The Captaincy General of Venezuela ( es, Capitanía General de Venezuela), also known as the Kingdom of Venezuela (), was an administrative district of colonial Spain, created on September 8, 1777, through the Royal Decree of Graces of 1777, to provide more autonomy for the provinces of

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

, previously under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo (and thus the

Viceroyalty of New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Amer ...

) and then the

Viceroyalty of New Granada The Viceroyalty of New Granada ( es, Virreinato de Nueva Granada, links=no ) also called Viceroyalty of the New Kingdom of Granada or Viceroyalty of Santafé was the name given on 27 May 1717, to the jurisdiction of the Spanish Empire in norther ...

. It established a unified government in political (

governorship A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

), military ( captaincy general), fiscal ( intendancy), ecclesiastical ( archdiocese) and judicial ('' audiencia'') affairs. Its creation was part of the

Bourbon Reforms The Bourbon Reforms ( es, Reformas Borbónicas) consisted of political and economic changes promulgated by the Spanish Monarchy, Spanish Crown under various kings of the House of Bourbon, since 1700, mainly in the 18th century. The beginning of ...

and laid the groundwork for the future nation of Venezuela, in particular by orienting the province of Maracaibo towards the province of Caracas.

History

Antecedents

The Bourbon dynasty had already taken steps towards reorganizing their overseas possessions and Venezuela, in particular. When the New Granadan Viceroyalty was reestablished in 1739, the governor-captain general of Caracas was given military jurisdiction over the provinces of Maracaibo, Cumaná, Guayana, Trinidad and Margarita. The 18th century also marked a period of marked economic growth for Venezuela. Cocoa plantations were established along the littoral valleys, which resulted in large importations of slaves. The growth of the cocoa-exporting economy was fomented by the Real

Compañía Guipuzcoana de Caracas The Royal Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas (modern spelling variant ''Gipuzkoan'', known also as the ''Guipuzcoana Company'', es, Real Compañia Guipuzcoana de Caracas; eu, Caracasko Gipuzkoar Errege Konpainia) was a Spanish Basque trading compan ...

, which was granted a full monopoly over exports and imports in 1728. The Company's second largest export was

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

. It also promoted the exploration and settlement of Venezuela's frontiers, most famously under the Expedition of the Limits, 1750-1761 headed by José de Iturriaga y Aguirre, which resulted in new settlements in

Guayana Province Guayana Province (1585−1864) was a former province of Spanish Colonial Venezuela and independent Venezuela, located in the Guyana region of northeastern South America. The province was part of the Spanish colonial New Andalusia Province and ...

. This growth was not experienced evenly, and the monopoly hurt small farmers, who continued to sell most of their product in the contraband trade. Resentment of the Company exploded in open revolt in 1749 headed by Canarian immigrant Juan Francisco de León.

Establishment

The Captaincy General, which was essentially a new viceroyalty in all but name, was actually created slowly over time by centralizing fiscal, administrative, military and ecclesiastical rule in Caracas. The first step was the creation of the Intendancy of Caracas, by Minister of the Indies, José de Gálvez in 1776. The new intendancy (''superintendencia de ejército y real hacienda'') covered the provinces of

(Caracas), Cumaná (sometimes New Andalusia), Guayana, Maracaibo,

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and

Margarita A margarita is a cocktail consisting of Tequila, triple sec, and lime juice often served with salt on the rim of the glass. The drink is served shaken with ice (on the rocks), blended with ice (frozen margarita), or without ice (straight up). ...

. Up to this point Maracaibo, Guayana and Trinidad's governance had been directly supervised by the Bogotá Audiencia; the other three provinces by the one in

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 ( Distrito Nacional) , webs ...

. The following year a joint governorship- captaincy general with powers over military and administrative matters was established for the same provinces. Regional governors and military commanders were subordinated to the governor-captain general of Caracas. To maintain uniformity in judicial matters, in 1777 the provinces of Maracaibo, Margarita, Cumaná, Guayana and Trinidad were transferred to the Santo Domingo Audiencia, which had taken appeals from the Province of Caracas since 1742. Judicial matters were finally centralized in 1786 with the creation of the Audiencia of Caracas, which had jurisdiction over these same provinces and the new

Barinas Province Barinas Province (1786 - 1864) was a province of the Captaincy General of Venezuela and later of Venezuela. It was founded on 15 February 1786, with territory formerly part of the Maracaibo Province. In 1823, Apure Province was split from Barin ...

, which had been established in the intervening years from the frontier regions of Maracaibo Province. The ''Audiencia'' was composed of a regent judge, three judges and a crown attorney. The governor-captain general served as its president. It was to carry out justice and to watch over the action of royal officials in the area of its jurisdiction and only communicated directly with the

Council of the Indies The Council of the Indies ( es, Consejo de las Indias), officially the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies ( es, Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias, link=no, ), was the most important administrative organ of the Spanish Empire for the Amer ...

in Spain. A ''

consulado The ''Consulado de mercaderes'' was the merchant guild of Seville founded in 1543; the Consulado enjoyed virtual monopoly rights over goods shipped to America, in a regular and closely controlled West Indies Fleet, and handled much of the silve ...

'' was established in 1793 to oversee the new captaincy general's trade. In religious matters all of the provinces were also placed under the direction of the new archdiocese of Caracas in 1803. Two new

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...

s, Mérida and Guayana were created, as well. Previously areas of the new diocese of Mérida had been part of the archdiocese of Bogotá, and Guayana had been part of the diocese of

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

. Control of the Province of Trinidad was lost to the British in 1797.

Legislation establishing the Captaincy General

The Royal Decree establishing the Captaincy General:

The King.—Inasmuch and keeping in mind what has been reported to me by the current Viceroy, Governor and Captain General of the New Kingdom of Granada and the governors of the Provinces of Guayana and Maracaibo on the inconveniences that are created in the indicated provinces, as well as those of Cumaná and Islands of Margarita and Trinidad, by remaining united as they are to the Viceroyalty and Captaincy General of the indicated New Kingdom of Granada, because of the distance at which they find themselves from its capital Santa Fe, resulting as a consequence the delay in the decisions with the most grave harm to my Royal Service. Therefore, to avoid these and greater harm, which would result in case of an invasion, I have best resolved the absolute separation of said Provinces of Cumaná, Guayana and Maracaibo, and islands of Trinidad and Margarita, from the Viceroyalty and Captaincy General of the New Kingdom of Granada, and add them in government and military matters to the Captaincy General of Venezuela, in the same manner that they are in regards to the administration of my Royal Treasury to the new Intendancy established in said Province and city of Caracas, its capital. In the same manner I have resolved to separate in judicial matters from the Audiencia of Santa Fe, and to add to the old one of Santo Domingo, the two mentioned Provinces of Maracaibo and Guayana, in the same manner that Cumaná and the islands of Margarita and Trinidad are, so that they find themselves under the same immediate Audiencia, Captain General and Intendant, be better ruled and governed with better utility to my Royal Service. Accordingly, I order the Viceroy and Audiencia of Santa Fe restrained from, and to abstain from, the knowledge of the respective matters which corresponded to them before the separation implied here; and order the governors of the Provinces of Cumaná, Guayana and Maracaibo, and Islands of Margarita and Trinidad, to obey as their Captain General, the one that today is, and in the future will be, of the Province of Venezuela, and carry out the orders that in my Royal Service he communicate to them in government and military matters; and that in the same way the governors of the Provinces of Maracaibo and Guayana observe the provisions that in the future my Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo issues, accepting the appeals that are lodged before it according to and in the manner they have been, or should have been done, before the Audiencia of Santa Fe; such is my will. Given in San Ildefonso on the eighth of September of 1777.—I the King.

The Royal Decree 'Real Cédula''of June 13, 1786, was the first to establish the Real Audiencia, describe its functions and to define its limits (subsequent ones defined further faculties and appointed members):

His Majesty has resolved in view of everything, that the Province of Maracaibo continue united, as it is, to the Captaincy General and Intendancy of Caracas, keeping what is provided by the Royal Decree 'Real Cédula''of February 15 of this year on the addition of the City of Trujillo and its jurisdiction to the Government of Maracaibo; and the creation for the present of a separate
Command Command may refer to: Computing * Command (computing), a statement in a computer language * COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS * Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards * ...
in the Province of Barinas. And to avoid the harm that would arise for the inhabitants of said Provinces of Maracaibo, Cumamá, Guayana, Margarita and Island of Trinidad, comprising the same Captaincy General, of having to recur for appeals in their affairs to the Audiencia ''Pretorial'' of Santo Domingo, the King has resolved to create another in Caracas, comprised for now of a Regent Dean, three judges 'oidores''and a crown attorney 'fiscal'' leaving the same number of ministers in the one in Santo Domingo and limiting its district to the Spanish part of that island, the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico; to which end His Majesty will of course name the ministers who should serve in one and the other.

Independence

The independence movement for Venezuela began with the establishment of the Caracas Junta in 1810. After the

Venezuelan Declaration of Independence The Venezuelan Declaration of Independence () is a statement adopted by a congress of Venezuelan provinces on July 5, 1811, through which Venezuelans made the decision to separate from the Spanish Crown in order to establish a new nation based o ...

in 1811, the provinces of Caracas, Cumaná, Barinas, Margarita, and the newly separated ones of

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, Trujillo, and Mérida established a

Republic of Venezuela The Republic of Venezuela was a democratic republic first established in 1958, and replaced in 1999 by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Venezuela saw ten years of military dictatorship from 1948 to 1958. After the 1948 Venezuelan coup ...

, which claimed the area of the Captaincy General. The provinces of Maracaibo and Guayana, along with the city of Coro, rejected the republic, and after a year of war against the royalists, this First Republic collapsed. The provinces that had created the Venezuelan Republic were reconquered by Frigate Captain Domingo de Monteverde, who usurped power from the appointed Captain General Fernando Miyares. Because of this the

Cortes of Cádiz The Cortes of Cádiz was a revival of the traditional ''cortes'' (Spanish parliament), which as an institution had not functioned for many years, but it met as a single body, rather than divided into estates as with previous ones. The General ...

erected the Province of Maracaibo into a separate Captaincy General with Miyares at its head, but did ratify Monteverde as Captain General of the smaller Venezuela. During this period, the Province of Maracaibo elected a representative to the Cortes, José Domingo Rus, who served from March 3, 1812, to May 10, 1814, and continued to represent the province before the crown after

Ferdinand VII , house = Bourbon-Anjou , father = Charles IV of Spain , mother = Maria Luisa of Parma , birth_date = 14 October 1784 , birth_place = El Escorial, Spain , death_date = , death_place = Madrid, Spain , burial_plac ...

abolished the Cortes.Ortega González, Rutilio. "Rus, José Domingo" in ''Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela'', Vol. 3. Caracas: Fundación Polar, 1999. With Ferdinand VII's return, Venezuela was reunited in one captaincy general. In 1812 a new Audiencia appointed by the Cortes was able to return in Caracas. Under the leadership of Dominican-born Regent José Francisco Heredia (father of Cuban poet

José María Heredia y Heredia José María Heredia y Heredia, also known as José María Heredia y Campuzano (December 31, 1803 – May 7, 1839) was a Cuban-born poet considered by many to be the first romantic poet of the Americas and the initiator of Latin American romantic ...

), the Audiencia put up fierce resistance to Monteverde's attempts to rule the Captaincy General under

martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Marti ...

. After an interruption due to the restoration of the Republic and attempts by Pablo Morillo to suspend the Audiencia, both the Audiencia and the Captaincy General continued to function until 1821. Independence for Venezuela was consolidated in 1821 as part of

Gran Colombia Gran Colombia (, "Great Colombia"), or Greater Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia (Spanish language, Spanish: ''República de Colombia''), was a state that encompassed much of northern South America and part of southern Central Ameri ...

. The Congress of Cucuta looked to the territorial area of former Viceroyalty of New Granada (during the period of 1739-1777) as the basis for its territorial claims, and created a state composed of regional departments. Venezuela became the Department of Venezuela through this territorial reorganization. The rising animosity between

Venezuelans Venezuelans ( Spanish: ''venezolanos'') are the citizens identified with the country of Venezuela. This connection may be through citizenship, descent or cultural. For most Venezuelans, many or all of these connections exist and are the source of ...

and New Granadians, due to irreconcilable differences in opinion as to how the new republic ought to be governed, led to the inevitable collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830. After 1830, the provinces within the old Captaincy General of Venezuela constituted the territory of the new independent republic of

References

* “León, Juan Francisco de” in ''Diccionario multimedia de Historia de Venezuela''. Caracas: Fundación Polar, 1995. * Amezaga y Aresti, Vicente. ''Hombres de la Compañía Guipuzcoana''. Caracas, 1963. * Arcila Farias, Eduardo. ''Economia colonial de Venezuela''. 1946. * Baglio, Assunta. 1996. '. Infometro, XVIII, (150), 1996. 17-19. * Basterra, Ramón de. ''Una empresa del siglo XVIII. Los Navíos de la Ilustración''. Madrid: Cultura Hispánica, 1970 925 * Morón, Guillermo. "Venezuela, integración territorial de" in ''Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela''. Caracas: Fundación Polar, 1997. * Ramos Pérez, Demetrio. ''El Tratado de límites de 1750 y la expedición de Iturriaga al Orinoco''. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; Instituto Juan Sebastián Elcano de Geografía, 1946. * Vila, Marco Aurelio. ''Antecedentes coloniales de centros poblados de Venezuela''. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1978. {{DEFAULTSORT:Captaincy General of Venezuela Captaincy General of Venezuela *