The South American Republics, Part 2 of 2

by Thomas Cleland Dawson

THE REVOLT

Venezuela's conditions during colonial times produced a people possessing in the clearest and most accentuated form the characteristics distinctive of the Spanish Creole. Not more than one per cent. of the total population of over eight hundred thousand were native Spaniards; fifteen per cent. were Creoles of pure European descent; sixty per cent. were Indian, two-thirds of whom had an admixture of white blood; and three-fourths of the twenty-five per cent. of negroes and mulattoes were free. The majority did not consist of docile, inert, pure-bred natives as in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay, though the white element was not so large that the Creoles had ceased to occupy the position of a governing and property-owning caste who lived upon the labour of the half-breeds, Indians, and negroes. They regarded themselves as a superior class, entitled by birth to exemption from manual labour, and even considered commercial pursuits unworthy a gentleman.

ANCIENT INDIAN ROCK FOR GRINDING MAIZE.

The Spanish government had concerned itself little with this purely agricultural colony, and its hand was felt only in the collection of taxes. The officials were comparatively few, the number of resident Spaniards small, and neither mutual commercial interests nor a solid administration existed to strengthen the flimsy ties that bound Venezuela to the mother-country. So little had the interference of the Spanish government been felt since the abolishment of the Guipuzcoa Company that no well-defined and widespread sentiment in favour of separation existed. There was a vague feeling of dissatisfaction among the masses, but their ignorance prevented them from forming any rational plans for the betterment of their condition. However, the Venezuelan coast is so accessible that the fertilising and disturbing currents of trade and ideas had really profoundly modified the people, and the leaven of unrest was at work. The wealthier Creoles had imbibed radical notions and were ambitious of trying their hands at governing. By heredity, social custom, and environment indisposed to industry and commerce, their unemployed activities naturally flowed into the channel of politics, intrigue, and fighting.

The first outbreak owed its origin to events in Spain. In 1796 a republican conspiracy was brought to light on the Peninsula, and several of its leaders were exiled to La Guaira. In their prison they were visited by many prominent Creoles, into whose minds they inculcated their republican principles, and it was not long before the existence of an extensive republican plot among the Creoles of La Guaira and Caracas was denounced to the captain-general. Many persons were arrested, and of the two principals, España expiated his treason on the scaffold, while the other, Gual, escaped into exile. But the seed of revolution had been planted, and many leading Creoles entered into correspondence with the British authorities on Trinidad, who promised aid in arms, munitions, and ships. Francisco Miranda, a native of Caracas, who had fought under Washington, and distinguished himself at Valmy and Jemappes as a soldier of the French republic, planned an invasion with the avowed purpose of achieving Venezuelan separation from Spain. With three ships manned by American filibusters he sailed from New York early in 1806, and attempted to land at Ocumare, near Puerto Cabello. But the Spanish authorities had been warned and he was beaten in a sea-fight where he lost sixty prisoners. Ten North Americans were condemned by court-martial and shot in Puerto Cabello, and their names are inscribed on a monument recently erected in the principal square of the town. The captain-general offered thirty thousand dollars for Miranda's head, but the latter retired to Jamaica, where, with the help of the British authorities, he organised a force of five hundred foreigners. Three months later he made a descent on Coro, effected a landing, and took the city. But the population remained inert, and the indifferent or hostile attitude of the region forced him to withdraw.

Though the western provinces received Miranda so coldly, among the Creoles of the upper classes at Caracas aspirations for constitutional government, autonomy, and even for independence had made headway in the ten years since the suppression of the conspiracy of Gual and España. In 1808 French commissioners arrived bringing the news of Ferdinand's expulsion. They were empowered to receive the allegiance of the colony for Joseph Bonaparte, but the captain-general hesitated and asked the advice of leading citizens, who proved unanimous against recognising the French régime. The captain-general's vacillation gave the Creoles of the cabildo a predominance in governmental councils. Although in the middle of the following year it was decided to recognise the Seville junta as supreme, pending Ferdinand's return, this decision was reached only after many debates, and a numerous party among the Creoles saw no reason why Venezuela should not establish a junta of her own. The news of the frightful cruelties perpetrated by Goyeneche in suppressing the junta at La Paz excited great indignation among Creoles; the anti-Spanish feeling grew rapidly; and when, on the 19th of April, 1810, the captain-general summoned an open cabildo to receive the news that the French armies had overrun nearly the whole of Spain and that only Cadiz remained faithful to Ferdinand, the electors had no sooner met than, excited by suggestions of ambitious persons, they turned into a mob howling for the resignation of the captain-general and the establishment of a Caracas junta. Accordingly a junta was named which exiled the Spanish functionaries and sent messages to the provincial capitals demanding their adhesion. The cities of the mountain strip extending from Cumaná to the Colombian Andes responded favourably and sent delegates to Caracas, while Maracaibo, Coro, and Guiana refused. As a matter of fact the masses as yet took little interest. The Caracas revolution was effected by a few determined spirits, and the adhesion of the mountain provinces was given by Creole municipal authorities who saw in the change an opportunity to better their personal fortunes. Nor was the resistance of Coro and Maracaibo so much inspired by love of Spain as by the presence of the resolute, clear-headed José Ceballos, who gathered troops and sent emissaries into the revolted provinces. The Caracas junta responded by raising an army which marched toward Coro, and the civil war was on.

The news of the massacre of the Ecuadorean revolutionists at Quito in August, 1810, warned the junta Creoles that they had engaged in no child's play. A commission went to London to solicit the intervention of the British government in reaching an accommodation with the patriot authorities in Spain, but the Seville junta declared the Caracas revolutionists traitors. The commissioners fell under Miranda's influence and he convinced them that an open declaration of independence was the only course left. Meanwhile the troops sent to conquer Coro had been defeated by Ceballos. Threatened by the royalist arms, unable to count on the support of any considerable proportion of the rural population of even their own provinces, the Creoles of the ruling coterie proceeded to extreme measures. A congress met in March and on the 5th of July, 1811, adopted a declaration of independence, proclaiming the seven provinces of Cumaná, Barcelona, Caracas, Barinas, Trujillo, Merida, and Margarita free and sovereign states. Venezuela was, therefore, the first independent republic in Spanish America. Congress adopted a Constitution full of the most radical reforms and advanced ideas, and a handful of political theorists and advanced radicals took the direction of affairs, and imposed their crude theories on a bewildered and reluctant population. The ruling clique issued fiat money in immense quantities, and the resulting disorganisation of business increased discontent.

Miranda, who had come from Europe to take command of military operations, warned them that the fabric was not strong enough to withstand the shock of battle, but the eager young reformers persisted. The clergy and the native Spaniards were the first to react. Though an outbreak of the Spaniards in Caracas was bloodily suppressed, the priests stirred up the people of Valencia, and that city—the second in the republic—declared against the Caracas government. Miranda succeeded in reducing the place only after costly fighting. The ruling clique did what they could to raise and equip troops to meet the approaching attacks from Coro and the West Indies, but their efforts were hampered by loyalist risings. In February, 1812, Monteverde, a Spanish leader, marched with a small detachment south from Coro, and northern Trujillo welcomed him. Defeating the patriot forces wherever he met them and refusing quarter to his prisoners, he prepared to advance eastward on the centre of the revolution. The junta was already trembling, when, on the 26th of March, a terrific earthquake devastated the revolted provinces. The solid ground rocked with such violent oscillations that in less than a minute the cities of Caracas, Barquisimeto, and Merida were mere heaps of ruins. Twelve thousand persons perished in Caracas alone. The loyalist provinces escaped injury, and the priests preached that the earthquake was a punishment sent by God upon impious rebellion. The people of Barquisimeto joined Monteverde, and he marched east, slaughtering the raw recruits with which the patriot leaders tried to block his way. Merida, Trujillo, and Barinas declared for the king, and an expedition sent from Caracas to the lower Orinoco was destroyed. Monteverde entered Valencia unopposed and only the coast from Caracas east to Cumaná remained to the republic. In despair the politicians made Miranda dictator, but, though the army numbered five thousand, he had no confidence in his men. He signed a capitulation and tried to fly while his army dispersed or joined the loyalist forces. On the 30th of July Monteverde entered Caracas and the first Venezuelan revolution ceased to exist.