PROFILE
Region: Northern South America
Climate: Balmy, tropical, cool in the mountainous regions
Leader(s): Nicolas Maduro, since 2013 (at time of writing)
Population: 30.933.000
Capital: Caracas
Largest City: Caracas
Currency: Venezuelan Bolivar Fuerte
Languages: Spanish
Currency: Venezuelan Bolivar Fuerte
Languages: Spanish
Independence: 1830, from Gran Colombia
Territories or Colonies: Aves Island, Las Aves Archipelago, Blanquilla Island, Los Frailes Islands, La Sola Islands, Patos island, Los Hermanos Archipelago, Los Monjes Archipelago, Orchila Island, Los Roques Archipelago, Los Testigos Islands, La Tortuga Island
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Territories or Colonies: Aves Island, Las Aves Archipelago, Blanquilla Island, Los Frailes Islands, La Sola Islands, Patos island, Los Hermanos Archipelago, Los Monjes Archipelago, Orchila Island, Los Roques Archipelago, Los Testigos Islands, La Tortuga Island
THE FACTS
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a country on the northern coast of South America. It borders the Caribbean as well as Colombia and Brazil. The country is rich with oil and has a high HDI rating, higher than that of some European countries.
The country’s official name is in reference to Simon Bolivar (the second country to name itself after him after Bolivia). Simon Bolivar was president of six countries in South America (which is about 50% of the countries in South America). Bolivar was president of Venezuela, Colombia, Colombian Ecuador, Colombian Guyana, Bolivia and Peru.
BEFORE COLUMBUS (????-1498)
Before Christopher Columbus showed up in 1498 Venezuela was home to a few aboriginal tribes, most notably the Chibcha and Arawaks. The Chibcha were native to the mountainous Andean region, near the border with Colombia. They were masters of farming literally on the sides of freaking mountains, which is really hard. They innovated ways of transporting water sources around the stepped mountainside, using canals and aqueducts.
The Arawaks were native to the coastal region and along the Peninsula de Paria, which stretches into the Caribbean almost touching the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. The Arawak peoples weren’t necessarily one tribe but a group of culturally similar tribes that lived from the Bahamas to Hispaniola to Puerto Rico through the West Indies to the Northern Coast of South America.
The Arawaks cultivated the fertile soil of the area and hunted and gathered as well. Agriculture wasn’t as demanding in the North as the terrain was fairly flat and fertile.
As with many aboriginal groups not a whole lot is known about the residents of Venezuela pre-Columbus. There weren’t written records and most of what we now know is from archaeological evidence, or what the Europeans observed before they commenced the terrible tirade of killing usually brought upon these populations.
Sadly the Arawak and Chibcha groups didn’t fair any differently. Now, before Columbus came not everything was roses and sunshine (well, actually there was a lot of sunshine because Venezuela is in the tropics), but everything wasn’t perfect. One of my sources (geographia.com/venezuela/history.htm) describes the pre-Coumbian Venezuela as a paradise, and while Columbus significantly fucked over the native populace by giving them diseases, killing and raping thousands of people and reducing their population by 60%, Pre-Columbian life wasn’t perfect.
Like any group the Arawaks and other indigenous peoples of Venezuela had tribal conflict and while it wasn’t really large-scale conflict (mostly skirmishes that often weren’t fatal) it was persistent. The tribal groups weren’t unified into one single government which made it hard to cooperate, especially when Columbus invaded.
There is a theory that the only way of making humanity unite is if faced with the threat of alien encounter. This was kind of the situation in much of North and South America (as well as Africa, Asia and Australia). Many groups that were divided in conflict united against this alien force that was Europeans. This didn’t really happen in Venezuela. This might have been because when the Europeans showed up they didn’t say “we’re taking all of this and we’re going to kill you if you say otherwise” which is what they meant, they just started building some sparse settlements and hanging out.
The Arawaks were noted by the Europeans for being pretty friendly offering food and gifts to the visitors. The Arawaks and other indigenous groups didn’t feel the need to unite because they didn’t really see the Europeans as a threat until much too late.
COLUMBIAN AND EUROPEAN VISITATION (1498-1810)
Christopher Columbus arrived in the land that is now Venezuela in 1498 on his third voyage (this voyage had a much less catchy song “In fourteen hundred ninety-eight, Columbus sailed the ocean… great.” Not as good of a song.)
At this point Columbus and his buddies in Spain, Portugal and Italy knew that North and South America weren’t in fact China, India, Japan and Indonesia, but was its own continent. Oops. They didn’t however know of the extent of these continents, thinking them to be conveniently narrow strips of land you could walk from the west side to the east side of with time to spare, which is sort of true in Central America (if you ignore the 6000 foot high mountains in Panama), but in places like Brazil and America it’s a good 3000 miles across.
Columbus went back to Europe and told everybody that not only is the Caribbean waaaaaaaaay nicer than Europe, that South America was a good place to go.
A couple years down the road Spaniard Alonso de Ojeda went back to Venezuela to scope out if it was good for settling (i.e. if it had any gold and/or people to enslave and make mine for gold). Ojeda arrived and named the area Venezuela (or little Venice because he thought the Arawaks’ stilted lakeside houses looked like Venice). They did some looking and found that in fact Venezuela wasn’t home to a lot of useful natural resources. It did have trees for timber and some other sparse minerals, but nothing like the insane reserves of Argentina (literally named after Silver, which it turned out it didn’t have, but it did have other things the Spanish wanted). Ironically enough Venezuela is home to one of the most coveted resources Black Gold itself OIL!!! But, the Spaniards couldn’t get it because it was hidden underground and it didn’t have a whole lot of use before cars were invented or the industrial revolution happened.
The secondary objective of the Spaniards after get rich or die tryin’ was to convert the locals or often die tryin’.
Because of the lack of usable resources the Spaniards just kind of fucked off to Bogota in the much more strategically located and bountiful Colombia. They let the natives kind of do what they wanted, but slowly built up Spanish cities, founding Maracaibo in 1529 and Caracas in 1567.
Venezuela never really achieved the kind of hustle and bustle of other South American colonies like Portuguese Brazil and Spanish Argentina, Chile and Colombia.
Spain controlled Venezuela, not often utilizing it’s few resources. It became a satellite colony, mainly used for farmland.
In 1783, during the peak of Spanish colonization of the region, Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas, Venezuela. He was born to a rich creole family. In South and Central America, as well as in the Caribbean, there was a complex racial structure that was created when the Spanish arrived. Three races and social classes emerged, these being the White Spaniards who were mostly people born in Spain and were sent in the army or for leadership roles like Colonial Governors or other things like that. The next group, that the Bolivar was part of was the creoles. These people were descended from both Spaniards or French and aboriginal people. These people were often given local roles of leadership and tended to be middle class to upper class. The lowest group was either African slaves, aboriginal slaves or other aboriginal people who often didn’t have freedom, or if they did were often poor farmers or merchants. It was common for the Spaniards and Creole people to own slaves, as Bolivar’s family did.
Bolivar later denounced slavery by saying “slavery is the worst human indignity” and vying to unify the creoles and slaves and provide more opportunities for equality for both groups.
Bolivar wasn’t as interested in what the Spaniards wanted, and he promised the creole and native peoples that they could overthrow the Spanish. Various new-world revolutionaries had used the struggle in Europe as a way to gain the allegiance of certain European powers. In the American revolution, the Americans knew the British were at war with not only America, but France, and enlisted the help of the French in the revolution.
Bolivar saw that Spain and France were seeing a period of struggle. Napoleon’s high-heel wearing brother Joe just recently came into power in Spain by overthrowing the previous Spanish King Fernando the Seventh. Bolivar figured he could take advantage of this conflicted time in Europe. As soon as the news of the power switch in Europe came to the New World, Bolivar began kicking out the Spanish troops in Venezuela. They claimed that they had no jurisdiction because their leader had just been ousted by Napoleon’s high heeled, fuck-up brother.
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| Simon Bolivar |
WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE (1810-1830)
The war for Venezuelan independence began and at the helm was Bolivar fighting on the side of the Independentists. On the other side was Spanish general Juan Domingo de Monteverde, at the helm of the Spanish military.
Monteverde kicked Bolivar’s ass the first time around and he ran for (sort of) independent Colombia to brood. He wrote his Manifiesto and after publishing more papers and gaining the support of many Northern South Americans (at the time called New Granada) he gathered an army to defeat Monteverde. In 1812 and 1813 Bolivar gained control of New Granada, renamed to Gran Colombia, which included territory in modern Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.
But this victory was short, and not so sweet, marred by famine and corrupt leaders massacring innocents. This finally ended the next year, when Spain, once again led by Fernando, who had just finished dealing with Napoleon’s persistent, if not capable brother.
Fernando rebuilt Spanish infrastructure and restructured its military into a huge force that could cripple any enemy. Fernando saw how Jose Bonaparte (Napoleon’s fuck-up brother) had lost their precious colonies in the Americas and he vowed to regain control of them. Spain marched in a huge number of troops in Colombia and Venezuela in an attempt to regain control.
Gran Colombia fought back. The war was long, lasting until 1823. Most battles were battles of attrition. One side slowly chipping away at the defenses of another, until the tables were turned the other way. Very little got done, but finally Puerto Cabello Fort fell in late 1823 and Gran Colombia emerged victorious. They had defeated the largest colonial force on Earth at the time and Bolivar was free to reign.
He believed that all of the countries of South America should unify into a massive superpower. They could pool resources and have an ideologically consistent government which would give them more of a chance against the superpowers who’d been on the world stage for a while like The United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, the US, China and Russia.
Others believed that Gran Colombia and a unified South America could never work and that several states (like we have today) should operate independently.
The fight didn’t end until 1830, after Bolivar’s death and the secession of Venezuela and other countries from Gran Colombia, essentially putting the final nail in not only Bolivar’s coffin but much of what he worked for.
Bolivar didn’t accomplish nothing though. His main life goal was to free his home country of Venezuela from the oppression of Spanish rule, which he did and unite the countries of South America into one big super-state, which he didn’t do.
A NEW VENEZUELA (1830-1899)
1830 was a year of rebirth for Venezuela. A new constitution was written and for the first time since 1811 and 1812 Venezuela was free from the shackles of Spanish rule, or the rule of squabbling leaders. But, not everything was calm, in fact quite the opposite. The squabbling leaders I was talking about starting really going at it. In 1859, right near the time of another famous civil war, Venezuela entered into a four year long conflict. The nation was split. In the U.S. the split was between the slave-holding South who wanted independence as a non-industrialized agricultural nation, and the non-slave-holding North who wanted the nation to remain as one, without slavery. In Venezuela, the split was much more similar to how our nation is split today. The country was ideologically split between the conservative Centralists and the liberal Federalists. The Centralists were like Republicans and the Federalists were like Democrats.
After four years of fighting the Federalists won and installed Antonio Guzman Blanco, who during his thirteen year presidency led Venezuela into an industrial boom. Public buildings were built, the central government was strengthened and the church's presence was lowered. A nationwide railroad was built. Antonio Guzman Blanco was one of Venezuela's most liberal leaders. His father, also named Antonio Guzman was so liberal he founded the liberal party of Venezuela during the time of independence in 1812. Antonio Guzman Blanco followed in his father's footsteps and enacted a series of liberal policies.
DICTATORSHIP AND DEMOCRACY (1899-PRESENT)
After a few mostly liberal presidents followed Antonio Guzman power suddenly shifted away from the Liberal party to the Military leader Cipriano Castro in 1899. Castro overthrew Ignacio Andrade in a coup and said "fuck all of these government programs and public works and things that benefit the citizens. I think that Venezuela would be much better under military rule." I'm paraphrasing a bit.
Castro was a bit of a war monger, inciting a war with the Netherlands (bad idea) by shooting down some ships bound for Netherlands owned Curacao, Sint Maarten and Aruba. The Netherlands sent some ships and a small war began. Right around now Castro decides to go to France because he got syphilis, (that sucks) and he didn't want his nose to rot off and die.
While Castro was in France trying desperately to not die from early 1900s syphilis treatment, Juan Vicente Gomez took over. He figured that since the president was not in Venezuela, he wasn't president. (Perfect logic.)
Juan Vicente Gomez went full fledged dictator destroying the last smithereens of liberal policy. He enacted military school to brainwash citizens and set up military checkpoints in major cities. His most important action was his use of the countries recently tapped oil resources. He set up government companies to regulate the sale of the oil and kept all of the profits. Very little of the oil profit actually benefited the citizens. His reign lasted until 1913, when he stepped down and handed the presidency over to various other military guys.
In 1945 Isaias Medina Angarita was chosen to be president and thought that Venezuela should be a democratic nation. He set up elections to occur when his term was complete, but a coup in 1948 started a chaotic period that ended in 1952 when dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez became president.
As a dictator he wasn't super into democracy (a.k.a. dictator kryptonite.) After he fell, a brief intermediate period went into action. Finally democracy arrived in Venezuela. Since the early 60s Venezuela has been ruled by a series of socialist leaders that have been elected, but the current leader Nicolas Maduro has been doing some fishy things. He's talked about seizing the country forcefully if the socialists leave power, but the international stage isn't sure about him yet, as he's only been president for three years.
VENEZUELA FACTS
Venezuela was named after Venice, Italy.
Venezuela is home to the tallest waterfall, Angel Falls, which looks really cool. (You should image search it.)
Venezuela the world's largest oil reserves in one nation, higher than that of Saudi Arabia or the UAE.
Because of the plentiful oil, Venezuelan gas prices are as low 5 cents per gallon.
After four years of fighting the Federalists won and installed Antonio Guzman Blanco, who during his thirteen year presidency led Venezuela into an industrial boom. Public buildings were built, the central government was strengthened and the church's presence was lowered. A nationwide railroad was built. Antonio Guzman Blanco was one of Venezuela's most liberal leaders. His father, also named Antonio Guzman was so liberal he founded the liberal party of Venezuela during the time of independence in 1812. Antonio Guzman Blanco followed in his father's footsteps and enacted a series of liberal policies.
DICTATORSHIP AND DEMOCRACY (1899-PRESENT)
After a few mostly liberal presidents followed Antonio Guzman power suddenly shifted away from the Liberal party to the Military leader Cipriano Castro in 1899. Castro overthrew Ignacio Andrade in a coup and said "fuck all of these government programs and public works and things that benefit the citizens. I think that Venezuela would be much better under military rule." I'm paraphrasing a bit.
Castro was a bit of a war monger, inciting a war with the Netherlands (bad idea) by shooting down some ships bound for Netherlands owned Curacao, Sint Maarten and Aruba. The Netherlands sent some ships and a small war began. Right around now Castro decides to go to France because he got syphilis, (that sucks) and he didn't want his nose to rot off and die.
While Castro was in France trying desperately to not die from early 1900s syphilis treatment, Juan Vicente Gomez took over. He figured that since the president was not in Venezuela, he wasn't president. (Perfect logic.)
Juan Vicente Gomez went full fledged dictator destroying the last smithereens of liberal policy. He enacted military school to brainwash citizens and set up military checkpoints in major cities. His most important action was his use of the countries recently tapped oil resources. He set up government companies to regulate the sale of the oil and kept all of the profits. Very little of the oil profit actually benefited the citizens. His reign lasted until 1913, when he stepped down and handed the presidency over to various other military guys.
In 1945 Isaias Medina Angarita was chosen to be president and thought that Venezuela should be a democratic nation. He set up elections to occur when his term was complete, but a coup in 1948 started a chaotic period that ended in 1952 when dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez became president.
As a dictator he wasn't super into democracy (a.k.a. dictator kryptonite.) After he fell, a brief intermediate period went into action. Finally democracy arrived in Venezuela. Since the early 60s Venezuela has been ruled by a series of socialist leaders that have been elected, but the current leader Nicolas Maduro has been doing some fishy things. He's talked about seizing the country forcefully if the socialists leave power, but the international stage isn't sure about him yet, as he's only been president for three years.
VENEZUELA FACTS
Venezuela was named after Venice, Italy.
Venezuela is home to the tallest waterfall, Angel Falls, which looks really cool. (You should image search it.)
Venezuela the world's largest oil reserves in one nation, higher than that of Saudi Arabia or the UAE.
Because of the plentiful oil, Venezuelan gas prices are as low 5 cents per gallon.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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