Venezuela – Page 26 – The Pull Of The Land

Ranchitos II

February 10, 2020February 10, 2020 Richard Barnes

This is the second in a series of posts on the Venezuelan ranchitos.

In “Venezuela, ranchitos (or barrios) are like Brazil’s favelas, the shanty towns which grew around Rio de Janeiro and now are ubiquitous in metropolitan areas throughout country. Argentina has Villa Miseria or asentamientos; Chile has campamentos; Colombia, tugurios; and so on.

“To generalize, these are ‘informal settlements.’ Man-on-the-street terms range from slums to shacks to squatter settlements, etc.”

The approach of politicians to this phenomenon is to assume “they’ve always been there” and then to figure out how to get rid of them or how to induce the millions of people living in them to leave for other, more conventional housing.

However, politicians have been “attacking” the ranchitos for generations now, and all with no success. I believe the lack of success is at least partly due to the modern affliction that causes folks to believe that history began with yesterday’s newspapers. In the case of the ranchitos, it might be helpful to look at the background and approaches to land ownership throughout the American Spanish colonies and subsequent generations.

Our prior post dealt with the encomienda system, whose intention was to protect, catechize, and instruct the native population. This system did not include a transfer of land ownership to the Spanish encomendero, but was rather a trust of limited duration, at the end of which formal, legal title to the land would be granted to the Indians (read here for more Ranchitos I).

Seeing its limitations and perverse incentives, the Spanish crown, after several unsuccessful attempts to abolish it, finally succeeded in ending the encomienda system by royal decree in 1717. However, it continued in use till the early 19th century.

What followed the encomienda system was the equally-maligned hacienda system, which was an improvement, and whose success, including the treatment of laborers and native population, depended much on the character of the hacendados. When researching this system, the student will often come across charged and provocative terms like, oligarchs, feudal lords, and absolute power. Such terms deserve to be accompanied by a couple boulders of salt.

In some cases, but by no means all, the encomenderos under the encomienda system became hacendados under the hacienda system.

Hacienda often refers to a vast landholding producing agricultural products for export. That’s a concise, but too limited definition, as haciendas could also refer to mining areas and even factories. In many cases haciendas included several commercial activities.

The principal distinction between an hacienda and an encomienda is the fact of land ownership. The hacendero was granted title to the land by the crown (land grant). In addition, the natives on an hacienda were considered free labor and many haciendas had families who had worked faithfully for the hacendero family for generations.

The origin of the hacienda concept goes back to the latifundium of ancient Rome. In fact, large landholdings in Venezuela are (were!) known as latifundios, whereas small ones are called minifundios. These range from vast cattle ranches or commercial agricultural concerns, to small, family, subsistence farms, also called conucos. But, generally, the Roman latifundium is known as hacienda in Spanish.

The administration of haciendas or latifundios in Venezuela depended on the character of the hacendero. Depending on your sources, you’ll read that the holdings were run based on slave labor where the hacendero had the power of life and death over the laborers, a wholly negative view. However, you’ll also hear of great men of business whose character commanded unflinching loyalty by his laborers, who were paid their daily wages, and who remained with their employers for generations, a wholly positive view. Could it be that, like much in life, the truth is somewhere in the middle?

As with ancient Rome, latifundios were considered “spoils of war” or great grants which recognized some achievement or service to the king or to the realm. These reflected great private power and in many cases were also the backbone, or part of the backbone, of the region or area in which they operated. They created wealth, stability, and continuity, not to mention the projection of the area’s production to other parts of the country and to foreign lands. In sum, these were large, successful business enterprises. For example, the Puerto Rico haciendas were known for their sugar cane and coffee and whose crops were exported.

What is usually heard about the land grants system is that it eventually resulted in 2% of landholders owning 80% of the land (figures vary, but not by much). Such government statistics are notoriously unreliable, but let us stipulate them as correct for now. Their own figures also tell us, in the case of Venezuela, that as late as the 1930’s agriculture accounted for 22% of GDP and 60% of labor, including exports of crops. After “democratic” land reforms, agriculture accounts for about 5% of GDP and 10% of employment and all food is imported.

We can debate the impact of “modernization” on those figures, but our debates must not ignore the effects of “land reform”, which also coincided with the rise of the ranchitos.

Was this coincidental or is there a causal conjunction?

Painting of a late 19th century Puerto Rico hacienda, Hacienda Aurora, near the southern city of Ponce, Puerto Rico

Hacienda La Aída, near Colonia Tovar, north central Venezuela

Hacienda La Victoria, Mérida, in western Venezuela.

Hacienda Santa Teresa, rum factory between Caracas and Maracay. In operation over 200 years.

Ranchitos I

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020 Richard Barnes

In Venezuela, ranchitos (or barrios) are like Brazil’s favelas, the shanty towns which grew around Rio de Janeiro and now are ubiquitous in metropolitan areas throughout Brazil. Argentina has Villa Miseria or asentamientos; Chile has campamentos; Colombia, tugurios; and so on.

To generalize, these are “informal settlements.” Man-on-the-street terms range from slums to shacks to squatter settlements, etc.

They are a sight to behold.

A visitor to the once dynamic, modern, enterprising city of Caracas is amazed as he emerges from one of the last tunnels leading from the international airport in Maiquetía, and, before getting a glimpse of the capital city’s shiny skyscrapers, he is slapped with a view of colorful, makeshift, paper shacks, stacked sky-high, side by side, grasping the massive mountainsides for miles.

“Who lives here?! Who can live here?”

By latest estimates, about 700,000 in Argentina, 48,000 in Chile, 300,000 in Colombia, and 12,000,000 in Brazil. About 1,000,000 Venezuelans make their homes in ranchitos, 800,000 of which are in Caracas. But the Venezuela figures are old and suspect. Meaning, the numbers now are likely higher.

What caused these to begin with?

In the case of Venezuela, a few sources says the “oil boom” was to blame. However, that boom began in the early 20th century, whereas the ranchitos exploded in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Other sources simply presuppose the ranchitos and just report the headache these are to different politicians in different eras. One source actually said that Hugo Chavez was the first politician to declare “war” on the ranchitos, which is laughable propaganda. Hearing about governments’ plans to attack the ranchitos takes me back to my childhood, which long preceeded Chavez.

I recently asked my dear 89-year-old mother what she could recall regarding the origins of the ranchitos.

“I remember when they began appearing. The usual commentary was that they were poor people leaving the conucos [small family farms] and coming to the capital city on the basis of promises of high-paying jobs, which did not materialize for them.”

But why did they come in the mid-twentieth century and not before?

This is not a mere academic matter. As I’ve written in other posts, most recently in the post on Spain and the Reformation (Spain and the Reformation), “…North, Central, and South America have more in common with one another than is usually assumed….” Perhaps by understanding at least some of the causes behind the ranchitos of Venezuela, we would not only better understand our neighbor(s), but we might even avoid some of the pitfalls that have bedeviled them.

First, we’ll review the encomienda system brought to the New World during the Spanish discovery and conquest. Future posts will look at the hacienda system and subsequent “land reforms”, which have been the bane of peoples around the globe and yet continue to function as a siren call to many.

The much-maligned encomienda system was intended to protect and instruct the native population. In general, the system “granted” areas or regions to the Spanish Conquistadores, soldiers, and other pioneers with the encomienda — the trust, the charge, the responsibility — to protect, evangelize, and catechize all the peoples in their areas, their encomendados.

Significantly, this did not include a transfer of land ownership. The Crown insisted the land revert to the native population. The encomendero — the receiver of the grant — could exact tribute from the peoples in their encomienda in the form of minerals, produce, or labor.

In addition, the encomenderos were required to pay tribute to the crown and, as if that weren’t disincentive enough, the grants’ durations were limited to no more than two successive generations.

Had the Crown or its ministers somehow have been able to travel to the future century and read William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Colony they would have anticipated the deadly flaw in such an arrangement. Without ownership, incentives for industry and production were disfigured. Good men did their best but also had to look out for their own interests, including, in the case of many, outright confiscations of the lands, albeit with kind treatment of the natives, in many cases also granting them small parcels of land outright. Others, in effect, mistreated and enslaved the Indians. These are the ones who ended up incentivizing Bartolomé de las Casas to produce his dangerous broad-brush propaganda, which caused havoc in subsequent centuries and which is so much with us to this very day. For more on the monk and his writings, refer to the post, Simón Bolivar (Simon Bolivar).

The encomienda system produced gratifying results early on, including decent education and learning of the Spanish language, something that genuinely impressed the anti-Spaniard, Alexander Humboldt. But overall it did not render good fruit and was officially ended in the late 18th century, although historical records reflect no new conferments of encomiendas after 1721.

It is instructive to note that the encomienda system was in effect in Spain itself, but with one critical difference: in Spain, unlike in the New World, the encomenderos were actually granted title to the lands.

To her credit, Spain believed that once the Indios had been catechized and educated they would become good subjects of the Spanish crown and would be treated as such, ownership of land. This helps explain why the Latin American wars for independence required so much malignment of Spain, including resurrecting Bartolomé de las Casas to once again preach his hatred. And despite the relentless propaganda, many 19th-century Latin Americans disbelieved their betters and resisted the wars. Hence, the unbelievable bloodletting, especially in Venezuela with 33% of its population eradicated. It’s been persuasively argued that those wars were actually civil wars as opposed to wars for independence.

What followed the encomienda system was the equally-maligned hacienda system, which was an improvement, and which depended much on the character of the hacendados.

This “ancient history” is important and is with us still. For example, many of the original land holdings in Texas originated from Spanish land grants which were honored by the Texas Republic after independence. The beginnings of the world-renowned King Ranch are marked by Captain King’s purchase of a 15,500-acre Mexican land grant in the mid-19th century.

What’s more, Captain King himself established a sort of encomienda wherein, during a devastating drought where the people of Cruillas in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, in order to survive, sold him all their cattle. As he and his men rode the herd back to his ranch in Texas, he suddenly realized the people of Cruillas would not survive. He turned his horse and he and his men rode back and offered the people protection and pay if they came with him and worked in his ranch along with his men. The people agreed and became known as LosKiñenos, whose descendants still work at the ranch.

And do not live in ranchitos.

We will look at the hacienda system in a future post.

*Ranchitos* around the capital city of Caracas, Venezuela

“Venezuela’s Magnetic Mountain”, Harry Chapin Plummer, Popular Mechanics, July, 1949

January 29, 2020January 29, 2020 Richard Barnes

Prep time for this blog has had me looking through old journals and publications partly because I get a kick out of the more un-self-conscious, optimistic (exuberant?) mid-20th century reporting compared to today’s dour, blame-America-first, Chicken Little iterations.

Something else that impresses me upon reading this over 70 years after its publication, is how accurate it was in reflecting the plans being made in 1949. There were, of course, some changes to the plans, as there are in all good plans. However, these great American companies were pretty thorough in their operations.

Enjoy:

When the Conquistadores of old Spain explored the jungle country of eastern Venezuela four centuries ago, the native Indians told them tales of a strange mountain which attracted lightning. Later the Spaniards saw for themselves this magic mound which, when struck by a lightning bolt, game forth a spray of flashes. The Spaniards dubbed the mountain “El Florero” — the Flower Pot — because the lightning flashes looked like flowers growing from the peak.

Today that mound has been found to hold one of the world’s richest iron-ore deposits.

Credit for that discovery goes to an alert Venezuelan mining inspector, Eduardo Boccardo. In 1926 he determined to penetrate beyond the superstitions of the natives and to find out why the mountain was one of the spots most frequently struck by lightning on the South American continent. What he discovered was a fabulously rich lode of iron ore which, by magnetic attraction, drew lightning to the mountain. The Spaniards, intent upon their quest for gold and silver, had passed up a deposit so valuable that even now its riches can be only estimated.

Surveys of that part of the mountain granted to Boccardo show that about 35,000,000 tons of mineral rich in iron underlay his concession. Assays have proved that this ore actually is 55 to 68 percent iron. Absolutely pure iron ore is made up of 72 percent iron and 28 percent oxygen. The iron content of Minnesota’s famous Mesabi range is about 57 to 63 percent. On this basis, the Flower Pot represents one of the most important discoveries of the century in the field of metallurgy.

Naturally, it didn’t take industry long to jump into this whopping mountain of ore. Today the Iron Mines Company of Venezuela, organized as a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Company of the United States, already has a small army of employees in the jungles near the Orinoco. Their task is to form a modern mining industry in the heart of the forests. They are at work between El Pao, the ore site, and Palua, the loading point on the Orinoco.

The task of these workers is staggering. They must build the mines and the port, highway and railway — even their own homes in the wilderness. Already they have completed a highway more than 14 miles long which eventually will serve as the right-of-way for a standard-gauge railway, the vital artery from the mines to the river. This railroad will have a steep grade from sea level to the mines.

When the harbor and dock installations, the roads and railways finally are completed, the ore will move by truck and train from the mines to the ships on the Orinoco. It then will travel aboard a fleet of ore carriers, especially built for the purpose, to the blast furnaces at Baltimore, Md.

It is estimated that production will rise to 3,000,000 tons of ore annually from ore reserves that will last a quarter of a century.

Already rolling along the uncompleted rail line is a 1500-horsepower diesel locomotive. When the track is completed, the railroad will have four locomotives, 100 ore cars with a capacity of 70 tons each, eight boxcars, four tank cars and a crane.

Before the end of this year the ore will begin to flow from the mines atop the magnetic mountain. There crews especially trained for the job will perforate and excavate the rock and earth, which will be picked up by four gigantic electric shovels each capable of taking a huge bite out of the ground. The shovels will load the ore into trailer-trucks hauled by tractors. From there it will be taken to big ore crushers — one of them said to be the largest in the world. The fragments of crushed ore will be carried by an aerial cable arrangement to the waiting ore cars on the railway.

It is estimated that about 10,000 tons of the rich earth will be hauled down the mountainside every working day.

When the ore reaches the harbor, it will be dumped into a huge storage area. An ingenious series of chutes at the base of the area will drop each load into an underground conveyor installed in a tunnel. After passing through the earth, it will climb up a huge loading bridge which extends like a pointing finger over the waters of the Orinoco. The load will slide by toboggan into 4000-ton lighters. Tugs then will pick up six of the lighters form them into a train and haul them downriver to the Gulf of Paria. From there the new 24,000-ton ore carriers will take the ore by ocean to Baltimore.

This modern industrial system in the heart of the jungle is within the orbit of Ciudad Bolivar, the principal river port of the Orinoco and the administrative and financial center of the region watered by the river.

Almost due south of Ciudad Bolivar the United States Steel Corporation has been conducting explorations of another area that appears to have huge ore deposits. it seems likely that the same vein which crops out atop the magnetic mountain also appears in this new area [the author was correct: that ‘new area’ became known as Cerro Bolivar, one of the greatest ore finds ever].

Reports state that the mineral deposits found in this second area are of a high quality, satisfactory for smelting in open hearth furnaces.

These two ore strikes are the second great boon to Venezuelan national within the past half-century. The first was the discovery of petroleum around Lake Maracaibo. Huge investments in drilling and pumping equipment, pipe lines, railways, bridges, community settlements, hospitals, and schools have been made by the participating oil companies.

Venezuela has enacted a law which requires the oil companies, both foreign and national, to refine within the country a percentage of the crude oil that is recovered. The purpose, of course, is to have a supply of domestic oil. It is anticipated that similar legislation will apply to recoveries of iron ore, and that eventually there will be smelting operations within Venezuela [a major understatement, of course].

Such a development would place Venezuela in the forefront of South American nations which at the turn of the century were dependent upon agriculture — cattle, coffee, sugar, cacao, tobacco, and rubber growing.

Thus the magic mountain that attracts lightning may revolutionize the economy of a nation.

Ore Crusher (one of the largest, if not the largest at the time, in the world) in El Pao. Note the administrative (American) camp in the background.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same

January 9, 2020January 9, 2020 Richard Barnes

As a year ends and another begins, it is good to pause and look back at recent events and developments in Venezuela which have been alluded to in the blog.

Malaria is making a comeback in Latin America, with Venezuela earning the unfortunate distinction of leading in this revival. Refer to the August 17, 2019 blog post, “Clouds of DDT” https://thepulloftheland.com/clouds-of-ddt for a discussion of the phenomenally successful control of malaria in Venezuela in the 20th century (we don’t hear much about this because DDT is politically incorrect. Best keep quiet about that!). For an update on the return of malaria to the stricken land, refer to the Caracas Chronicles article, “Blame the Gold Rush: Malaria Keeps Spreading”, link below.

The December 13, 2019 blog post, “The Lost Children of Vargas” The Lost Children of Vargas tells of the terrible events precipitated by the rains of December 1999. For one account of that calamity, you might want to read another Caracas Chronicles narrative, “Only Two of Us Survived”, linked below. It is a heart-wrenching tale about the then-mayor of Vargas. Incredibly, politics intruded in this devastation. Assuming your heart is not made of stone, he will speak to you.

What about the elderly? Again, the redoubtable Caracas Chronicles has an interesting article about the demographic unit, the elderly, included in the millions who have voted with their feet, emigrating from the stricken land. The March 12, 2019 blog post, “Humanitarian Crisis” Humanitarian Crisis tells of this catastrophic migration. The Caracas Chronicles article about the older folks in the throngs is linked below.

You may have read recently about Juan Guaidó’s re-election as Speaker of the Venezuelan National Assembly. His breaking through the wall of Chavista soldiers a few days ago, might inspire hope. However, I’m afraid that hope will likely be dashed absent a true change of heart by Mr. Guaidó, wherein he sincerely rejects Socialism. Otherwise, all we’re talking about is a switch from leaded to slightly-less-leaded Socialism: both more of the same and both deadly. See the September 20, 2019 blog post, “Venezuelan Second Amendment?” for comments on this potential bait and switch A Venezuelan Second Amendment?

Contra Caracas Chronicles, this blogger has little faith in Mr. Guaidó and his party, Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD, no pun intended). First of all, do not put your faith in princes. So says the Good Book. Secondly, MUD and Guaidó may talk “big”, but their actions are sheer accommodation with the tyrannical regime. From gun control to submission to controlled elections, MUD and its supporters are no Founding Fathers.

And Founding Fathers are what Venezuela needs at this moment.

Pray for the land of my birth.

Blame the Gold Rush: Malaria Keeps Spreading

‘Only Two of Us Survived’

Older Venezuelans Also Deserve to Rebuild Their Lives Abroad

For the second year in a row, Venezuela emigration has been deemed by UN as a top migration issue in the world, second only to Syria’s.

The Vargas disaster continues to echo in modern memory twenty years later.

Christmas Sorrows

January 3, 2020January 3, 2020 Richard Barnes

“Hey, why are all the Christmas lights off?” I had said to no one in particular one night. My mother and father were out. So I dutifully began plugging all Christmas lights back into their respective power outlets, fully expecting hearty congratulations the next morning, for having had the self-initiative to have covered my parents’ gross oversight in not having switched on the season’s bright and lively bulbs.

Reactions, congratulatory or otherwise, would not have to wait till morning.

As I was plugging in an old, petrified Orinoco bough laced sparingly with small, white lights — a lovely, natural Christmas-embellished furnishing with a place of honor in the front, enclosed porch from where it could be enjoyed by anyone passing by on the lower side of the block — my parents drove up.

I was stunned, expressionless, as they rushed in, unplugging every light they came across. “The Christmas lights are on!” my mother anxiously exclaimed as she reached to the nearest socket and pulled the plug. My father was outside, pulling the plugs there.

What on earth? Christmas season in the camp extended well beyond the 25th of December. Festivities lived on at least through January 6th, Día de Reyes Magos (Epiphany), and in many cases beyond, especially in the labor camp.

I looked outside, through the porch screens, and noticed that neither of our immediate neighbors had a single light on. I suppressed the urge to run outside to see if any lights were on in the entire block. I rightly suspected that none were.

Standing there, in the middle of the passageway between the porch and living room, my father’s voice explained the matter, “Son, I realize you were thinking we somehow forgot to turn on these lights tonight, but did you forget that Mr. Fuentes died today?”

Of course I had not forgotten. Mr. Fuentes was a corpulent, true-to-stereotype jolly man who delighted in greeting children at the club and elsewhere in the camp. A Spaniard who had left Spain for greener pastures in Venezuela, he was well-liked. His wife possessed a sharp wit and hearty laughter, yet retained that lighthearted femininity so characteristic of Spanish women. They had one young daughter.

He had suffered a heart attack as he drove a company pickup to the Otro Campo (labor camp). The vehicle had gone over a small cliff of about fifty feet. Mr. G____ had been driving behind him and raised the alarm. But, according to the camp’s doctor, he had expired before the pickup had crunched to a stop at the bottom.

Afterwards, as the weeks and months went by, every time I accompanied my father or mother to the Otro Campo, as the automobile approached and passed by the spot where Mr. Fuentes had gone over, I would look, conscious that no one paused. Cars came and went by that spot as if nothing had ever happened there; as if he had been forgotten as quickly as he had died. Life is for the living, and must go on.

But there is a time for sorrow and the entire camp was in mourning that Christmastime; it was understood no festive lights would be switched on for at least two days, if not three. Grief was a shared passion there. I now felt I had violated that shared spirit of compassion and felt utterly miserable. My father pulled me to himself, “I know you meant well, son. We should have told you clearly why we left the lights off.”

That was his way of apologizing. And my love and respect for him increase all the more.

That year, the block without any lights shining those nights was sorrowfully dark indeed. The joy of Christmas outweighed the sorrow, but did not erase it totally. The season was joyous, yet serious. Like the profoundly evocative Wexford Carol, it bade all to consider well and bear in mind its eternal as well as temporal import — after all, the world has never been the same since that first Christmas. This juxtaposition of joy and quiet seriousness may have appeared contradictory to more sophisticated, technically oriented observers, but not to me as a boy.

Paradoxical perhaps, but not contradictory.

So, still being within the twelve days of Christmas, I again wish you all a Merry Christmas and also a most prosperous new year. We may not know what the year brings, but we certainly do know Him in Whom all things consist, including every single day of our lives.