A friend sent me a note this week which I’d like to share with you as encouragement as well as challenge. If you have children or grandchildren, do your best to inspire them to love God and country.
That is easier said than done, of course. But reminiscences like those of my friend are a good starting point.
He alludes to the “shacks around Caracas”. For more on that, see my series on “ranchitos” beginning here: Ranchitos I.
Here is his letter:
Dear Richard,
Thanks for the info about Venezuela. It’s sad to see a beautiful country taken down by evil men. The people are the ones who suffer. I remember all the shacks in the area around Caracas and that the city was noted as the pick pocket capital. I know I lost all the Upjohn travel money I had to a gang of pickpockets. It makes me worry about the US and the direction we are headed.
I remember life in Kalamazoo when I would walk to school and to church, about 6 city blocks; we had no car. We would see the little flags with the blue and gold stars in the homes of individuals with sons in the war. But I still remember Sundays as a day of rest: no lawn mowers, no sports, no car washing. But the sound of church bells announcing the start of church services. There were 3 large churches in our neighborhood, and we attended the farthest away. We walked there 3 times a Sunday, rain or shine, seeing all our friends on the way.
Now, no church bells; they may offend someone. It’s all about sports, baseball, golf, basketball, football, and only one church service on Sunday.
And political corruption.
Are we headed in the same direction?
God bless you and yours.
J.V.
Looking north on Burdick St., Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1950s Looking east on Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1950s.
(Although I found photos of individual Kalamazoo churches in the 50s, I was unable to find any panoramic prints that showed at least several of them in one photo)
The first 5 posts in this series on ranchitos, looked at the centuries-old history of land ownership in Venezuela (and in much of Spanish colonial America, including parts of what became the United States). One aspect of landholding, consistent throughout the centuries, up to the late 1950s, was a respect for private property, whether it belonged to small landholders or large.
This changed dramatically with the first democratically-elected president of Venezuela, Rómulo Betancourt. (For more on Betancourt, see here and here.)
In 1958, Venezuela had the 4th highest per capita GDP in the world, despite being governed by military governments since the turn of the century. Its monetary policy was stable and property rights were respected and honored.
Marcos Pérez Jiménez went into exile in early 1958, and a new democratic regime was installed under Mr. Betancourt. His government, and that of his successors, completely overthrew the mostly non-interventionist political order that, with fits and starts, had ruled the day for over a century. This is not the place to discuss the Punto Fijo Pact, which, in effect, ultimately centralized political control in two major parties. But it is necessary to note that both parties were socialistic and interventionist.
To quote a Venezuelan writer: “In 1958, Venezuela became a democracy when the dictatorship was overthrown. With that came all the usual benefits of democracy such as freedom of the press, universal suffrage, and other civil rights. Unfortunately, these reforms came along with … destruction of our economic freedom.”
In the matter of landholdings, the land reform launched by Betancourt, with the support of the Punto Fijo Pact signatories, redistributed property holdings. Although the state compensated the owners for the expropriations, it was a “taking” nonetheless. The recipients of the parceled out land did not have actual title to their land, but only the right to work it. Or, in those cases where they were given title, they lacked the expertise, technical know-how, and the necessary infrastructure to make a go of it. In fact, 90% of distributed lands were transferred without title. It was actually a transfer of tenancy, not ownership. In other words, from being working tenants of large, productive haciendas, the peasants became failing tenants of small parcels owned by the state.
To put it simply: in most cases, ownership of land was transferred from private citizens to the state.
To get an idea of the radical nature of these actions in Venezuela’s history, consider: no tax had ever been imposed on land until the latter half of the 20th century.
As we have seen in earlier posts on ranchitos, historically, land was often ceded, or sold for nominal price, by hacendados to men, or families, or widows, who had lived and worked it. These cessions or sales were duly notarized and recorded in municipal or city records. In many other cases, records reflected men who claimed ownership on the basis of decades having lived and worked on sections of land whose original owners and families had been killed or dispossessed during the great bloodlettings of the 19th century.
Excerpts of one such record reads, “….Carlos Durán, citizen of the State and neighbor of the San Juan Parish, I direct myself to you [governor of the state] to justify my right to title: I have lived and worked a small part of the land called “La Angosturita” in my Parish where, with great effort and sacrifice, I have built an inheritance on which I depend for the sustenance of my family. I am now aged and infirm as a result of the vicissitudes and desolation of the federal revolution [one of many 19th century uprisings] to which I contributed with my insignificant personal efforts in the army….”
The excerpt goes on to describe and delineate the parcel, including its boundaries, “[bordered to the east by land owned] by Juan Manuel Durán, to the north and west by Carlos Herrera, to the south by Mrs. Carmen Betancourt de Otero….” On this basis, which, however pitiful, is very detailed and straightforward, title was granted.
In the case of land reform, as with any socialistic endeavor, the impulse was not only to “take”, but also to somehow modify behavior. For example, to quote an Acción Democrática (Betancourt’s political party) technician who, thirteen years later, analyzed land reform’s unkept promises, wrote with a measure of despondency: “It was necessary to create technicians who would understand [agricultural] processes, it was necessary to prepare administrative and managerial personnel, and to educate and equip the laborer in new disciplines with which he had never had any experience. These are some of the elements that hindered the success of our agrarian reform.”
Necessary to create…necessary to prepare…. How? Ex nihilo? Wasn’t this what the former landholders hacendados had been doing for centuries? What gargantuan conceit made the Socialists think they’d do a better job of this than the prior owners? The state rails against the evil landowners. But is the state composed of heavenly angels? Fifty years later, land reform had become a weapon with which to punish the state’s enemies and reward its acolytes. Hacendados were not known to do that.
Part of the problem is that the state (any state) does not like competition. In its view, the greatest Competition, of course, is God. Hence the state’s animosity. However, large landowners are also a form of competition and so must be opposed as well.
What typical “land reform” fails to take into account are the eternal verities. If the state would merely begin with a half-serious consideration of the Ten Commandments, it would hesitate before taking anyone’s land. Naboth’s vineyard comes to mind.
Almost overnight, Venezuela’s agriculture went from 22% of GDP to 5% and its agricultural labor force went from 60% to less than 10%. Only 4% of the land in Venezuela is under cultivation and food must be imported.
Peasants had been given the right to farm land when they knew not how. Or they had been given land they knew little about. They had also been given loans to buy equipment and infrastructure, much of which was defaulted. Knowing there was food and patronage in Caracas, they did what most folks who are averse to starving would do: they abandoned the land and fled to the capital. And not having housing there, they built their own ranchitos.
And they are there still.
Signatories of the Punto Fijo Pact, 1958. From left to right: Rómulo Betancourt, Jóvito Villalba, and Rafael Caldera
The promise of land reform
The reality of land reform which disregards eternal verities: ranchitos near Caracas
With this, the second to last post on the provenance of the Venezuelan ranchitos, we are now circling the airfield.
We’ve looked at the encomienda and hacienda systems, the latter of which predominated well into the mid-20th century, after which ranchitos began to sprout like wild mushrooms along the Caracas mountainsides.
Despite real poverty in prior centuries, ranchitos in Venezuela were mostly a 20-century phenomenon which persists into the 21st.
What gave rise to them?
The usual answer, which you see in Wikipedia, magazine articles, and books, is the oil boom, which drew folks from difficult, farm labor to easier work in the cities. However, there’s something facile and unsatisfactory in that reply.
In our last post we looked at the first four of the five Andinos who ruled Venezuela in the first half of the past century, the most consequential of whom was General Juan Vicente Gómez, in office from 1908 to his death in December, 1935. He and those who followed him created an environment of stability such as had not been seen or experienced in Venezuela in well over a century. See here for more.
The last of the “pre-democracy” Andinos was the almost equally consequential General Marcos Pérez Jiménez in office from 1951 to his abdication/overthrow in 1958.
Pérez Jiménez sought to enhance Venezuela’s independence by promoting oil and ore concessions and improving or expanding the transit infrastructure. The country was further catapulted onto modernity. Caracas was modernized with skyscrapers, including the symbolic Humboldt Hotel overlooking the capital city. Construction projects were launched to build large public housing projects, bridges, and South America’s finest highway system, most of which are still in use into the 21st century, including the then-spectacular La Guira-Caracas expressway in 1953 and the Tejerías-Caracas expressway in 1954.
Furthermore, his tenure saw the creation, in 1956, of cable car transport to the 6,000 ft. Mt. Ávila, which stands like an imposing sentinel over Caracas. He also commissioned the building of the even more remarkable cable car system to the 20,000 ft. Pico Bolivar in the Andes in the western state of Mérida (Mérida). Both systems were built by Swiss engineers and materiel. During his presidency, Venezuela was transformed into the most modern nation in South America: “modern” defined as excellent infrastructure, breathtaking skylines, and a rapidly growing middle class.
A telling but quickly forgotten change imposed by Pérez Jiménez was the revision of the official name of the nation. Since 1864 the country’s name was “United States of Venezuela”, a name favored by José Antonio Páez (see Ranchitos III) and officialized by a successor in 1864. This name reflected Simón Bolivar’s admiration for the United States, but not his conviction that South America should not seek to emulate a similar type government because, as he put it, “the United States form of government will only work for saints, which is what they are [and what we are not]”; Marcos Pérez Jiménez, apparently understanding Bolivar’s admonition, changed the name to “Republic of Venezuela”, a name which stuck until the 21st century, when another authoritarian politician changed the name yet again, but left Venezuela’s 20 states intact.
A plebiscite was held in December, 1957, which he won by a wide margin, but which opponents insisted was a rigged exercise. He went into self-imposed exile in Miami Beach, in 1959, only to be deported later by the Kennedy administration, which vainly believed it could afford to break, for the first time in its history, the United States’ promise of asylum in exchange for the applause of Venezuelan politicians: honor out; applause in.
But, as often happens with asymmetrical swaps, Kennedy succeed with the former, weightier matter, and failed with the latter, transitory one.
Unbelievably, Jiménez was, in 1968, elected to the Senate, even though he ran in absentia from Spain; however, the Venezuelan politicians, who were known to have too much time on their hands, succeeded in overturning his election on technicalities. In 1973, his supporters nominated him for the presidency; however, the political parties amended the constitution, in effect prohibiting him from running for office again.
He never returned to Venezuela. Nevertheless, love him or hate him, his administration’s negotiations with the petroleum industries brought matchless prosperity to the country. This promise of future increase and liberality was reversed by the overturning of his economic policies which tended to favor free enterprise locally, coupled with pragmatic agreements with foreign companies, within a low tax and regulatory environment. Our next post, the last in this series, will report on this in more detail.
Amazingly, all major projects undertaken by Pérez Jiménez still stand, unsurpassed: either still in use, such as in the case of the magnificent, now barely maintained, and, therefore, in many places, dangerous expressways, or as silent, empty monuments of a long past era, such as the Humboldt Hotel, alone and padlocked, alternating between stints as a reflector of countless brilliant sparkles of sunlight or as a lone sentry shrouded in clouds atop Mr. Ávila, reminding all who look and wonder, that historical eras ought not to be simplistically catalogued as bright or dark, evil or good. Much depends on who tells the story, how it’s told, of whom it is told, and, of course, by whom it is told.
At the end of his rule, Venezuela was by far the largest supplier of iron ore to the United States and one of its primary suppliers of petroleum. The ore was ultimately incorporated in America’s magnificent bridges, skyscrapers, monuments, homes, and automobiles.
Although some of his policies did genuflect to politicians who demanded state interventions, these were limited and, most importantly, he honored private property thereby maintaining a centuries’ old tradition in Venezuela.
We now approach the threshold of the birth and growth of the ranchitos, where we will see that tradition of respect for private property assailed.
Marcos Pérez Jiménez, last of The Andinos (1914-2001)
Caracas-La Guaira Expressway
Humboldt Hotel
Cable car to the 20,000 ft. Pico Bolivar in the Andes Mountains in Estado Mérida
We have seen, necessarily at 20,000 feet, the encomienda and hacienda systems, the latter of which continued through the decades of revolutionary wars and the chaotic period leading up to the end of the 19th century.
If a land can experience déjà vu, then vast swathes of Venezuela certainly must have, as periods of turmoil and unrest were not unknown to her pre-Columbian history.
Scholars suggest that a major reason that advanced Indian civilizations such as the Aztec in Mexico, the Inca in Peru, and the Maya in Central America, did not materialize in Venezuela was the acute instability caused by the ferocious Caribs. They were a terror to extended areas of Venezuela, from the eastern foothills of the Andes, across the interminable llanos and hills, all the way to the Atlantic.
When the Spanish began their civilizing work there, they encountered a “backward” region unlike their experiences in other colonial regions.
There had been no opportunity for the Indians to settle anywhere and to develop into any semblance of a stable living arrangement. The Caribs themselves were totally anarchistic except when, for larger enterprises, they’d submit themselves to a chief; but that was always a temporary arrangement. As soon as the battle, expedition, or raid was over, off they’d go again on their own and with their own groups. They themselves left no permanent civilization, nor would they permit anyone else to do so.
It is no wonder that, in Venezuela, the Piranha (or Piraña) is known as Caribe, from Carib, who also gave the sea its name: Caribbean Sea (Mar Caribe, in Spanish). Their depredations in the pre-Columbian Caribbean are legendary. For more on the Caribe, see here.
Fast forward several centuries and, in the 19th century a terrible period of bloodletting and turmoil again wracked the country. Only this time it was not the Caribs, either in their human or fish incarnations. It was rather men inflamed by the siren call of egalitarian ideology, the same ideology that had left the land of France soaked in blood and its revolutionaries devouring one another.
It is a wonder that, throughout all the savage turmoil of the 19th century, the concept of land ownership still held sway. There had been confiscations of land from landowners who were deemed too pro-Spain, but overall, it was recognized that a confiscation, in effect, transferred legal title from one private party to another, whose right would be respected.
The Andinos — 1899-1958
Andinos are men who were cradled by the Andes Mountains in western Venezuela.
At the threshold of the 20th century, Cipriano Castro and his army occupied Caracas and took over the reins of government. He was the first of the Andinos and ruled from 1899 to 1909.
The beginning of the Andinos’ 59-year incumbency was inauspicious. Castro was as tyrannical and arbitrary as the man he deposed, Joaquín Crespo, who had managed to provoke England, resulting in a deeply resented arbitration decision by United States President Grover Cleveland. However, Castro managed to surpass his predecessor’s chutzpah by telling foreign businessmen who had suffered great losses due to domestic bedlam, in effect, to go pound sand.
This cavalier attitude was an open invitation for intervention by foreign powers who readily obliged by imposing a British-German-Italian naval blockade. And, for good measure, the Dutch attacked what little Venezuelan navy floated on the pond. This, in addition to internal revolts may have had a deleterious effect on Castro’s health and he travelled to Europe for treatment, from where he heard that his war minister, Juan Vicente Gómez, had taken power.
Juan Vicente Gómez — 1908-1935
And now we come to the second Andino, Juan Vicente Gómez, one of the most successful presidencies in Venezuelan history. We have touched on Gómez here and here.
He immediately removed the impasse with foreign governments through arbitration or, simply, contract fulfillment. By the end of 1909, Venezuela’s relations with the United States, France, Holland, and Colombia had been reestablished and her other external relations had been substantially normalized.
This is a series on ranchitos, however, we must pause briefly to look at the Gómez years and offer a perspective that is not usually found in the standard histories and Wikipedia entries.
The problem with Gómez was that he was not “democratically elected”, nor was he a communist or socialist. For more recent history, compare the opprobrium hurled at, say, Augusto Pinochet, to the press treatment of Fidel Castro during each respective rule. To further intensify the contrast, compare the reporting of the Chile miracle recovery under Pinochet to the reporting of the Cuban disaster under Castro, where “everybody had free healthcare and education.” If Pinochet had declared himself to be a Marxist Communist, he would have received better press.
In the case of Gómez, here is an extract from the Encyclopedia Brittanica entry:
“Political order attracted foreign petroleum investors….By 1928, Venezuela had become the world’s leading exporter of oil, and was second only to the United States in oil production. The oil industry brought the nation such benefits as high-paying jobs, subsidies to agriculture, expanded government revenues, and increased trade. The government oversaw construction of road networks, railroads, and port facilities. It also paid off the entire foreign debt and drastically reduced the large domestic debt. Yet the oil prosperity was unevenly distributed; most Venezuelans continued to live in poverty, and their health, housing, and education needs were ignored by the state. Meanwhile, Gómez and the top bureaucrats and army officers enriched themselves. The dictator became the nation’s wealthiest citizen, retaining power until his death, from natural causes, in 1935.”
John Guenther, the author of the “Inside” series published in the first half of the 20th century, based on his personal sources, said that Gómez tortured and killed his adversaries and treated Venezuela as his personal hacienda.
But, as usual, there is more to the story.
Gómez’s logo was Unión, Paz, y Trabajo (Unity, Peace, and Jobs). What he shrewdly captured in that logo was the longing of a people tired of senseless upheavals and desirous of the opportunity to raise their homes and businesses and rear their families unmolested by a tyrannical and arbitrary state. General Gómez determined to give them that.
A massive road network was planned and built, permitting, for the first time in her history, the communication, development, and sense of unity amongst the various extended regions of the country, which, until then, were totally isolated. The network included over 8,000 kilometers of paved highways, multiple bridges of engineering marvel, the expansion of ports and the construction of airports.
His cabinet and ministers included eminent men of that era, such as Dr. Santos Dominici, a brilliant medical pioneer who represented Venezuela in Germany, England, and the United States. Eleazar López Contreras, a military scholar and future president, and Rubén González Cárdenas, a educador whose reforms greatly improved the curricula in the Venezuelan school system, especially in the areas of history, geography, and civic duty. Countless elementary, high schools, and academies were founded and student participation increased from 25,000 in 1909 to 150,000 by 1934.
The confrontation with the Roman Catholic Church was eased, allowing numerous previously expelled congregations to return. Great personal security, such as was not seen in Venezuela since before the revolutionary wars, returned along with a widespread respect for private property (propiedad ajena).
Recognizing that Venezuela was rich in minerals but poor in technical expertise, the president negotiated concessions with foreign enterprises, bringing massive investments into the country. By the end of 1928, Venezuela had become the world’s second producer and the first exporter of petroleum.
Health was aggressively addressed, especially the high incidence of malaria in Venezuela (for more on malaria in Venezuela, see here). The National Health Office and Institute of Hygiene and Chemistry, Bacteriology, and Parasitology Laboratories opened in 1911 and a National Health Act was promulgated in 1912. During the 1920’s quinine was freely distributed in some regions.
Much more was done in social, economic, political, and cultural spheres, but enough has been mentioned to cast a bit of doubt on typical aspersions such as “[Venezuelan’s] needs were ignored by the state….” The stability of the early 20th century allowed growth, development, and general well-being in a country that had not seen such in well over a century. Even infant morality decreased.
In my childhood, I remember hearing a refrain, “Juan Vicente Gómez was the father of modern Venezuela.” That was en era uninhibited by today’s political correctness.
Eleazar López Contreras — 1935-1941
Already mentioned above as a member of the Gómez cabinet, he believed Venezuela, after decades of peace and prosperity, was ready for more political “activity” and also removed labor organizing restrictions. He modeled democratic transition by peacefully allowing himself to be succeeded by:
Isaias Medina Angarita — 1941-1945
Allowed more political activities and also granted new oil concessions, furthering another “petroleum boom.” However, the now more active politicians deposed him and took power, the first time a political party, AcciónDemocrática (Democratic Action) takes power in Venezuela. Rómulo Betancourt, a future president, leads a civilian-military junta.
Acción Democrática aggressively launches “reform” programs, including tax decrees and “land reform”. This provoked the more conservative and cooler heads to depose the junta.
Carlos Delgado Chalbaud — 1948-1951
A quiet man, he was assassinated by a personal opponent who in turn was also killed.
Marcos Pérez Jiménez — 1951-1958 (the last of the Andinos prior to democratic rule)
In the next post, we will conclude our review of the The Andinos and look at the transfer of power to Acción Democrática and Rómulo Betancourt, coinciding with the growth of ranchitos.
Cipriano Castro, the first of the Andinos, in power 1899-1908. He died in exile in 1924U.S. Newspaper reporting on the death of Juan Vicente Gómez in 1935.The Piranha (or Piraña). Also known as Caribe in Venezuela.Their ancestors in effect terrorized the islands of the Caribbean Sea and, earlier, Venezuela. Their acts included murder, rape, torture, and cannibalism.
We have considered the encomienda and the hacienda systems and how the former did not grant title to the land, whereas the latter did. We have also seen that in both cases the intent was to help, protect, and instruct the native populations in the Spanish colonies of the Americas, including Venezuela.
That point is important and we will have more to say about it in other posts. For now, let us simply state that the Spanish crown, for all its failures, desired the best for its colonies in the Americas and did what they could in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries to realize that desire. I’ve added emphasis in the prior sentence in order to point out that their concern and their efforts were progressive (in the good sense) and humanitarian at a time when life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” and many did not think it important to care for “savages” in other lands.
In both systems, the character of the “owner”, whether the encomendado or the hacendado, in large measure determined the actual treatment of the Indians (or indigenous peoples). There were many cases where encomendados just ignored the temporary nature of their trusts and outright kept the lands entrusted to them. In some of these cases, but by no means all, the land remained with these after transition to the hacendado system where title was granted by the throne.
An important point to remember is that with both systems, although monetary consideration may not have been given, some service to the crown had been rendered, whereby it was demonstrated that the owners had earned their lands, and the lands had legal title. And, in turn, in many cases, under both systems, the Spaniards and their descendants granted lands to faithful or industrious laborers on their haciendas.
(As to the legal aspects of lands owned by colonists and not by the Indians, that is beyond the scope of the posts on ranchitos, but will be addressed in the future.)
Fast forward with me to very recent times. My Puerto Rican father-in-law owned land which he farmed. During his active years he hired a number of men who remained with him and whose children also eventually worked the land. In at least one case that I’m aware of, he, in effect, granted (very low price) a portion of the farm to a faithful foreman who had served him for years. That foreman is now gone but his descendants continue on the land, holding legal title. None live in ranchitos.
Multiply that example by thousands and you get an idea of the evolution of land ownership in Venezuela and throughout the former American Spanish colonial empire up to the 20th century.
And throughout these centuries, there were no ranchitos and no evidence of death by famine, although too much evidence of hundreds of thousands of deaths by revolutions and upheavals in the 19th century. That’s been covered in other posts (for example, see here and here and here) and will be addressed further in future posts, because Venezuela (and her neighbors) cannot be understood otherwise.
Before arriving to the 20th century in our narrative on Venezuelan ranchitos, it is necessary to note that the era following the blood-soaked revolutionary wars was one of decades of convulsive rebellions and multiple, and at times simultaneously competing governments, led by strongmen (caudillos) of varying ideological persuasions.
One persistent whisper, coursing like a wily salamander throughout speeches, pronouncements, declarations, proclamations, and publications was the attack on “large landowners”. With authoritative conviction, the “tragedy”, the “injustice”, the “offense”, or the “scandal” of a few men owning so much land was condemned and denounced.
This was sheer demagoguery and it had little impact in moving large numbers of people to take whatever action was urged. However, it did move these men’s armies or their armed forces and their political fellow travelers.
As to the “post-independence” epoch of the 19th century, following are generalities and a brief mention of some of the more critical personages; deeper analysis and discussion will have to await other posts in the future given that our concern at present is how we got to the ranchitos.
José Antonio Paez – 1830-1848
Having betrayed Simón Bolivar, he led the separation movement from Gran Colombia in 1829 and in 1830 called a constitutional convention for Venezuela as a country, separate from Bolivar’s Gran Colombia. He (Paez) dominated Venezuelan politics until 1848.
He led the Conservatives, who espoused property rights and property qualifications for voting. He also promoted exports, in particular cacao and coffee.
Most historians agree that his years in power were characterized by stability and economic growth.
José Tadeo Monagas – 1848-1858
He was elected in 1846 as a conservative, successor to José Antonio Paez. However, as Paez had betrayed Bolivar, Monagas, in turn, betrayed Paez by abandoning and actively opposing the Conservative party, including attacking land ownership and, in 1848, he exiled the former president (Paez).
His period in power, shared with his brother, was characterized by turmoil. By 1857 the Monagas brothers attempted to extend his rule, which prompted a rebellion wherein he was deposed. But 5 years of terrible bloodletting, known as the Federal Wars, followed, wherein control of the reins of civil government swung from one party to another or were mired in utter confusion.
By 1863, the “Liberals” were in control and power was assumed by:
Antonio Guzmán Blanco – 1863-1888
More rebellions ensued along with more bloodletting. Guzmán consolidated his power in 1870, having swung from Conservative to Liberal to Conservative and finally back to Liberal. He was in power, off and on, through 1888 and was succeeded, after more turmoil, in 1890 by:
Joaquín Crespo – 1890-1899
Following a now all-too-familiar pattern, Crespo’s rule was more turmoil, confusion, and nastiness. But he still found time and energy to pick a fight with England over a vast wilderness in the East where gold had been discovered. We need to leave that adventure for future posts.
The period from 1830 to 1899 confirmed Simón Bolivar’s exasperated complaint in 1829:
“From one end to the other, the New World is an abyss of abomination; there is no good faith in [Spanish] America; treaties are mere paper; constitutions, books; elections, combat; liberty, anarchy; life, a torment. We’ve never been so disgraced as we are now. Before, we enjoyed good things; illusion is fed by chimera…. we are tormented by bitter realities.”
This, from a man who was largely responsible for the chaos he now bitterly laments. A man who proclaimed the glorious unity of the continent, saw it irredeemably fractured and destroyed. He died, embittered (“I have plowed the sea!”), a mere year later.
The Andinos – 1899-1958
At the threshold of the 20th century, Venezuela was about to embark on a period of dramatic progress, peace, and prosperity. In a few years, her foreign debt would be completely and honorably paid off, a vast network of roads constructed, and the foundations laid for “democratic” government.
In general, land ownership and respect for private property continued as it had since colonial days.
Yet the undercurrent of envy in the mouths and hearts of an energetic minority persisted.
José Antonio Paez, one of the most remarkable figures in Venezuelan and South American history. More on him in future posts. He died in exile in New York City.
José Tadeo Monagas. Betrayed José Antonio Paez and the Conservative Party. His perfidy was rewarded with rebellions, bloodletting, and instability.
Antonio Guzmán Blanco. His name is still mentioned in Venezuela. His time in power (or the power behind the throne) was uneven, but included periods of tranquility and peace. However, overall, turmoil reigned.
Joaquín Crespo, in power at the end of Venezuela’s turbulent and blood-soaked 19th century. He managed to appeal to United States President Grover Cleveland to arbitrate a territorial dispute with Great Britain. The arbitration did not please him nor the Venezuelan elite. He was deposed shortly thereafter.
My late father-in-law (right) with his foreman circa 1960My late father-in-law (right) accompanying my son harvesting plantains. My father-in-law’s example was a microcosm of the hacenderos with good character and their treatment of laborers and their descendants.
