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Map of Venezuela Caracas, Capital of Venezuela Maracaibo Valencia Barquisimeto San Cristóbal Ciudad Guayana Puerto la Cruz Pampatar Guarenas Porlamar. This is a list of cities, towns and communities in Venezuela. The state capitals are marked with a *.
No.CityPopulationState13,000220,0303890441,000- Overview
- The colonial era in Venezuela
- The Venezuelan independence movement
- The era of Venezuelan caudillos (1830–1935)
- Páez and the Conservatives
- The Monagas and the civil wars
- The reigns of Guzmán Blanco and Crespo
- The Andinos
- Technocrats and party politics
- Economic boom and bust
history of Venezuela, a survey of the important events and people in the history of Venezuela from the time of European settlement. Located at the northern end of South America, Venezuela occupies a roughly triangular area that is larger than the combined areas of France and Germany. The republic’s development pattern has been unique among Latin American countries in terms of the speed, sequence, and timing of economic and demographic growth. In the 20th century Venezuela was transformed from a relatively poor agrarian society to a rapidly urbanizing one. From 1958 to the early 21st century it was more democratic and politically stable than most other Latin American countries, and its economy benefited from a thriving petroleum industry that capitalized on the world’s largest known oil reserves. Venezuela’s position in the world became more precarious during the second decade of the 21st century as a result of the controversial rule of revolutionary leader Hugo Chávez, a significant decline in the fortunes of its petroleum industry, and the increasing authoritarianism of Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro.
The earliest inhabitants of Venezuela were food-gathering Amerindians who arrived in the Upper Paleolithic Period. Arawak and Carib Indigenous people were prominent among the groups that arrived later. Nomadic hunting and fishing groups roamed the Lake Maracaibo basin, the Llanos, and the coast. The most technologically advanced Venezuelan Indigenous peoples lived in farming communities in the Andes.
Christopher Columbus arrived in what is now Venezuela in 1498, during his third voyage to the New World. European explorers named the region Venezuela (“Little Venice”) after observing local houses on stilts over water. During the first quarter century of contact, the Europeans limited themselves to hunting for people to enslave and pearl fishing on the northeastern coast; the first permanent Spanish settlement, Cumaná, was not made until 1523. In the second quarter of the 16th century, the centre of activity shifted to the northwestern coast, where the Welser banking house of Augsburg, Germany, purchased exploration and colonization rights. The Germans failed to find precious metals and to occupy the area permanently, however, and Spain repossessed the zone in 1546. Legends of El Dorado (“The Golden One”) drove explorers into the Venezuelan interior, perhaps including the Spanish adventurer and renegade Lope de Aguirre, who is said to have attacked several villages there. The Englishman Walter Raleigh sailed up the Orinoco River in search of the fabled city of gold reportedly ruled by El Dorado. Raleigh described his adventure in The Discoverie of Guiana (1596).
In the latter half of the 16th century, Spanish agriculturalists began to colonize the region by using encomiendas (semifeudal grants of land and Indigenous labourers). Caracas was founded in 1567, and by 1600 more than 20 settlements dotted the Venezuelan Andes and the Caribbean coast. During the 17th and 18th centuries, various Roman Catholic missionary orders gradually took over the Llanos and Maracaibo regions.
The colonial economy was based on agriculture and stock raising. Corn (maize), beans, and beef were the domestic food staples; sugar, cacao, tobacco, and hides were the principal exports. Spain’s European rivals (initially the French and English, followed by the Dutch) succeeded in taking over most of Venezuela’s commerce until the early 18th century, when Spain established a monopoly trading company. The interests of the latter, however, proved contrary to those of Venezuelan producers, who forced dissolution of the company during the 1780s.
Venezuelan society during the colonial era was headed by agents of the Spanish crown. Royal bureaucrats monopolized the top governing posts, and Spanish clergymen dominated the high church offices. However, Creoles (white descendants of Europeans born in the Americas) owned the land and other forms of wealth, and they used their power to hold the nonwhite races in bondage: persons of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry (mestizos) and persons of European and African ancestry were generally without property, social status, or political influence; Indigenous people performed forced labour on interior farms or were segregated on marginal lands; and enslaved Black Africans toiled on the coastal plantations. In theory, Venezuela was governed by the Spanish crown through the Audiencia of Santo Domingo in the 16th and 17th centuries and through the Viceroyalty of New Granada (with its capital at what is now Bogotá) from its incorporation in 1717. In practice, however, Venezuelans exercised some regional autonomy during the colonial era.
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A group of Venezuelan Creoles boldly proclaimed their country an independent republic in 1797. Although their effort failed, it forewarned of the revolutionary movements that were soon to inflame Latin America.
In 1806 Francisco de Miranda—who had served as a general in the French Revolution and fought with the French against Prussia and Russia—tried unsuccessfully to land on the Venezuelan coast with a group of mercenaries whom he had recruited in New York City. Revolutionary leaders recalled him to Gran Colombia four years later to take charge of a ruling junta, which drafted a constitution and established an independent nation. In the ensuing war with royalist forces, however, Miranda signed an armistice with Spain. Other revolutionary leaders viewed this action with contempt, and Miranda was subsequently turned over to the Spaniards, who sent him first to Puerto Rico and later to Spain, where he died in prison in 1816.
Early in 1813 the revolutionary junta appointed Simón Bolívar commander of the Venezuelan forces. Bolívar, a wealthy Creole landowner born in Caracas in 1783, had many reverses in his war against the Spanish. His forces were opposed by large royalist armies including a cavalry unit of llaneros (cowboys of the Llanos frontier), who were under the command of José Tomás Boves. In 1815 the Spanish general Pablo Morillo landed with an expeditionary force that spearheaded the reconquest of much of New Granada. Morillo administered the region in a heavy-handed fashion, however, and many of the Creole elites who had initially supported him soon conspired for his defeat. Llaneros and Black people also deserted the royalist cause and joined Bolívar, whose army was further augmented by a legion of British and Irish mercenaries; the new republican government of Haiti also sent aid.
The Republic of Gran Colombia, with its capital at Bogotá, was proclaimed on December 17, 1819, with Bolívar as president. On June 24, 1821, Bolívar’s troops, reinforced by llanero cavalry under Gen. José Antonio Páez, defeated the main royalist army at the Battle of Carabobo. The last of the royalist forces surrendered at Puerto Cabello on October 9, 1823. The following year Bolívar’s army marched south to liberate Peru, and in 1825 it freed Upper Peru (Bolivia) from Spanish rule. Venezuelans suffered greater casualties and endured more privations during the wars than did any other Latin American national group, because of the ferocity of battles on their own soil and the large number of Venezuelan troops who carried the struggle to other regions.
After the destruction of the colonial system, Venezuela passed through an era of government-by-force that lasted more than a century, until the death of Juan Vicente Gómez in 1935. Backed by their personal armies, a series of warlordlike caudillos (leaders) assumed power, which they exercised for their personal benefit rather than for that of the n...
The first of the military dictators was Gen. José Antonio Páez, who gave the country better government than it would see again for nearly a century. Bolívar had left Páez in charge of the armed forces of Venezuela, and he soon took full control of the country. He led the separation movement from Gran Colombia in 1829 and in 1830 convoked a constitutional convention for Venezuela. Páez dominated Venezuelan politics until 1848, both as president (1831–35 and 1839–43) and as a major political player. He subdued ambitious provincial caudillos and ruled in cooperation with the large landholders and leading merchants of the Conservative Party. The constitution that they enacted in 1830 reflected their social and political philosophy: a centralist state, property qualifications for voting, the death penalty for political crimes, guarantees for the freedom of trade and commerce, and the continuation of slavery. The church lost its tax immunity and its educational monopoly, and the army was shorn of its autonomy; thus, state supremacy was achieved. The government then began to reconstruct the war-torn economy by putting finances in order, establishing firm lines of foreign credit, and amortizing the national debt. It also constructed new roads to promote domestic commerce and facilitate coffee and cacao exports.
In contrast to the troubled times that preceded and followed it, the 1830–48 period of Conservative Party domination was an era of political stability, economic progress, and responsible administration. An opposition movement began to develop in 1840, however, when Antonio Leocadio Guzmán, the leading spokesman for dissident merchants and professional men, founded the Liberal Party. Guzmán’s new liberal newspaper, El Venezolano, demanded abolition of slavery, extension of voting rights, and protection for the debtor classes. During the 1840s the demand for Venezuela’s agricultural commodities declined on the world market; this produced economic difficulties, which in turn contributed to the increasing opposition to the Conservative oligarchy.
The growing political crisis was brought to a head in 1848 by Gen. José Tadeo Monagas. Although elected president as a Conservative in 1846, he soon gravitated toward the Liberals. He intimidated the Conservative congress and appointed Liberal Party ministers. When Páez rebelled in 1848, Monagas defeated him and forced him into exile.
The decade 1848–58 was one of dictatorial rule by Monagas and his brother, Gen. José Gregorio Monagas, who alternated as president during the period. The Liberal Party passed laws that abolished slavery, extended suffrage, outlawed capital punishment, and limited interest rates, but the laws were not implemented. Integrity in government waned, heavy deficit financing ruined the nation’s credit, and the economy began to stagnate and decay. In 1857 the Monagas brothers attempted to impose a new constitution extending the presidential term from four to six years and removing all restrictions on reelection. The Liberal leaders thereupon joined the Conservative opposition, and in March 1858 they brought the Monagas dynasty to an end. This first successful rebellion in Venezuela’s national history set off five years of revolutionary turmoil between the Liberals and Conservatives. The issues in these so-called Federalist Wars were, on the Liberal side, federalism, democracy, and social reform and, on the Conservative side, centralism and preservation of the political and social status quo. The conflicts were extremely bloody, and control of the central government changed hands several times. General Páez returned in 1861 to restore Conservative hegemony for two years, but in 1863 final victory went to the Liberals, led by the generals Juan Falcón and Antonio Guzmán Blanco.
Guzmán Blanco’s triumphal entry into Caracas in April 1870 halted the political chaos and economic stagnation that had plagued the nation since 1858. The new president took to the field himself and subjugated the country in less than two years; he thereupon launched a broad program of reform and development. A new constitution in 1872 proclaimed representative government, suffrage for all males, and direct election of the president. Economic reforms, such as restoration of the nation’s credit by means of new bond issues and generous concessions to foreign investors, gave further evidence of Guzmán Blanco’s apparent devotion to Liberal Party principles. He established a nationwide system of public primary education and promoted state support for secondary and higher education. In addition, he abolished ecclesiastical privileges, cut off state subsidies to the Roman Catholic Church, proclaimed religious liberty, legalized civil marriage, and also confiscated church properties, exiled the archbishop, and closed the convents.
Guzmán Blanco was the popular choice for president in the 1873 election. He departed for Europe in 1877, leaving a puppet successor in charge, but when the opposition rebelled, he returned to crush it and resumed the presidency in 1878. The following year he returned to Europe, leaving Gen. Joaquín Crespo in charge. Guzmán Blanco came back again in 1886 to serve a final two years in the face of growing popular opposition to his policies.
The course of Venezuelan history changed markedly at the turn of the 20th century. In 1899 Gen. Cipriano Castro, a caudillo from the Andean state of Táchira, descended on Caracas with his provincial army and seized the presidency. As a result, five successive military strongmen from Táchira, known as Andinos, controlled the nation for the next 59 years, except for an interlude in 1945–48. Castro ruled from 1899 to 1909. His regime was characterized by administrative tyranny, financial irresponsibility, almost constant domestic revolt, and frequent foreign intervention. The most serious internal uprising occurred in eastern Venezuela in 1902–03. This and subsequent revolts of the early 20th century were put down by Gen. Juan Vicente Gómez. Castro’s cavalier treatment of foreign businessmen and diplomats was topped by his refusal to reimburse foreigners for properties that were damaged in domestic insurrections; consequently, Venezuelans suffered a British-German-Italian blockade of their coast in 1902–03 and a Dutch attack upon their navy in 1908. Ill health forced Castro to go to Europe for medical attention in 1908, whereupon Gómez usurped the presidential powers and did not relinquish them until his death 27 years later.
Gómez was an effective, if ruthless, dictator. By manipulating elections, abolishing all organized political activity, and monopolizing appointive powers, he established a completely subservient legislative and judicial structure. He muzzled the press and stifled the opposition with an elaborate spy service and used arbitrary arrests, exiles, long imprisonments, and assassinations to ensure his control. Efficient police and army organizations maintained his power through unrestricted use of force.
Eleazar López Conteras, who had been war minister under Gómez, succeeded him and served as president until 1941. López restored civil liberties, sanctioned political activity, and permitted labour to organize during 1936, but he restored the dictatorship in 1937, when the opposition became too threatening. In 1938 he inaugurated a three-year development plan that included construction of public schools and hospitals and support for agriculture and private industry.
Isaias Medina Angarita, a fellow Táchira general, was president in 1941–45. He continued López’s development program and also restored political liberties. Petroleum revenues declined sharply in 1941–42 because of a World War II transportation squeeze, and President Medina used a 1943 oil law to raise the nation’s share of profits from the petroleum industry. As the transportation shortage eased, his government granted new concessions and stimulated a petroleum boom.
In October 1945, at the height of the wartime prosperity, a coalition of military officers and civilian political leaders conspired to overthrow the Medina administration. This revolution marked the first assumption of power in Venezuela by a political party (Democratic Action) that had the support of a majority of the people. Party leader Rómulo Betancourt headed a civilian-military junta that ruled the nation for 28 months. In July 1947 the nation adopted a new constitution that reflected the labour-leftist philosophy of the party, and in December the novelist Rómulo Gallegos was elected to the presidency.
Democratic Action promptly launched a program of reform: it drafted a tax decree to assure the nation of at least half the profits of the petroleum industry; in addition, it encouraged labour unions to organize and bargain for their rights, and it supported health, housing, education, and agricultural and industrial development. These reforms provoked strong opposition from conservative forces that culminated in a November 1948 military coup. The new ruling junta was headed by Lieut. Col. Carlos Delgado Chalbaud and Maj. Marcos Pérez Jiménez; two years later the former was assassinated, and the latter took power.
Thus, from 1951 to 1957 Venezuela was again controlled by a Táchira military dictator. Pérez Jiménez outlawed political activity, crushed the labour movement, closed down the universities, and muzzled the press. Democratic Action’s nationwide reform programs were abandoned in favour of modernizing Caracas and enriching the dictator and his army associates. Finally, popular opposition grew so great that the navy and air force joined to overthrow Pérez Jiménez in January 1958. A civilian-military junta ran the country for one year, after which Rómulo Betancourt was elected president.
The second Betancourt administration (1959–64) was considerably more moderate than the first. This time Democratic Action, in contrast to its earlier exclusivism, cooperated with the next largest faction, the middle-of-the-road Christian Democrats (Social Christian Party), and set up a coalition government. This government launched programs designed to modernize agriculture, develop domestic industry, improve the nation’s health, and eliminate illiteracy. In 1960 it passed an agrarian reform law, and in 1962 it inaugurated a national steel industry.
Pres. Carlos Andrés Pérez, the Democratic Action victor in the 1973 elections, nationalized the iron ore industry in 1975 and the petroleum industry the next year. Following the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, Venezuela, as a founding member of OPEC, more than tripled the price of its oil. The resulting windfall triggered a wave of spending that attracted tens of thousands of immigrants from other South American countries, increased imports of food and luxury items, produced growing waste and corruption, and created a privileged economic elite, but did little to alleviate poverty. The economic boom did not last, however. An international recession and oil glut beginning in the late 1970s slashed world oil prices and plunged the country into economic stagnation. This condition, continuing into the late 1980s, was reflected in a downward trend in the gross domestic product and a steady increase in inflation; exports declined, and unemployment became a major concern. The accompanying loss of confidence in the economy caused an enormous increase in capital flight, as investors rapidly divested themselves of Venezuelan securities and shifted their capital to foreign markets. That problem and the government’s inability to repay foreign debt reached crisis proportions during the administrations of the Christian Democrat Luis Herrera Campins, elected in 1978, and Democratic Action’s Jaime Lusinchi, elected in 1983. Herrera Campins devalued the currency for the first time in two decades. Lusinchi adopted limited austerity measures trying to slow capital flight and began to reschedule foreign debt.
The Lusinchi government’s economic policies did little more than soften the impact of external forces. By 1988 another drastic decline in world oil prices had cut government income in half, and payment of the foreign debt—which Lusinchi had continued as scheduled—became increasingly difficult. In December of that year the electorate returned former president Pérez to office. The nation’s most popular politician and a leader of hemispheric democracy, Pérez pledged himself to develop a regionwide plan to deal with the foreign debt. Domestically, he sought to stimulate new growth within existing economic constraints. His succession of Lusinchi marked the first time in 25 years that the governing party had retained the presidency in an election. Pérez’s popularity was short-lived, however, as riots broke out across the country in reaction to a rise in bus fares, which was part of a package of austerity measures that Pérez had announced in early 1989. Massive looting took place, and troops killed hundreds of people while attempting to put down the disturbances.
The next two years were filled with protests, labour strikes, and an increasingly heated political debate as Pérez attempted to reduce tariffs and decrease government intervention in the economy. In 1992 a small group of junior army officers, led by Lieut. Col. Hugo Chávez Frías, attempted a coup against Pérez, and later that same year air force officers staged a second coup attempt. Pérez survived these two incidents but subsequently was charged with misappropriating public funds; he was forced to leave office early, in mid-1993.
Following two brief interim presidencies, national elections were held in late 1993. Former president Rafael Caldera came back to office, this time running as an independent after breaking from the Social Christian party. The banking system was in crisis as Caldera took power in 1994, and his administration experimented with a series of populist economic plans before turning to negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. Caldera also released from prison the coup leader Hugo Chávez before his trial had ended, thus making Chávez eligible to run for public office.
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Sep 5, 2018 · For about a decade, Venezuela was part of the state of Gran (Great) Colombia, which also included modern-day Colombia and Ecuador and was ruled from Bogota. As Venezuela emerged from the early independence era, dissatisfaction grew within the country over the fact that it was being governed from Bogota. Between 1821 and about 1830, friction ...
Venezuela, [a] officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, [b] is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. Venezuela comprises an area of 916,445 km 2 (353,841 sq mi), and its population was estimated at 29 million in 2022. [13]
2 days ago · The islands and coastal plains are located in the north. They include the Caribbean “Islands to the Leeward,” such as Margarita and La Tortuga, and several peninsulas, including the head-shaped Paraguaná in the northwest and, in the northeast, Araya and Paria, the latter a finger of land pointing at Trinidad.
Renaissance. The city flourished during the 14th century during the reign of Charles IV, of the Luxembourg dynasty. Charles was the eldest son of Czech Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia and John of Luxembourg. He was born in Prague in 14 of May 1316 and became King of Bohemia upon the death of his father in 1346.
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Dec 29, 2021 · Geography - note. note 1: the country lies on major sea and air routes linking North and South America note 2: Venezuela has some of the most unique geology in the world; tepuis are massive table-top mountains of the western Guiana Highlands that tend to be isolated and thus support unique endemic plant and animal species; their sheer cliffsides account for some of the most spectacular ...
