Venezuela

by Leonard V. Dalton

The Franciscans of Cumaná received one day a visit from a few of the adventurers of Cubagua, who had previously, for obvious reasons, ignored the existence of the missionaries. Notwithstanding, they were hospitably treated, and entertained as well as might be by the monks and their Indian friends for several days; then the most catholic and Christian conquistadores revealed themselves in their true colours. The cacique of the district (christened Don Alonso by the friars) was invited with his family to dine on board; he accepted, unsuspecting, and found himself, his wife and children, captives on a ship making sail for Santo Domingo. At sight of this treachery, the Indians naturally seized the monks as partly responsible, but acceded to their request that before taking summary vengeance they should allow time for a messenger to go to Hispaniola and return with the cacique in safety; for this purpose four months was granted. But justice in Santo Domingo was non-existent, and legal decisions bought and sold. The pleas of the friars and their superiors in the island were of no avail, and at the termination of the stipulated period the monks of Cumaná were put to death by the mourning Indians. The region remained abandoned by Spaniards till 1518, when a new Franciscan community was established.

THE CHAMA VALLEY ABOVE MÉRIDA.

MOUNTAIN STREAM BETWEEN CUMANACOA AND CUMANÁ.

In 1520 the Dominicans of Chichirivichi, near Barcelona, also fell victims to Spanish treachery; the Indians had previously recognised their innocence of any possible complicity in the Cumaná affair, but their turn came on this wise. One of the Cubagua colonists, Alonso de Ojeda, said to have been the unworthy father of the author of the name Venezuela, crossed to Chichirivichi, and was well received by friars and Indians alike. Being, like most of his confrères, neither a gentleman himself nor able to recognise one when he met him, he insulted one of his hosts, the cacique of Maraguey, by asking whether any of his people ate human flesh; the chief replied with some feeling that they did not, and withdrew, recognising the motive of the question, as seeking the sanction under the codicia to enslave all cannibals. Ojeda departed, we may believe unregretted, and sailed along the coast to Maracapana, where he was well received by the cacique (christened Gil Gonzalez). Ojeda was, or pretended to be, short of corn, and accordingly Gonzalez gave him guides for ten or twelve miles inland to enable him to buy maize from the Tageres Indians, while these lent him fifty men to carry the grain to Maracapana. By way of return for the various favours received, Ojeda’s men fell on the porters as they rested in the market-place and carried them off to the caravel. On this occasion retribution fell, in part at least, on the heads of those who deserved it, for Ojeda landed again farther down the coast, where Gil Gonzalez met and killed him with six of his fellow-scoundrels. Unfortunately, the reception accorded to their countrymen by the friars of Chichirivichi made them appear privy to the plot against the Indians, and they, too, fell victims to the vengeance of Maraguey.

The Audiencia Real of Hispaniola, by way of brazening out the crimes of the Cubaguans, now dispatched Gonzalez de Ocampo with an armed force to settle the country. The leader of the expedition appears to have been temperate and wise in his dealings, and succeeded in establishing peace, founding a city where Cumaná now stands under the name of Nueva Toledo (1520). Shortly afterwards, Bartolomé de las Casas, a noble figure in the history of the period, reached these shores, and discovering for himself the true history of what had been described as unprovoked attacks by the Indians, suggested that a fortress should be built opposite New Toledo, with a garrison under such control that it should protect the Indians from the lawless gangs of Cubagua, and keep in check any unprovoked manifestation of hostility on the part of the natives towards well-intentioned Spaniards. As might be expected, the Cubaguans were extremely hostile to such a project, and so hampered Las Casas that he resolved to return to Hispaniola and thence to Spain, to lay before the authorities a true account of the condition of affairs in the west.

Francisco de Soto was left in charge of affairs in New Toledo, and no sooner was the good influence of Las Casas withdrawn than he recommenced the slave traffic, which had been the cause of all the previous trouble, and now resulted in the destruction of the new city after the massacre of inhabitants and missionaries and an invasion of Cubagua by the Indians of the mainland. A second semi-military expedition from Hispaniola in 1521, under the leadership of Jacome Castellon, built the castle of Araya in spite of the Cubaguans, and founded the city of la gloriosa Santa Ines de Nueva Córdoba, the modern Cumaná. The fortress was reduced to ruins by an earthquake in 1530.

In the meantime, orders had been received from Spain to name the already existing city on Cubagua, Nueva Cadiz, and three years later, in 1524, La Asunción was founded on the island of Margarita, while in 1527 the inhabitants of New Cadiz received the right to elect annually an alcalde, the Emperor giving 500 pesos for rebuilding the church there. Thus we have three cities founded in Venezuela territory within the first twenty-five years of the sixteenth century.

With the year 1527 the history of Venezuela as a colony, or rather a group of colonies, under Spanish dominion, may be said to commence. We have already seen a form of government established in Cubagua, which for a time appears to have existed more or less irregularly apart from the other provinces into which Venezuela, with Trinidad, was shortly divided, namely, Nueva Andalusia in the east, Venezuela or Coro in the west, and Trinidad and the Orinoco in the south.