial era, political history of the Spanish-American revolutions, and economic history of the 19th and 20th centuries.
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  73. Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas BOLIVARIUM.
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  75. A leading actor in the Venezuelan historical research landscape, this institution of Universidad Simón Bolívar publishes one of the most important local reviews, the Anuario de Estudios Bolivarianos; fully available online. It also provides a very useful biblio-hemerographic online search engine for its very complete library, and free access to the images from the digitalization projects on the Actas de la Alcaldía de Valencia, the Memorias del General O’Leary, and the Archivo del Libertador.
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  77. John Carter Brown Library (Venezuela Collection).
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  79. The JCBL has one of the best collections of maps and historical sources for the study of Latin America and the Caribbean, from the colonial era to the Age of Revolutions. The Venezuela Collection offers digitized newspapers and documents published by the main political leaders of the War of Independence, including Simón Bolívar, Juan Germán Roscio, and Pablo Morillo.
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  81. John V. Lombardi.
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  83. Personal website of John V. Lombardi, renowned historian and specialist in colonial Venezuela and Latin America. This digitized depository provides some of its major publications, along with selected bibliographic databases, graphics, and statistics on the socio-racial composition of the Venezuelan population and the colonial cities.
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  85. Montalbán. 1972–.
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  87. Journal specializing in the history of Venezuela, Latin American, and the Caribbean with forty-two numbers digitized. It has been published since 1972 by the Institute of Historical Research of the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, one of the most important centers for the study of Venezuela.
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  89. Presente y Pasado: Revista de Historia. 1996–.
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  91. This biannual publication from the University of the Andes, Mérida, aims to disseminate, confront, and discuss historical knowledge. Provides articles on society and culture in Venezuela and Latin America, privileging research with new theoretical and methodological approaches.
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  93. Procesos Históricos: Revista de Historia y Ciencias Sociales. 2002–.
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  95. Published since January 2002 by the University of the Andes, Mérida, this journal already has twenty-nine numbers. Provides various articles focused on Venezuelan history and its connections with Latin America and the Caribbean.
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  97. Tiempo y Espacio. 1983–.
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  99. Founded by the Center for Historical Research “Mario Briceño Iragorry” at the Instituto Pedagógico de Caracas, this journal publishes research papers on geography, history, and social sciences, with special emphasis on Venezuelan history of the 19th and 20th centuries.
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  101. Tierra Firme: Revista de Historia y Ciencias Sociales. 1983–.
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  103. Journal of history and social sciences published by the Tierra Firme Foundation, an institution created by a group of scholars affiliated with major universities and research centers in Venezuela. This publication offers many articles on Venezuelan political and social history.
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  105. Colonial Venezuela, 16th to 19th Century
  106.  
  107. Conquest, Colonization, and Borderlands
  108.  
  109. Most historians agree that the Venezuelan mainland and the Caribbean were spaces of complex trans-imperial relations between the Spanish monarchy and other European powers during the age of explorations and conquests. It was for that reason that, as shown in Friede 1961, Georget and Rivero 1994, and Naipaul 2001, the fortification of the main ports and the colonization of the coastline and mainland were priorities during the arrival of the first Spaniards to the New World. According to Perera 2003, the Amazonian border was a liminal space that could hardly be explored by agents of the Spanish Empire. To the complex climatic conditions and a nature almost inexorable were joined the difficulties of subjugating indigenous peoples. As would be expected, there are countless works on the conquerors’ experiences and the process of settling and colonization of Venezuela (see Lemmo 1977, cited under Colonial Regime and Society). Most of them cover the experiences of the Spanish conquerors; only a few, such as Georget and Rivero 1994, cover those of non-Hispanic people who came mainly to plunder the Spanish colonial possessions as privateers, while Naipaul 2001 covers ambitious pathfinders searching the richness of the promised land of El Dorado. Friede 1961 addresses an inquiry toward the agents of Welser bankers from Augsburg, who carried out various failed expeditions deep in the continent in the early 16th century. There are also several studies on the impact of the conquest on the Amerindian indigenous, such as Amodio 1999; relatedly, see Martín Acosta 2011 and Tardieu 2008 on the exploitation of the pearl banks in the islands of eastern Venezuela. Perera 2003 covers gold-panning in Guayana. As the process of Spanish colonization progressed, so did the formation of internal borders, such as the always-problematic Wayuu frontier at the Guajira Peninsula, studied in Acuña 2005, and the wide regions of Guayana, also studied in Perera 2003.
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  111. Acuña, José Polo. Etnicidad, conflicto social y cultura fronteriza en la Guajira: 1700–1850. Bogotá, Colombia: Uniandes, 2005.
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  113. Provides an overview of the formation of a “borderland culture” among the autochthonous populations of the Guajira Peninsula in the late modern age. For this, Acuña studies the contraband (particularly with Curaçao), the impact of the establishment of Capuchin missions, the military expeditions, the Spanish attempts of settling the region, and the violent responses of the Wayuu against these “invasions.”
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  115. Amodio, Emanuele. “Los caníbales mutantes: Etapas de transformación étnica de los Caribes durante la época colonial.” Boletín Americanista 49 (1999): 9–28.
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  117. An anthropological perspective on the adapting identities of the Caribe Amerindians related to the diverse European presence in the southern Caribbean (British, Dutch, and Spanish), and the stereotypes that emerged about the former in colonial times.
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  119. Friede, Juan. Los Welser en la conquista de Venezuela. Caracas and Madrid: Ediciones Edime, 1961.
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  121. A pioneering work which studies the expeditions carried out in the coast of Venezuela by representatives of the Welsers, a German family of bankers to whom the emperor Charles V granted the monopoly to explore and colonize that region in 1526. They carried out a series of failed expeditions deep into the mainland until 1556. Although at times biased aiming to “exculpate” the Welsers’ activities, the work of Friede remains a key reference for the study of what doubtlessly is one of the most unusual and also less studied cases in the period of the conquest of the New World.
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  123. Georget, Henry, and Eduardo Rivero. Herejes en el paraíso: Corsarios y navegantes ingleses en las costas de Venezuela durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVI. Caracas: Arte, 1994.
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  125. Surveys the presence of British privateers on the coast of the Spanish mainland in the 16th century. This work also accounts in detail their plunders, and evaluates the local consequences of their attacks.
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  127. Martín Acosta, Emelina. “La importancia de las perlas en el descubrimiento de América.” Anuario de Estudios Atlánticos 57 (2011): 231–250.
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  129. The most recent contribution to the study of the importance of the pearls in the conquest of the New World. It focuses on the rich banks in the islands of northeastern Venezuela (particularly those of Cubagua), whose impressive pearls dazzled the Spanish court.
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  131. Naipaul, V. S. The Loss of El Dorado: A Colonial History. London: Picador, 2001.
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  133. Naipaul traces the history of one of the myths that best reflects the colonialist motives of the Spaniards and Britons who arrived to the New World. El Dorado was an imagined kingdom of gold placed between the Island of Trinity and the Venezuelan mainland that promised to the conquistadors all sorts of precious metals. The search for El Dorado mobilized failed expeditions to different corners of South America, especially in Venezuela.
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  135. Perera, Miguel Ángel. Oro y hambre: Guayana siglo XVI; ecología cultural y antropología histórica de un malentendido 1498–1597. Caracas: UCV, 2003.
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  137. Provides a critical overview of the early presence of Europeans in the region of Guayana, the environmental impact of their arrival, and their relations with the local Amerindians. In view of this, Perera examines in detail subjects as diverse as the demographic distribution of the autochthonous populations, the first Spanish expeditions, W. Raleigh’s quest for El Dorado, and the setting up of Jesuit missions.
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  139. Tardieu, Jean-Pierre. “Perlas y piel de azabache: El negro en las pesquerías de las Indias Occidentales.” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 65.2 (2008): 91–124.
  140. DOI: 10.3989/aeamer.2008.v65.i2.115Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  141. Due to the legislation aiming to protect the Amerindians introduced in the 16th century, African slaves began to be widely used in the exploitation of the rich pearl banks of the southern circum-Caribbean. This article examines, from a long-term perspective, the consequences of that servile transition for this particular context, and the extremely harsh conditions of work of the “serf divers.”
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  143. Colonial Regime and Society
  144.  
  145. The scholarly production regarding the colonial period is even more impressive than that of the conquest, covering mainly the 18th century. The following volumes are just a selection of works on subjects that could be of interest for comparative or transnational approaches. Starting with the colonial governments, Parra Pérez 1932 and Morón 2003 demonstrate the importance of the effective control of the economy and the local government for the prosperity of the colony and, consequently, of the monarchy. On the other hand, there is no more comprehensive study on the legal bureaucracy of the Spanish government than López Bohórquez 1984, whose main contribution is to consider the integration of the Creole elite in the imperial system and the changes introduced by the Bourbon Reforms in order to maintain the balance of power between Spanish and Spanish-American functionaries. Lemmo 1977 offers a historiographical review of the writings of and historical sources pertaining to some travelers, chroniclers, and scientists whose impressions provide information on various aspects of colonial Venezuela. This work can be complemented with the cultural history that Duarte 2001 focused on everyday life, interethnic relations, and the “cultural mestizaje.” Few works have achieved the level of accuracy of Lucena Salmoral 1980 and Lombardi 1976 when it comes to qualitative and quantitative investigation of the social and demographic formation of the Venezuelan population in the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th. Finally, Langue 2000 and Ferry 1989 (cited under Colonial Economy) provide analytical insights into the process of formation of the white Creole elite and look inside their social conflicts with subaltern groups and their political participation during the Bourbon period.
  146.  
  147. Duarte, Carlos. La vida cotidiana en Venezuela durante el período hispánico. 2 vols. Caracas: Fundación Cisneros, 2001.
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  149. A substantive contribution to the field of cultural history. This study provides a detailed inquiry of the pre-Hispanic and colonial periods, and an eloquent examination of the social interaction between Spaniards, white creoles, Afro-Latin Americans, indigenous, and the other mixing castes that composed the Hispanic-American society. Duarte argues that racial mixture and cultural transfers between different social groups determined the configuration of new race and class identities.
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  151. Langue, Frédérique. Aristócratas, honor y subversión en la Venezuela del siglo XVIII. Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 2000.
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  153. Langue covers the long 18th century and traces the consolidation of the aristocratic elite. Starting from chapters on their family structures and interactions with subaltern groups, she weaves a cultural history of social representations that intertwines with an innovative history of sensibilities. Particularly interesting in this respect is the analysis of political antagonisms and progressive involvement of the colonial elite in a revolutionary process of Atlantic dimensions.
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  155. Lemmo, Angelina. Historiografía colonial de Venezuela. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1977.
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  157. Despite its title, this work is a critical study of the impressions of chroniclers, travelers, and naturalists who visited or lived in the Venezuelan territory during the colonial period. In spite of its analytical localism, Lemmo offers a very complete historiographical overview of this kind of source.
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  159. Lombardi, John. People and Places in Colonial Venezuela. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.
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  161. In this comprehensive quantitative research, historians will find the best demographic history of the Captaincy General of Venezuela. Lombardi built various statistical series shown in figures and tables, which provide precise data on racial and gender composition, marriages, birth rate, and number of inhabitants of Venezuelan society between 1750 and 1850.
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  163. López Bohórquez, Alí. Los ministros de la Audiencia de Caracas (1786–1810): Caracterización de una élite burocrática del poder español en Venezuela. Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1984.
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  165. In 1786 King Charles III created the Real Audiencia of Caracas, an institution that represented the highest court of colonial justice. This book is a thorough investigation on the sociopolitical composition of a local bureaucracy which administered justice on behalf of the king and rendered judgments in matters of civil jurisdiction, criminality, and finance.
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  167. Lucena Salmoral, Manuel. “La sociedad en la Provincia de Caracas a comienzos del siglo XIX.” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 37 (1980): 157–189.
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  169. Important reference for the study of the society of colonial Caracas, especially regarding population structures and the socio-racial demography of the province.
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  171. Morón, Guillermo. Gobernadores y capitanes generales de las Provincias Venezolanas 1498–1810. Caracas: Editorial Planeta, 2003.
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  173. From the 16th to the 18th century the Province of Venezuela was one of the most important territorial units to establish effective political-administrative and commercial control in South America and the Spanish Caribbean. On a tour of three centuries of history, this work illustrates the dilemmas of civil and military courts that confronted the governors and captains general of the Spanish Empire.
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  175. Parra Pérez, Caracciolo. El régimen español en Venezuela: Estudio histórico. Madrid: Javier Morata, 1932.
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  177. In this essay Parra Pérez argues that the Spanish colonial system did not systematically destroy indigenous people, that the creoles did not live in a state of inferiority vis-à-vis the metropolitan Spaniards, and that the Spanish monarchy was not a despotic government. Beyond the social conflicts of European colonization, the 17th and 18th centuries were characterized by agricultural and commercial prosperity that allowed social mobility of castes, urban development, and connectivity to overseas.
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  179. Colonial Economy
  180.  
  181. The colonial economy of Venezuela depended almost entirely on the exportation of agricultural products, especially after the cacao boom in the 17th century. The main markets were New Spain, as shown by the classic work Arcila Farías 1950, and Spain. There were also frequent commercial exchanges, both formal and informal, with the non-Hispanic Antilles. These were particularly intense with the Dutch island of Curaçao, with which the history of the mainland is deeply entwined, as first shown by Goslinga 1971. In fact, according to Klooster 2014, one of the most revisited topics by the historiography is precisely the smuggling to that island and the socioeconomic consequences of this informal trade. These topics have been masterfully studied in Aizpurua 1993 and Ferry 1989. While Aizpurua focused his research on commercial networks, Ferry showed how the development of a colonial trade prompted the political and economic interest of the local elite vis-à-vis imperial politics. Nestares Pleguezuelo 1996 reminds us that the province of New Andulacía (in the northeast of the territory) was also an important area for smuggling as well as legal trade with foreign merchants. Another important topic is the imposition of a commercial monopoly through a trade company of Basque financial capital: the Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas, whose implementation and development have been studied from Venezuelan and Spanish perspectives by Aizpurua 1993 and Hussey 1934, respectively. Created in 1728, this company immediately aimed to fulfill its objective of implementing its monopoly, provoking an important popular uprising in 1749 studied in depth by Ferry 1989. The historiography has also examined other socioeconomic issues, such as the general situation at the dawn of the revolutionary era and the implementation of fiscal and managerial reforms in the 18th century. Accordingly, on the one hand, García 1990 reconstructs with great detail the political career of Esteban Fernández de León, one of the Intendants who best exemplifies the prototype of the colonial ruler. McKinley 1985, on the other hand, analyzes the sociopolitical conflicts generated by the reforms implemented by the Spanish bureaucrats, focusing on the economic and institutional factors that have contributed to the prosperity of the General Captaincy of Venezuela before the dissolution of the Spanish Empire.
  182.  
  183. Aizpurua, Ramón. Curazao y la costa de Caracas: Introducción al estudio del contrabando de la provincia de Venezuela en tiempos de la Compañía Guipuzcoana, 1730–1780. Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1993.
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  185. In the 18th century, the contraband of cacao with the Dutch island of Curaçao became an important source of revenue for many other sectors of the Venezuelan colonial society. Through this work, Aizpurua manages to unveil in great detail not only the informal trade networks, but also the important sociocultural and economic consequences of that phenomenon. He has revisited and widened his arguments in subsequent articles.
  186. Find this resource:
  187. Arcila Farías, Eduardo. Comercio entre Venezuela y México en los XVII y XVIII. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1950.
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  189. Author of a seminal work on the colonial economy of Venezuela, Arcila Farías goes further into the subject of trade with Veracruz. It focuses mostly the cacao trade and its importance for Venezuela to provide itself with metallic money. Many of the arguments and data presented in this work still have great validity.
  190. Find this resource:
  191. Ferry, Robert J. The Colonial Elite of Early Caracas: Formation and Crisis, 1567–1767. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
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  193. By tracing the formation the white elite of Caracas, Ferry does a lot more than simply showing how it emerged and maintained its wealth. He also sheds light into the crucial role of the evolution of the cacao frontier, the tensions with the reformism of the Bourbon state, and the resistance to the metropolitan monopoly of this crop, which led to a popular rebellion in 1749.
  194. Find this resource:
  195. García, Juan Andreo. La Intendencia en Venezuela: Don Esteban Fernández de León, Intendente de Caracas, 1791–1803. Murcia, Spain: Universidad de Murcia, 1990.
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  197. The Intendants were the vicars of the Spanish Empire in Hispanic America in charge of modernizing justice, finances, the war, and the general policies of their respective districts. This book reviews the transatlantic itinerary of Esteban Fernández León, a high civil servant of the Spanish Empire who faced the problems of the governmental administration during the implementation of Bourbon Reforms in colonial Venezuela.
  198. Find this resource:
  199. Goslinga, Cornelis Christiaan. Dutch in the Caribbean, and on the Wild Coast 1580–1680. Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1971.
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  201. The Dutch Caribbean was an area of intense trade often hampered by political and military conflicts between the empires of the Atlantic world. Goslinga not only traces the routes used by the Early Modern Dutch Empire for smuggling and the slave trade, but also analyzes the strategies of the Spanish governors of Trinidad, Margarita, and Venezuela to block the menace of Dutch commercial hegemony in the Spanish Caribbean.
  202. Find this resource:
  203. Hussey, Roland D. The Caracas Company, 1728–1784: A Study in the History of Spanish Monopolistic Trade. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934.
  204. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674184398Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  205. In 1728 the Spanish monarchy established a trade monopoly contract with a company of Basque merchants in order to centralize trade and prevent smuggling. Hussey relies on primary sources to understand the political and economic mechanisms of the colonial transatlantic trade under the Habsburg and Bourbon governments.
  206. Find this resource:
  207. Klooster, Wim. “Curaçao as a Transit Center to the Spanish Main and the French West Indies.” In Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680–1800: Linking Empires, Bridging Borders. Edited by Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Rottman, 25–51. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill: 2014.
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  209. Explores the commercial connections of Curaçao with the Spanish mainland and the French Antilles in the 18th century. It shows, among other things, that the Dutch colony was an important source of supplies not only for the Venezuelan markets, but also for the French “sugar islands.” Curaçao provided the latter not only slaves, but also thousands of mules from the mainland.
  210. Find this resource:
  211. McKinley, P. Michael. Pre-Revolutionary Caracas: Politics, Economy and Society, 1777–1811. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
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  213. Slightly outdated, McKinley’s work offers an alternative view to the preexisting critical crisis on the eve of the colonial period in Venezuela. Instead, he shows that there was also economic prosperity, certain socio-racial assimilation, and even political stability, which was disrupted only by the outbreak of monarchical crisis in the metropolis in 1808.
  214. Find this resource:
  215. Nestares Pleguezuelo, María José. El comercio exterior del Oriente Venezolano en el siglo XVIII. Almería, Spain: Universidad de Almería, 1996.
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  217. Nestares Pleguezuelo examines the foreign trade and contraband in the eastern province of New Andalucia, mainly through the revenue accounts of the Real Hacienda. It makes important contributions to the study of the formal and informal commercial relations, especially with the non-Hispanic colonies in the Lesser Antilles.
  218. Find this resource:
  219. Cultural and Intellectual Life
  220.  
  221. A considerable number of studies on the cultural and intellectual life in modern history have examined the Age of Enlightenment from a Eurocentric perspective that compares a diffusive center to passive peripheries. This interpretation can be questioned from different studies of the cultural and intellectual history of the Hispanic world mentioned in this bibliographical selection. Gumilla 1745 demonstrated that critical thought also existed in Spanish America and inscribes his work in the context of the scientific, historical, and geographical discussions on the nature of the New World initiated by some enlightened European intellectuals. During this period, some outstanding scientists arrived to the colonies of the Spanish Empire from Spain, France, and Germany. Hernández 1997 analyzes one of these transatlantic trips, looking inside the scientific and intellectual impact of a Canarian doctor in late colonial Venezuela. The letters of the German scientist Alexander von Humboldt (Humboldt 1989) not only reveal the foundations and conclusions of his pioneering investigations, but also shed light of the incipient cultural progress of the colonial Venezuelan society (see also Zeuske 2011, cited under Foreigners in the Spanish Mainland). Briggs 2010 and Jaksic 2001 analyze the years of formation and the intellectual legacies of Simón Rodríguez and Andrés Bello, two brilliant exponents of the intellectual elite of Caracas in the Age of the Enlightenment whose writings illustrate the cultural capital of the Venezuelan white Creole elite. In 1794 Rodríguez formulated a critical appraisal of the curricular structure of the educational institutions in Venezuela. Leal 1963 nuances this vision of colonial obscurantism and evaluates the advances achieved during the Bourbon Reforms thanks to the foundation of schools, curricular reforms in universities, and the progress in technical education. Evaluation of the cultural development of colonial Venezuela must not overemphasize institutional precariousness or the censorship of imported books and government restrictions on the print and book trade. The research of Soriano 2000 on the internal and transatlantic book trade unveils new information on the individuals who took part in this process. The author argues that the books imported from Spain and other places of the Atlantic world compensated for the absence of a press in Venezuela. Leal 1979 explains that the laxity of customs control allowed the circulation of books, newspapers, and gazettes from Europe and Hispanic America among priests, aristocrats, scholars, bureaucrats, government functionaries, and merchants.
  222.  
  223. Briggs, Ronald. Tropes of Enlightenment: Simón Rodíguez and the American Essay at Revolution. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2010.
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  225. This insightful work is an essential reading to understand the impact of the Enlightenment on one of the most brilliant Hispanic-American intellectuals and scholars. Briggs browses in the writings of Simón Rodríguez, remembered as the “teacher of the Liberator Simón Bolívar,” to identify his ideological universe, to rethink his ideas on education and republican values, and to evaluate his commitment to the liberation of Venezuela from Spanish imperial rule.
  226. Find this resource:
  227. Gumilla, Joseph. El Orinoco ilustrado, y defendido. Madrid: Manuel Fernández Impresor, 1745.
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  229. A fundamental book to understand the roots of the historical and scientific debates that faced European and Hispanic-American intellectuals during the 18th century. Gumilla was a Jesuit priest inspired by the science of the age of the Enlightenment who wrote a natural and geographical history of Venezuela. Its aim was to criticize the Eurocentric prejudices of certain authors who, with a lack of scientific rigor, argued for the inferiority of the inhabitants and nature of the New World.
  230. Find this resource:
  231. Hernández, Manuel. Ciencia e ilustración en Canarias y Venezuela: Juan Antonio Perdomo Bethencourt. Tenerife, Spain: Centro de la Cultura Popular Canaria, 1997.
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  233. Perdomo Bethencourt was a doctor born in Tenerife who introduced smallpox inoculation in Venezuela. In 1783 he was judged by the Inquisition for defending the ideas of some philosophers and scientists of the Enlightenment. Through detailed biographical research, this study demonstrates how a Canarian Spaniard acquired scientific influence in late colonial Venezuela.
  234. Find this resource:
  235. Humboldt, Alexander von. Cartas americanas. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989.
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  237. Compilation of letters written by the German naturalist and explorer during his trips through Venezuela and Spanish America. Humboldt’s correspondence illustrates the motivations, problems, and results of his scientific explorations. At once, the epistolary exchange with prominent European and creole figures reveals an uninterrupted communication flow and a constant interest on the political changes and cultural progress of the South American continent.
  238. Find this resource:
  239. Jaksic, Iván. Andrés Bello: Scholarship and Nation-Building in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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  241. With perfect erudition, Jaksic investigates the cultural atmosphere of colonial Caracas, where the exceptional Venezuelan intellectual Andrés Bello was educated, and also inquires into his London years. In London, Bello not only became acquainted with the Independence revolution project and met some of the key figures in this process, but also initiated a prolific intellectual life reflected in his works on grammar, civil law, and literary criticism.
  242. Find this resource:
  243. Leal, Ildefonso. Historia de la Universidad de Caracas (1721–1827). Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1963.
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  245. A rigorous work on the formation and development of the first university in Venezuela from the reign of Philip V until the reforms implemented by Simón Bolívar during the Independence. Leal not only offers a complete assessment of the academic chairs and the institutional organization, but also provides important reflections on the intellectual and political disputes that developed during the transformation of the colonial university into a republican university.
  246. Find this resource:
  247. Leal, Ildefonso. Libros y bibliotecas en Venezuela Colonial, 1633–1767. Caracas: Ediciones de la Facultad de Humanidades y Educación, Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1979.
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  249. Profound historical research on wills and bills aiming to discover the titles and subjects of the books owned in Venezuela. Given the quantity and the diversity of books the author managed to identify, he argues that Venezuela was not isolated from the main currents of European writing despite the restrictions imposed by the Crown and the Church. It is based on extensive research in Spanish and Venezuelan archives.
  250. Find this resource:
  251. Soriano, Cristina. “El correr de los libros en la cotidianidad caraqueña: Mercado y redes de circulación de libros en Caracas durante el siglo XVIII.” In Mezclado y sospechoso: Movilidad e identidades, España y America (siglos XVI–XVIII). Edited by Gregorio Salinero, 229–253. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2000.
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  253. This article analyzes the import circuits, the internal book trade networks, and the daily practices of reading in late colonial Venezuela. Soriano illustrates that during the 18th century the market in books was benefited by private and collective orders to Spanish companies and to round-trip travelers across the Atlantic.
  254. Find this resource:
  255. Revolutionary Age and the Early Republic, 18th–19th Centuries
  256.  
  257. Early Stages of the Age of Revolution
  258.  
  259. As early as the 1950s, Venezuelan historiography started to look into the transnational connections of the many revolutionary events that took place in the Spanish mainland from the late 18th century. This tendency increased in later decades, resulting in a veritable paradigm shift which has refuted certain historiographical conventions such as the teleological assumption that defined the period before the Independence as “pre-revolutionary,” and the Eurocentric approach that interpreted the revolutions in the mainland mainly as creole imitations of the French Revolution, ignoring the events in the Revolutionary Caribbean. Among the various regions in the Americas, the first decades of the Age of Revolution were particularly agitated in the Captaincy General of Venezuela; this is not surprising, considering that this territory was part of the Caribbean, a geo-historical region in which those agitations were more frequent and intense. Despite this, according to Leal Curiel 1990 and Humboldt’s observations (see Zeuske 2011, cited under Foreigners in the Spanish Mainland), loyalty to the Spanish crown was not always questioned and, in case of Independence, many “enlightened” white Creoles were looking forward on how to perpetuate slavery and keep the free colored population subjugated. But below the elites the situation was entirely different, as other sectors considered as “inferior” were more susceptible to the impact of the revolutionary “winds,” as the following volumes show. From a transnational perspective, there can be identified two different, yet complementary, analytical paradigms regarding this impact. First, there are works that highlight the influence, not the imitation, of the French Revolution, as shown by Callahan 1967 and Langue 2000 (cited under Colonial Regime and Society). This is a classic argument frequently used to explain most of the referred agitations and, in particular, to explore the Madrilenian roots of the Jacobin-inspired conspiracy of La Guaira of 1797, as done by the groundbreaking work López 1955. Second, there is scholarship that attributes more or equal importance to the revolutionary “winds” blowing from the insular Caribbean. This trend focuses mostly on the ideological, emotional, and sociocultural effects of the revolutionary conflicts and the political ideas of the French Caribbean, particularly Saint-Domingue, as shown by Córdova-Bello 1967, Soriano 2011, and Gómez 2013. Important revolutionary ties have also been unveiled with the islands of Curaçao, covered by Klooster and Oostindie 2011, and Guadeloupe, studied in Pérotin-Dumon 1989 and Gómez 2013. There are also many works focusing on the socio-ideological context in the eve of the period of Independences, such as Grases 1981, Leal Curiel 1990, McKinley 1985 (cited under Colonial Economy), and Cardozo Uzcátegui 2013 (cited under Bolívar and Miranda).
  260.  
  261. Callahan, William J. “La propaganda, la sedición y la Revolución Francesa en la Capitanía General de Venezuela, 1786–1796.” Boletín Histórico 14 (1967): 177–205.
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  263. Although slightly outdated, Callahan’s article still represents an important reference for the study of the revolutionary conflicts and political ideas in Venezuela in the late 18th century.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Córdova-Bello, Eleazar. La independencia de Haití y su influencia en Hispanoamérica. Caracas: Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia, 1967.
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  267. A pioneering work on the impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Spanish mainland, which, despite its age, still represents an important reference for scholars working on that subject.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Gómez, Alejandro E. Le spectre de la Révolution noire: L’impact de la Révolution haïtienne dans le Monde atlantique. Rennes, France: PUR, 2013.
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  271. Explores the ideological and emotional impact of the “horrors” of Saint-Domingue on the white populations of several regions of the Greater Caribbean, including the Spanish mainland. In this and other works the author deepens further into the revolutionary connections between Guadeloupe and the coast of Venezuela.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Grases, Pedro. Preindependencia y emancipación (protagonistas y testimonios). Barcelona: Editorial Seix Barral, 1981.
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  275. Grases examines the revolutionary connections between the individuals who participated in the Jacobin conspiracy of San Blas (in Madrid) and a group of Venezuelan creoles who in 1797 promoted a failed rebellion against the Spanish monarchy. As illustrated by the fascinating historical sources reproduced by the author, the conspiracy of Gual and Spain was an example of the ideological impact of the Atlantic revolutions in Venezuela.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Klooster, Wim, and Gert Oostindie. Curaçao in the Age of Revolutions, 1795–1800. Leiden, The Netherlands: KITLV, 2011.
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  279. A concise volume with essays providing a wide-ranging view of the complex political situations, rebellions, and other conflicts that broke out in Curaçao in the 1790s. Many of them make reference to the links with the mainland, especially chapter 5 written by Ramón Aizpurua.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Leal Curiel, Carole. El discurso de la fidelidad: Construcción social del espacio como símbolo del poder regio (Venezuela, siglo XVIII). Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1990.
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  283. An original monograph on the political rites that supported the social order and the legitimacy of the monarchic Spanish power in colonial Venezuela. Examining some liturgical and civic acts, Leal analyzes the political and religious metaphors of imperial sovereignty and the majesty of the king.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. López, Casto Fulgencio. Juan Picornell y la conspiración de Gual y España: Narración documentada de la pre-revolución de independencia venezolana. Caracas and Madrid: Ediciones Nueva Cádiz, 1955.
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  287. Published in the mid-20th century, this work still offers one of the most comprehensive narratives of the conspiracy of La Guaira of 1797. It also provides interesting insights into the personal and ideological links with the Jacobin conspiracy of San Blas (Madrid) of 1795.
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Pérotin-Dumon, Anne. “Révolutionnaires français et royalistes espagnols dans les Antilles.” Revue Française d’Histoire d’Outre-Mer 76.282–283 (1989): 126–158.
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  291. Path-breaking investigation on the colonial relations and important revolutionary ties between the island of Guadeloupe and Venezuela in the 1790s.
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  293. Soriano, María Cristina. “Rumors of Change: Repercussions of Caribbean Turmoil and Social Conflicts in Venezuela (1790–1810).” PhD diss., New York University, 2011.
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  295. In the tradition of Julius Scott Jr. and other scholars who have studied the impact of the revolutionary “winds” on Venezuela, Soriano’s dissertation contributes in more detail to our understanding of how they influenced the many manifestations of sociopolitical unrest and the revolutionary events that shocked the Venezuelan territory from the 1790s to the eve of the period of Independences.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Independence Revolution
  298.  
  299. Academic research on the Venezuelan process of Independence has recently experienced a crucial epistemological update given the impact of subaltern studies, the renewal of the history of the political ideas, and the impact of the paradigm of Atlantic revolutions on the historiography of the Spanish-American Revolutions. The transformation of the Spanish colonies into independent republics was a process that passed along stages with very different characteristics and projects. As Calderón and Thibaud 2010 rightly pointed out for the case of Greater Colombia, one of the central problems of this process was the political redefinition of the concept of sovereignty. This became evident right after the forced abdication of the king of Spain by Napoleon, when countless juntas (i.e., autonomous assemblies) assumed local power, claiming the preservation of the rights of the captive monarch. Another key issue was the traditional demand of the colonial white elites for greater political and economic autonomy. As the Spanish provisional metropolitan institutions questioned the legitimacy of those assemblies, this gave rise to strong political-ideological conflicts studied for the case of Venezuela by Pino Iturrieta 2007 and Quintero 2002 among others. Gómez 2008 (cited under Racial Identities and Social Relations) has broadened this perspective by demonstrating that free coloreds were important political actors in the revolutionary processes that shattered the Province of Caracas, and not simply passive witnesses as the historiography had traditionally asserted. The combination of the referred conflicts and preexisting socio-racial hatreds would quickly turn into one of the bloodiest revolutionary wars of the period, comparable only with the later stages of the Haitian Revolution. Hébrard 1996 and Uslar Pietri 1972 have made clear that the Venezuelan war of Independence was not an armed conflict between creoles and Spaniards, but rather a civil war in which all social groups participated. Thibaud 2003a and Thibaud 2003b have illustrated the Caribbean and Atlantic dimensions of the military and political processes in an age of permanent intellectual, political, and commercial connections. Despite the opposition of thousands of Venezuelan royalists—whose histories have also begun to be unveiled in works such as Straka 2000—and the summoning of American deputies to the Spanish Cortes gathered at Cadiz in 1810, the revolutions of Independence could not be reversed. In the end, many elements contributed to the consolidation of the Independence in Venezuela, including international diplomacy, as recently shown by Mondolfi 2014.
  300.  
  301. Calderón, María Teresa, and Clément Thibaud, eds. La majestad de los pueblos en la Nueva Granada y Venezuela (1780–1832). Bogotá, Colombia: Taurus, 2010.
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  303. A stimulating study on the problem of sovereignty in an age of imperial crisis. The authors argue that during the revolutionary process there was a conceptual turn in which two paradigms crossed: the sovereignty of the king and the sovereignty of the nation. The combined conflicts between the state, the religion, and the armies helped to reformulate the legitimacy of the new political body.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Hébrard, Véronique. Le Venezuela indépendant: Une nation par le discours—1808–1830. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996.
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  307. This book tries to capture the dilemma of national construction in a process of political transformation. From the ancien régime to the revolution, the concept of nation appears in the discourse of revolutionary agents during the struggle to Independence. Hébrard analyzes the institutional coherence of this polysemic concept regarding the building of a modern political community.
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  309. Mondolfi, Edgardo. Diplomacia insurgente: Contactos de la insurgencia venezolana con el mundo inglés (1810–1817). Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, Universidad Metropolitana, 2014.
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  311. From exhaustive research in British, Spanish, and Venezuelan archives, Mondolfi raises the issue that revolutionary diplomacy had a global dimension that involved the Atlantic empires and the new republic of Venezuela. Besides following the plot of the international relations, this work explores the complex negotiations between the Venezuelan revolutionaries and the governors of the British Caribbean.
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  313. Pino Iturrieta, Elías. La mentalidad venezolana de la emancipación: 1810–1812. Caracas: Bid&Co. Editor, 2007.
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  315. Few historians have managed to connect the history of ideas with the political context in which they are used. This book opened a new field of study, tracking the emergence of a modern mentality that confronted to the traditional ideological universe. According to the author, this mentality was nourished on the revolutionary information that arrived to Venezuela from different corners of the Atlantic world and circulated through the press, oratory, and political writings.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Quintero, Inés. La conjura de los mantuanos: Último acto de fidelidad a la monarquía española; Caracas, 1808. Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, 2002.
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  319. When the Napoleon’s army invaded Spain in 1808, the Hispanic-American town councils (cabildos) claimed that sovereignty had to return to the people while the king was captive. For a long time, historians interpreted this as a conspiracy of the creole elite to look for Independence. Inés Quintero denies this thesis and argues that the Junta of Caracas was an act of loyalty to preserve the legitimacy of the monarchy.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Straka, Tomás. La voz de los vencidos: Ideas del partido realista de Caracas, 1810–1821. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2000.
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  323. A pioneering work on the monarchists during the process of the Independence of Venezuela. By focusing on the ideas, experiences, and projects of some royalist or counterrevolutionary figures, the author unveils a hidden side of that process.
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  325. Thibaud, Clément. “‘Coupé Têtes, Brûlé Cazes’: Peurs et désirs d’Haïti dans l’Amérique de Bolívar.” Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 58.2 (2003a): 305–331.
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  327. Another important contribution to our understanding of the Haitian Revolution’s impact on the Spanish mainland, this time mainly through similarities in terms of warfare and constitutional influence.
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  329. Thibaud, Clément. Repúblicas en armas: Los ejércitos bolivarianos en la guerra de independencia en Colombia y Venezuela. Bogotá, Colombia: Planeta, IFEA, 2003b.
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  331. A remarkable and ambitious monograph about the patriot armies of the period of the Independences in the Spanish mainland. It focuses mainly on the changing composition of the republican contingents, the politics concerning war, warfare modalities, and the identitarian dialectics associated with the military conflicts. It also sheds light on countless historiographical knots concerning the histories of Colombia and Venezuela.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Uslar Pietri, Juan. Historia de la rebelión popular de 1814: Contribución al estudio de la historia de Venezuela. Caracas: Edime, 1972.
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  335. There are not many works on the most violent period of the Venezuelan war of Independence, described by Uslar Pietri as a “popular war.” Although partially biased by highlighting the atrocities committed by a royalist “multi-colored army” in 1814, it still provides the best overview of those “terrible years.”
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Bolívar and Miranda
  338.  
  339. The undeniable importance of Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Miranda in the history of the Atlantic Revolutions has fostered a significant and growing body of transnational inquiries, focusing on a wide range of subjects. Both men, like other white Creoles in the late 18th century (Cardozo Uzcátegui 2013), began to circulate in the Atlantic world from a young age. In the case of Bolívar, in the 1790s he traveled to France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico (Lynch 2006, a thorough biography of Bolívar, provides a concise account of this early trip). Then in 1810, he went to London on a diplomatic mission along with Andrés Bello and Luís López Méndez, who themselves are studied respectively in Cussen 1992 and Berruezo León 1990 (cited under Spanish-American Creole Itineraries). Later in the same decade, after the successive downfalls of the republican governments in the mainland, Bolívar, as many other patriots, sought refuge in different islands of the Caribbean, from where he tried to relaunch the war against the royalists as shown by Verna 1983. In the case of Miranda, his voluntary exile, the revolutionary plans he had for liberating Spanish America, and his sharing of the esprit de l’époque made him spend a great part of his life traveling. A well-written and documented biography, Racine 2003 explores the different transatlantic experiences of this emblematic figure. Other works have presented the lives of Bolívar and Miranda from Atlantic perspectives: Maher 2006, Thibaud 2003a, and Thibaud 2003b (latter two cited under Independence Revolution) have shed further light in the impact of their travels on the making of their constitutional and political ideas; Gómez 2013 (cited under Early Stages of the Age of Revolution), Helg 2003 (cited under Racial Identities and Social Relations), and Zeuske 2011 (cited under Foreigners in the Spanish Mainland) have done likewise regarding their socio-racial thought and their positions toward slavery and slave trade; while Dorigny and Rossignol 2001, Caballero 2003, Lynch 2006, and Verna 1983 have explored their revolutionary, military, and intellectual experiences away from their homeland.
  340.  
  341. Caballero, Manuel, ed. Miranda, el extranjero. Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2003.
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  343. A stimulating set of essays written by top Venezuelan historians who revisit the experiences of Francisco de Miranda during his many travels. They also offer a revisionist view in particular regarding Miranda’s perception of the French Revolution and the United States.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Cardozo Uzcátegui, Alejandro. Los mantuanos en la corte española: Una relación cisatlántica (1783–1825). Bilbao, Spain: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del País Vasco, 2013.
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  347. Cardozo Uzcátegui provides an overview of the strategies and aristocratic ties of the American elites within the Spanish empire, and in particular for the case of the mantuano families of Caracas. He also sheds light onto the experience of young Bolívar during his stay in Spain.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Cussen, Antonio. Bello and Bolívar: Poetry and Politics in the Spanish American Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
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  351. In 1810 Bello and Bolívar crossed the Atlantic headed for London on a diplomatic mission whose objective was to obtain British support for the autonomy demand of the Junta de Caracas. Through poetry and writings of Bello, this study analyzes his critical view of Bolívar and the path of Independence’s revolution.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Dorigny, Marcel, and Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, eds. La France et les Amériques au temps de Jefferson et de Miranda. Paris: Société d’Études Robespierristes, 2001.
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  355. Among the works included in this interesting collection, it is worth pointing out that of Marcel Dorigny on Brissot’s plan to entrust Miranda the exportation of the revolution to Spanish America. The collection also includes a stimulating chapter by Clément Thibaud on the influence of Napoleonic warfare and Caesarism in the ideas of Bolívar and Miranda.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Lynch, John. Simón Bolívar: A life. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
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  359. The best biography of Simón Bolívar so far. Lynch provides a complete inquiry on the childhood, education, travels, political thought, and military career of the Liberator. Examining a huge number of historical sources, this work also unsettles many of the myths about their ideas and political administration.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Maher, John, ed. Francisco de Miranda: Exile and Enlightenment. London: Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2006.
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  363. A collection of essays by leading scholars on the political, military, and intellectual life of the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda. David Bushnell analyzes his historical and constitutional vision of classical and modern republican tradition. John Lynch shows the intellectual and political networks established during his transatlantic crossings, and Malcolm Deas looks at his military experience in the service of the French Army during the European wars.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Racine, Karen. Francisco de Miranda: A Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003.
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  367. This biography recovers the Atlantic dimension of Francisco de Miranda’s life, before and after the Independence revolution. Racine looks inside the intellectual, military, and political motivations of this great military and Venezuelan revolutionary through his trips across the United States, Russia, France, England, and the Caribbean.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Verna, Paul. Bolívar y los emigrados patriotas en el Caribe (Trinidad, Curazao, San Thomas, Jamaica, Haití). Caracas: Instituto Nacional de Cooperación Educativa, 1983.
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  371. Connecting the political and military strategies of Simón Bolívar with political events, Verna provides an excellent overview of the circulation and the logistics of hundreds of patriot refugees and exiles throughout the Caribbean, especially after the loss of Cartagena de Indias in 1815 during the royalist counterrevolution.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. The Age of Caudillos
  374.  
  375. From the pioneering essay Valenilla 1929, contemporary historiography has demonstrated that the phenomenon of the Spanish-American caudillismo is more complex than a system of dictatorial power. According to Irwin and Micett 2008, the conceptual definition of caudillismo pertains to a certain type of leadership, but this conceptualization becomes diffuse without considering the historical context in which this notion developed and the patronage relations established around it. Lynch 1992 affirms that during the revolution of Independence, not only were the caudillos guarantors of the social order, but often they concentrated in their persons the reins of the state. Brown 2012 explains that during all this process the monopolization of power by the military leaders, either Spanish-Americans or foreigners, promoted personalism and prevented the consolidation of a liberal state. As Straka 2012 indicates, institutional precariousness was a constant of the period 1810–1861 specifically and throughout the process of formation of the republic more generally. For this reason, Banko 1996 argued that before and during the Federal War (1859–1863) political parties had to negotiate and hand executive power over to the caudillos, to ensure that they could govern with relative stability in a society in permanent conflict. To properly understand the nuances of this phenomenon in the 19th century, it is important to analyze the sources of legitimacy of the regional caudillos, and the socioeconomic transformations brought about by their political interventions. Carrera Damas 2009 clarifies certain elements of these questions by analyzing the trajectory of the royalist military leader José Tomás Boves. Quintero 2009 reviews the weakening position of the historical caudillos, after the ending of the conflicts between centralists and federalists. The autobiographical impressions of General José Antonio Páez (Páez 1867–1869) show the internal struggle for power in the armies commanded by Simón Bolívar, the role played by the caudillos during the War of Independence, and the fate of these autocratic rulers during the consolidation of the liberal project.
  376.  
  377. Banko, Catalina. Las luchas federalistas en Venezuela. Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1996.
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  379. Banko demonstrates why Independence was a struggle over sovereignty between the Venezuelan federal system and the centrist project of the Republic of Gran Colombia. This conflict, concerning the institutionalization of the forms of government, laid the way for a federal war in which new caudillos and political sensibilities emerged.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Brown, Matthew. The Struggle for Power in Post-Independence Colombia and Venezuela. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
  382. DOI: 10.1057/9781137076731Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. This study is an exercise of comparative history in which is examined the political and military destiny of the British soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Sanctuary in October 1829. Furthermore, Brown maps the support and influences of the foreign imperial powers and the involvement of these militaries in the government, commerce, and international relations of the republics of Colombia and Venezuela.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Carrera Damas, Germán. Boves: Aspectos socioeconómicos de la Guerra de Independencia. Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 2009.
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  387. An important work of historical revisionism supported in extensive research in Venezuelan archives. Carrera Damas reviews the nationalist historiography and proposes a new interpretation of the socioeconomic legacy of the monarchist caudillo José Tomás Boves during a stage of the Independence of Venezuela remembered as “Guerra a muerte.”
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Irwin, Domingo, and Ingrid Micett. Caudillos, militares y poder: Una historia del pretorianismo en Venezuela. Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, 2008.
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  391. Outstanding conceptual review of the meaning of praetorianism and caudillismo helps explain the relations between civilians and military throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. This book establishes a typology of the caudillos according to the forms of exerting violence and imposing their personalistic authority at regional and national levels. The authors conclude that the praetorianism is a political system of neutralization of historical caudillismo.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Lynch, John. Caudillos in Spanish America 1800–1850. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
  394. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198211358.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  395. A fundamental contribution to the analysis of the origins, nature, and historical meaning of caudillismo during the Spanish-American wars of Independence and the formation of national states. Lynch shows the sources of legitimacy, the forms of military leadership, and the system of patronage relations that supported the empowerment of caudillos like the Venezuelan General José Antonio Páez.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Páez, José Antonio. Autobiografía del General José Antonio Páez. 2 vols. New York: Imprenta de Hallet y Breen, 1867–1869.
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  399. A reconstruction of the political and military life of one of the most determinant caudillos of the Spanish-American Revolutions. Páez was a general of the Bolivarian armies and was elected twice to govern the Republic of Venezuela. After being defeated in 1863 by the liberals in the Federal War, he lived in exile in New York, where he wrote and published these autobiographical memories.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Quintero, Inés. El ocaso de una estirpe: La centralización restauradora y el fin de los caudillos históricos. Caracas: Editorial Alfa, 2009.
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  403. The subject of this study is the model of coexistence of two antagonistic forms of power: the centrist effort of the executive power and the disintegration of the regional caudillos during the governments of Antonio Guzmán Blanco and Cipriano Castro. Quintero explains that after the Federal War the resolution of the conflicts between the caudillos and the central power guaranteed a certain stability of the liberal national state.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Straka, Tomás. Venezuela: La era de los gendarmes; Caudillismo y liberalismo autocrático (1861–1936). Caracas: Fundación Rómulo Betancourt, 2012
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  407. A critical overview of the sociopolitical consequences of caudillismo in Venezuela during the second half of the 19th century. Straka analyzes the institutional precariousness of the liberal project and the enthronement of the caudillos as autocratic rulers who acted as guarantors of the sovereignty of the people and the political order.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Valenilla, Laureano. Cesarismo democrático. Caracas: Tipografía Universal, 1929.
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  411. Pioneering sociological essay on the political causes and consequences of caudillismo in the context of Venezuelan War of Independence. Valenilla demonstrates that the revolutionary process was a civil war that left an emptiness of power that alone could be solved by the legitimacy of a Necessary Gendarme. This phenomenon, defined as Democratic Caesarism, is a political system based not on laws but on the order that the military caudillos imposed by fear, arms, and patronage.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Race and Slavery
  414.  
  415. Racial Identities and Social Relations
  416.  
  417. Issues of racial identities and social relations in the colonial and modern history of Venezuela are probably those which have most attracted the attention of scholars in recent years. Many of these studies focus on analyzing the values and sociocultural codes of the white Creole elite and the mixed race or pardos. The academic works Pellicer 2005 and Twinam 2015 agree on examining the attitudes and legal actions of the mixed race in order to understand the phenomenon referred to as “whitening.” These white socio-racial values developed alongside the mixed-race strategies to improve living conditions in late colonial times yet persisted during the early republican period. As some researchers have shown, racial identities are not defined exclusively through genealogical origins and phenotypical traits, but also by the elite discourses that constructed the socio-racial typologies of subaltern groups. For this reason, much scholarship also addresses the white Creole concerns regarding overwhelming numbers of subalterns (the free coloreds composed nearly half the population at the beginning of the 19th century) and the ambitions of wealthy pardos and Canarians to become members of the white elite. Particularly inspired in this regard are Langue 1997 and Helg 2003, which explore Bolívar’s prejudices and fears regarding what he defined as “pardocracy.” Meanwhile, Grisanti 1950 looks inside the prejudices against the Canarians, through a judicial case concerning Francisco de Miranda’s father. For its part, Gómez 2008 studies, among other aspects, the classist attitudes of the pardo elite in the revolutionary context, while Langue 1997 and Wright 1990 focus on how the emergence of that socio-racial sector shaped the socio-racial, as well as the self-racial, thinking of modern Venezuelans. Finally, the study Troconis de Veracoechea 1990, on Indian women, slaves, and governors, and the biographical profiles of soldiers, maroons, and slaves compiled in Gates and Knight 2016, show some excellent case studies to understand the complex social interactions in Early Modern and modern Venezuela from a gender, race, and class perspective.
  418.  
  419. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and Franklin K. Knight, eds. Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
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  421. Dictionary with various biographical profiles of Afro-Latin Americans who provide valuable information to understand their life conditions, transatlantic connections, and the conflicts of race, class, and gender in Venezuelan society.
  422. Find this resource:
  423. Gómez, Alejandro E. “La Revolución de Caracas desde abajo: Impensando la primera independencia de venezuela desde la perspectiva de los libres de color, y de las pugnas político-bélicas que se dieran en torno a su acceso a la ciudadanía, 1793–1815.” Nuevo Mundo–Mundos Nuevos 8 (2008).
  424. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  425. Explores in depth the political participation of free coloreds and their relations with the most radical white Creole revolutionary sectors, from the impact of the revolutionary winds in the 1790s to the Revolution of Caracas.
  426. Find this resource:
  427. Grisanti, Ángel. El proceso contra don Sebastián de Miranda: Padre del precursor de la Independencia continental. Caracas: Editorial Ávila Gráfica, 1950.
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  429. In 1769 Sebastián de Miranda, father of the revolutionary Francisco de Miranda, could not become member of a military battalion reserved to the white Creoles. The creole aristocracy considered to Miranda socially inferior and questioned his cleanliness of blood. Grisanti analyzes the complex details of a judicial process that exemplifies the corporate defense of aristocratic privileges and the rejection by the white elite of the gradual ascent of lower castes.
  430. Find this resource:
  431. Helg, Aline. “Simon Bolivar and the Spectre of Pardocracia: José Padilla in Post-Independence Cartagena.” Journal of Latin American Studies 35 (2003): 447–471.
  432. DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X03006849Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  433. Although focusing on Greater Colombia, this article provides a fascinating in-depth study of Bolívar’s racial thinking and sociopolitical fears regarding the pardo population.
  434. Find this resource:
  435. Langue, Frédérique. “La pardocratie ou l’itineraire d’une ‘classe dangereuse’ dans le Venezuela des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles.” Caravelle 67 (1997): 57–72.
  436. DOI: 10.3406/carav.1996.2708Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  437. Important article that examines, from a long-term perspective, how the emergence of a large sector of mixed-race individuals (pardos) and Bolívar’s prejudices against them, affected national self-identity in Venezuela.
  438. Find this resource:
  439. Pellicer, Luis Felipe. Entre el honor y la pasión: Familia, matrimonio y sistema de valores en Venezuela durante la crisis del orden hispánico (1778–1820). Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2005.
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  441. This book examines the forms of social distinction of Venezuelan aristocratic families. Pellicer analyzes various historical sources and proposes that the social status and the local power of the creole elite depended on a system of values based on honor, an ideal shared by the subaltern groups. These values persisted after Independence.
  442. Find this resource:
  443. Troconis de Veracoechea, Ermila. Indias, esclavas, mantuanas y primeras damas. Caracas: Alfadil, Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1990.
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  445. Few studies have penetrated more deeply than this book into the role of women as agents of change in the colonial society of castes. Troconis de Veracoechea examines six case studies from women of Venezuela and the Caribbean to prove their active participation in marronage, colonial government, slave rebellions, and political conspiracies under colonial rule.
  446. Find this resource:
  447. Twinam, Ann. Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulattos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015.
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  449. Twinam provides an in-depth historiographical revision of and new research into the socio-racial struggles for socio-racial privileges between pardos and white Creoles. It focuses mainly on the whitening petitions of pardos, before and after the introduction of the royal decree of Gracias al Sacar.
  450. Find this resource:
  451. Wright, Winthrop R. Café con leche: Race, Class and National Image in Venezuela. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.
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  453. An important account of the socio-racial relations in contemporary Venezuela. It explores from a long-term perspective the evolution of the attitudes, mainly toward colored afro-descendants, aiming to explain the supposed Venezuelan “exceptionalism” as a model of socio-racial integration.
  454. Find this resource:
  455. Slavery and Abolition
  456.  
  457. Although there were slaves in Venezuela from the outset of the colonization process, it was not until the late 17th century (with the cacao boom and the growing trade with the Dutch island of Curaçao) that slavery really began to expand, especially in coastal regions. Compared to other topics related to modern Venezuela, the historiographical production focused on questions related to slavery stands out for its quantity. Unfortunately, most of the investigations available are repetitive, highly ideologized, and outdated vis-à-vis the contemporary transnational debates There are however honorable exceptions within the general surveys, among which the pioneering work Acosta Saignes 1984 still stands out, and also within the more specific and innovative studies. Among these it is worth mentioning, for completeness, Laviña and Zeuske 2008, which compared the case of the mainland to Cuba; Tardieu 2008, on the presence of African slaves in the pearl banks; the revisionist article Aizpurua Aguirre 1988, on the Coro rebellion of 1795; the classic book Felice Cardot 1952, on the Yaracuy rebellion of 1730; Troconis de Veracoechea 1990 (cited under Racial Identities and Social Relations), on the lives and resistance of the women slaves; and finally Borucki 2012, which represents the most recent contribution to the study of the slave trade in Venezuela. Rarer still are works on subjects like antislavery advocacy and abolitionism, but the following stand out: the seminal monograph Lombardi 1971; the small work Ramos Guédez and Mendoza 1990 on the case of José Silverio González (perhaps the only true abolitionist in Venezuelan history); discussions on the continuation of slavery after Independence such as Zeuske 2011 (cited under Foreigners in the Spanish Mainland); the impressive biography of Bolívar, Lynch 2006 (cited under Bolívar and Miranda), which covers the Liberator’s sentiments toward that servile institution; and finally, Schmidt-Nowara 2014 (cited under Foreigners in the Spanish Mainland), a very inspiring article on the impact of the wars of Independence on the Spanish pro-slavery faction. Lastly, it is important to note that subjects related to slavery in Venezuela have also been discussed in many general surveys on slavery and its abolitions in Latin America, the Spanish Atlantic, and the wider Atlantic world.
  458.  
  459. Acosta Saignes, Miguel. La vida de los esclavos negros en Venezuela. Valencia, Spain: Vadell Hermanos, 1984.
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  461. A masterful, classic study of the history of slavery in Venezuela, which put an end to the silence the national historiography had kept on the subject. It is also a pioneering work on the application of anthropological perspectives to the study of the subject and on the introduction of topics related to it, such as marronage, family life, sexual abuse, and slave resistance.
  462. Find this resource:
  463. Aizpurua Aguirre, Ramón. “La insurrección de los negros de la Serranía de Coro de 1795: Una revisión necesaria.” Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia 71.283 (September 1988): 705–723.
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  465. Positioned against the traditional national historiography, Aizpurua Aguirre revisits the Rebellion of Coro of 1795. He proposes a critical overview of this important event, arguing that it was a “vindicatory social movement.”
  466. Find this resource:
  467. Borucki, Alex. “Trans-imperial History in the Making of the Slave Trade to Venezuela, 1526–1811.” Itinerario 36.2 (August 2012): 29–54.
  468. DOI: 10.1017/S0165115312000563Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  469. A complete and up-to-date overview of the slave trade toward Venezuela from the 16th to the 19th century.
  470. Find this resource:
  471. Felice Cardot, Carlos. La Rebelión de Andresote (Valles del Yaracuy, 1730–1733). Caracas: Imprenta Nacional, 1952.
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  473. Despite the years since its publication, this book is still the only work entirely dedicated to one of the most important and heterogeneous rebellions of subalterns (maroons, slaves, free coloreds, etc.) in Spanish America. It broke out in 1730, as a consequence of the aims of the crown to end the contraband trade with Curaçao and to enforce the metropolitan monopoly of cacao. Felice Cardot has revisited the subject in later works.
  474. Find this resource:
  475. Laviña, Javier, and Michael Zeuske. “Failures of Atlantization: First Slaveries in Venezuela and Nueva Granada.” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 31.3 (1 January 2008): 297–342.
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  477. A stimulating article that revisits the instauration and evolution of slavery in Cuba and the Spanish mainland. Both cases are compared, aiming to explain why the former failed in its attempts of Atlantization, while the latter succeeded on developing an Atlantic “second slavery.”
  478. Find this resource:
  479. Lombardi, John. The Decline and Abolition of Negro Slavery in Venezuela, 1820–1854. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971.
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  481. There are not many studies on the abolition of slavery in Venezuela. Lombardi’s is the only monographic attempt which links the republic’s early measures to gradually abolish slavery with the economic reconstruction that the country experienced after its separation from Greater Colombia and the convulsive sociopolitical context which led to the final abolition of slavery in 1854.
  482. Find this resource:
  483. Ramos Guédez, José Marcial, and Irma Mendoza. José Silverio González y la abolición de la esclavitud en Venezuela. Caracas: Centro de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Santa María, 1990.
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  485. A simple but important work as it rescues the most active Venezuelan anti-slavery advocate of the 19th century, namely, José Silverio González, from oblivion. He was the author of a non-adopted abolitionist bill in 1850, and even received a decoration from the British crown for having impeded the re-enslavement of a black woman from the West Indies.
  486. Find this resource:
  487. Tardieu, Jean-Pierre. “Perlas y piel de azabache: El negro en las pesquerías de las Indias Occidentales.” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 65.2 (2008): 91–124.
  488. DOI: 10.3989/aeamer.2008.v65.i2.115Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  489. Due to legislation aiming to protect Amerindians that was introduced in the 16th century, African slaves began to be widely used in the exploitation of the rich pearl banks of the southern circum-Caribbean. This article examines, from a long-term perspective, the consequences of that servile transition for this particular context and the extremely harsh conditions of work of the “serf divers.”
  490. Find this resource:
  491. Human Circulations
  492.  
  493. Immigration and Diasporas
  494.  
  495. There are countless works dedicated to the study of migration and diasporas, particularly on the European migrations to Venezuela and the Caribbean. However, few of them provide new approaches to the sociocultural, economic, and political impact of these immigrants in their new destinations. The following is a bibliographical selection of the most important and also the most studied migratory flows, namely, the Basque, Canarian, German, and Jewish immigrants. There were of course more sporadic and heterogeneous cases of human movements, motivated mostly by foreign events or by colonial policy as shown Hernández González 1999. The Bourbon Reforms of the Spanish Empire of the late 18th century fostered the arrival of foreigners; the aim was to increase the population of the island of Trinidad (Sevilla Soler 1988), which remained part of Venezuela until 1797. Around the same period, this mainland territory received important migratory waves of refugees fleeing the revolutionary conflicts in the French Lesser Antilles, Saint-Domingue, and Santo Domingo as shown in Gómez 2004, Gómez 2013 (cited under Early Stages of the Age of Revolution), and Córdova-Bello 1967 (cited under Early Stages of the Age of Revolution). The Venezuelan coast also received a number of runaway slaves from the Dutch colonies; the slaves were attracted by legislation which aimed to undermine the productive capacity of their colonial contenders by emancipating their slaves. The presence of these individuals in the mainland was a key factor in the outbreak of the massive rebellion of 1795, as Aizpurua 2004, along with several other works by the same author, has convincingly argued. The revolutions and the wars of Independence in the mainland also generated several migratory waves, at times permanent, as in the case of the royalists, studied by Sonesson 2008, who went to Puerto Rico, a case to which historians are dedicating growing attention.
  496.  
  497. Aizenberg, Isidoro. La comunidad Judía de Coro, 1824–1900: Una historia. Caracas: Biblioteca de Autores y Temas Falconianos, 1983.
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  499. A well-documented study on the history of the Sephardic community established at the town of Coro in the 19th century. It explores interesting aspects of the everyday lives of its members and their relations with the locals. This work sheds light on little-known episodes, such as the establishment of a Jewish cemetery in 1858 and episodes of anti-Jewish unrest in 1831 and 1855.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Aizpurua, Ramón. “Santa María de la Chapa y Macuquita: En torno a la aparición de un pueblo de esclavos fugados de Curazao en la Sierra de Coro en el siglo XVIII.” Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia 345 (2004): 109–128.
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  503. Aizpurua studies the origin and evolution of two communities of Loango blacks in northwestern Venezuela. These were originally runaways from the nearby Dutch islands, who profited from legislation which automatically emancipated slaves from foreign colonies, the only condition being that they embraced the Catholic faith.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Gómez, Alejandro E. Fidelidad bajo el viento: Revolución y contrarrevolución en las Antillas Francesas en la experiencia de algunos oficiales franceses emigrados a tierra firme (1790–1795). Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2004.
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  507. Connecting three different historical contexts (military royalism during the French Revolution, the revolutionary conflicts in Martinique, and the migrations of monarchists to Venezuela), this monograph studies the circulation of several French officers who joined the Spanish royal forces after they migrated to Trinidad in 1793.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Hernández González, Manuel. Los canarios en la Venezuela colonial (1670–1810). Tenerife, Spain: Gobierno de Canarias, 1999.
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  511. In colonial times, the Canary Islands quickly became the principal source of colonizers and free labor for many regions of Spanish America, and particularly for Venezuela. Hernández González traces not only the different waves of immigration, but also the geographical distribution of the isleño population in the territory and the conflicts they were involved in.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Lima, Blanca de. Coro: fin de diáspora: Isaac A. Senior e hijo: redes comerciales y circuito exportador, 1884–1930. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2002.
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  515. A prosopographic study on the cultural and economic assimilation of a Sephardic family in the town of Coro, who had originally migrated from the Dutch island of Curaçao.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Rodríguez, José Ángel, ed. Alemanes en las regiones equinocciales. Caracas: Alfadil Ediciones, 1999.
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  519. A wide-ranging collection of stimulating essays by Venezuelan and foreign scholars mostly in anthropology and history, covering the presence of Germans in Venezuela from the 16th to the 20th century.
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  521. Sevilla Soler, Rosario. Inmigración y cambio socio-económico en Trinidad, 1783–1797. Seville, Spain: EEHA, 1988.
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  523. Examines the profound transformations experienced by the island of Trinidad in the years before it fell into British hands in 1797. Given its strategic location, the Spanish crown implemented a series of reforms which included opening that insular territory to foreign immigration. This measure increased the population five-fold in a few years, contributing to the development of the island’s economy.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Sonesson, Birgit. Vascos en la diáspora: la emigración de La Guaira a Puerto Rico, 1799–1830. Seville, Spain: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2008.
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  527. An original study exploring the Basque migration from Venezuela to Puerto Rico in the Age of Revolutions. It focuses on the migrants’ experiences in Venezuela, where they originally migrated to work for the Guipuzcoana Company in the mid-18th century, and then in that Caribbean island after having been expelled from the mainland at various times.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Foreigners in the Spanish Mainland
  530.  
  531. With a long coast opened to the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and despite the proscription of commercial exchanges with foreign merchants, the Captaincy General of Venezuela was frequently visited by non-Hispanic foreigners in the Early Modern times. Early on they went as “pasajeros de indias” from other European domains of the Catholic Monarchy, or as privateers mainly to plunder Castilian interests in the New World. Later on they went as travelers who set foot on Venezuelan soil mainly for two reasons. On the one hand, they went to Venezuela to complete advanced scientific research, as in the case of German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, whose visit to Venezuela, studied in Grases 1969, made up part of a much larger Atlantic experience, to which Zeuske 2011 has devoted many of his works. And on the other hand, they traveled for strategic purposes, as Duarte 1998 evidenced in an examination of the case of the French military officers who visited Puerto Cabello in 1783. From their outbreak in the early 1810s, the revolutions in the Spanish mainland attracted many individuals from Europe and the Antilles. Historians generally agree that these newcomers either came for philanthropic and political reasons, as shown by Arends 1991 and Verna 1973, or enrolled as combatants, as in the case of an Irish officer studied in Schmidt-Nowara 2014. Brown 2006 and Mondolfi 2011 have shown that British foreigners recruited as mercenaries also came. These works are mainly accounts of the experiences of those individuals, and these works also seek to assess the political and military impact of their subjects’ presence in the Spanish mainland. Brown 2006 and Schmidt-Nowara 2014 take things further, and respectively consider other types of variables, such as the masculinities of social actors and their pro-slavery thinking.
  532.  
  533. Arends, Tulio. Sir Gregor Mac Gregor: Un escocés tras la aventura de América. Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1991.
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  535. The most complete and detailed account of the transatlantic itinerary of Gregor MacGregor. This Scottish adventurer arrived to Caracas in 1811 to support the ongoing revolution. He fought as officer of the republican army in the land warfare under the orders of Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar, as well as privateering throughout the Caribbean.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Brown, Matthew. Adventuring through Spanish Colonies: Simón Bolívar, Foreign Mercenaries and the Birth of New Nations. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2006.
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  539. This inquiry uses a large variety of primary sources to unveil the personal experiences of more than 7,000 British, Scottish, and Irish who went to Gran Colombia to join the republican forces. Brown shows the interrelated aspects with other Atlantic Revolutions and argues that those foreigners accomplished an important role in Spanish America’s struggle for Independence.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Duarte, Carlos F. Testimonios de la visita de los oficiales franceses a Venezuela en 1783. Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1998.
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  543. Provides an interesting account of the eventful visit of a French naval squadron, who arrived to Puerto Cabello in 1783. The original aim was to gather an expeditionary force with the Spaniards to invade Jamaica. Duarte examines the diaries of several naval officers, whose testimonies provide interesting information regarding the culture of the local population and the nature of that mainland territory.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Grases, Pedro. Alejandro de Humboldt por Tierras de Venezuela. Caracas: Fundación Eugenio Mendoza, 1969.
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  547. This classical study reviews the geographical and scientific work carried out by the German naturalist through his expeditions to the Caribbean coast, the Central Plains, the Orinoco, and the Amazon frontier. Grases analyzes Humboldt’s impressions of the racial composition and cultural development of the Venezuelan colonial society and examines its relationship with individuals from different social groups—governors and administrators of the Spanish Empire, religious, white Creoles, Amerindians, and slaves—who contributed to Humboldt’s outstanding investigations.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Mondolfi, Edgardo. El lado oscuro de una epopeya: Los legionarios británicos en Venezuela. Caracas: Editorial Alfa, 2011.
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  551. Mondolfi considers the experience of British legionaries to expose their importance in support of the war of Independence in Venezuela. This study reviews a series of historical sources and testimonies found in the British and Venezuelan archives to show the motivations, fears, and hard conditions of life of the Irish and English legionaries enlisted in the patriotic armies.
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  553. Schmidt-Nowara, Christopher. “Continental Origins of Insular Proslavery: George Dawson Flinter in Curaçao, Venezuela, Britain, and Puerto Rico, 1810s–1830s.” Almanack 8 (2014): 55–67.
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  555. Provides an original approach to the study of Spanish pro-slavery thought, by linking it to the figure of Dawson Flinter. As officer of the Spanish army, this Irishman traveled extensively in the Caribbean during the period of Independences. The author argues that the revolutions in that maritime region, especially the war of Independence in Venezuela, shaped the attitudes of this Irish monarchist toward social order and slavery.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Verna, Paul. Tres franceses en la independencia de Venezuela. Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1973.
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  559. Classical work that examines the lives and experiences of three Frenchmen who participated in the process of Independence of Venezuela: J. Baillio, a white from Haiti who became printer of the revolution in Caracas; P. A. Leleux, a friend and personal secretary of Bolívar; and J.-B. Bideau, a mulatto and privateer from Sainte-Lucie.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Zeuske, Michael. “Una revolución con esclavos y con Bolívar: Un ensayo de interpretación.” Memorias 14 (June 2011).
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  563. An inspiring essay on the continuation of slavery after Independence, and other paradoxes and myths regarding the new republican regime leaded by Bolívar. An interesting aspect of this article is the discussion of Alexander von Humboldt’s perception of the process of Independence and the opinions of the white elites in the Spanish mainland, a subject treated more extensively in other works by the same author.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Spanish-American Creole Itineraries
  566.  
  567. By the middle of the 18th century there emerged wealthy and powerful white Creole elites in the Captaincy General of Venezuela. This socio-racial group, composed of landowners, merchants, and high imperial functionaries, gradually enlarged their sphere of influence outside the colony toward the imperial metropolis, as shown by Cardozo Uzcátegui 2013 (cited under Bolívar and Miranda). Some of them circulated extensively within the Spanish Atlantic and even beyond, as was the case of young Simón Bolívar (see Briggs 2010, cited under Cultural and Intellectual Life, and Lynch 2006, cited under Bolívar and Miranda). After the onset of the revolutionary period, and especially after the outbreak of the wars of Independence, the transnational circulation of inhabitants of the mainland intensified. Langue 1995 examines the case of the representative of Maracaibo before the Courts of Cadiz, José Domingo Rus, who ended up as an important jurist in Mexico. Thibaud 2011 and Verna 1983 (cited under Bolívar and Miranda) have traced the whereabouts of some of the many thousands of patriots and royalists (see Straka 2000, cited under Independence Revolution) who left the mainland as exiles or refugees after the places they controlled fell into the hands of the enemy. It is important to point out Quintero 2003 and Quintero 2005, which, combining compelling historical narratives with academic rigor, examine some seemingly secondary figures of the period of Independences, including their Caribbean circulations. From the beginning, the new mainland Spanish-American republics sent formal and informal overseas emissaries in missions to negotiate on their behalf with other nations for diplomatic, logistic, or military support. Standing out among these is a delegation dispatched to London in 1810, studied in Berruezo León 1990 and Cussen 1992 (cited under Bolívar and Miranda), a mission to France in 1813 during the Napoleonic Empire studied in Parra Pérez 1953, and the many diplomatic activities undertaken by Pedro Gual in the United States, studied in Bierck 1983. It is also worth mentioning the Atlantic military career of Narciso López, along with his annexationist activities to attach Cuba to the United States, covered in part in the biography Portell Vilá 1930, and the overview provided by Aldana 2002 on the impressive global itinerary of the mercenary and adventurer Rafael de Nogales.
  568.  
  569. Aldana, Jasmina Jäcquel de. “¿Del aventurero trotamundos al héroe nacional venezolano?” Estudios de Asia y África 35.1 (2002): 101–130.
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  571. A very complete overview of the works published by and the extraordinary life of Rafael de Nogales. The article focuses mainly on this adventurer’s account of his experience as Bey of the Ottoman army during the First World War. Nogales took part in several other military conflicts worldwide, including the Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the Mexican Revolution.
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  573. Berruezo León, María Teresa. “Luis López Méndez, un insigne propagandista de la Independencia en los albores de la diplomacia venezolana.” Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia 292 (1990): 77–98.
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  575. This article provides a detailed description of the trip and residence of the Venezuelan patriot López Méndez in London. Through an analysis of diplomatic papers and letters sent to Foreign Secretary Richard Wellesley, the author reviews the political arguments and the commercial interests of his diplomatic mission as a representative of the Junta de Caracas and agent of the government of the Confederation of Venezuela to the British government.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Bierck, Harold A. Vida pública de Don Pedro Gual. Caracas: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, 1983.
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  579. Pedro Gual was one of the most important Venezuelan politicians. This biography examines his wide transatlantic itinerary. First as special envoy of General Francisco de Miranda to the United States, where he met with President James Madison and Secretary of State James Monroe, to procure weapons and obtain official recognition of the Independence of Venezuela, then as a diplomatic representative of the government of Cartagena in the United States, and finally as Secretary of State and Foreign Affairs of Gran Colombia.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Langue, Frédérique. “La representación venezolana en las Cortes de Cádiz: José Domingo Rus.” Boletín Americanista 35.45 (1995): 221–247.
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  583. An important article on the life and presence of a delegate from Maracaibo (the westernmost province of the Captaincy General of Venezuela) at the Courts of Cadiz in 1810. Langue examines the activities of this delegate in view of the aims of Maracaibo vis-à-vis the metropolis and other rival provinces.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Parra Pérez, Caracciolo. Una misión diplomática venezolana ante Napoleón en 1813. Caracas: Publicaciones de la Secretaría de la Décima Conferencia Interamericana, 1953.
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  587. After a failed diplomatic negotiation in the United States with President Madison and Secretary of State Monroe in search of international support for the revolutionary cause of Cartagena and Venezuela, Manuel Palacio Fajardo traveled to France to negotiate with Napoleon. This book analyzes the complex international political context of a war among empires.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Portell Vilá, Herminio. Narciso López y su época. Vol. 1. Havana, Cuba: Cultural, S.A., 1930.
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  591. A classic account of the life of Narciso López. This Venezuelan white Creole pursued a military career in the Spanish Army, fighting in the local wars of Independence and, much later, in the First Carlist War in Spain. In the mid-19th century he organized some filibustering expeditions aiming to liberate Cuba and to attach it to the United States.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Quintero, Inés. La criolla principal: María Antonia Bolívar, hermana del Libertador. Caracas: Fundación Bigott, 2003.
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  595. Perhaps the most important work on the history of women for the period of the Independence in Venezuela. Indeed, this narrative account of the royalist sister of Bolívar provides interesting insights of the life of a white woman from the elite during those conflictive times, including her experience as refugee in southern Haiti in 1815.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Quintero, Inés. El último marqués: Francisco Rodríguez del Toro, 1761–1851. Caracas: Fundación Bigott, 2005.
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  599. Quintero examines the life of the Marqués del Toro, a cousin of Bolívar. This member of the white Creole elite went from being a frenzied revolutionary to appealing for clemency to the Spanish government after having migrated to Trinidad in 1811. He also fooled the British authorities and even Bolívar, who never knew about his cousin’s attempt to clear his name before the crown. Del Toro returned to Caracas as if nothing had happened in 1821.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Thibaud, Clément. “L’itinéraire Atlantique de Juan Germán Roscio et la naissance du republicanisme hispanique.” Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française 3.365 (2011): 55–78.
  602. DOI: 10.4000/ahrf.12108Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  603. An interesting study on the “Atlantic itinerary” of one of the most important, and understudied, thinkers of the first Hispanic republicanism. Thibaud analyzes the political ideas of Roscio in view of his mestizo condition, the particular socio-racial structure of Venezuela, the outbreak of the revolution in 1810, and his exile in Philadelphia.
  604. Find this resource:
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