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Venezuelan Regionalism and the Rise of Táchira

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Winfield J. Burggraaff
Winfield J. Burggraaff*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri
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Extract

Venezuela underwent three great nineteenth-century revolutions. The first was the extended struggle for political independence from Spain (1810-1821), which transformed the colony into a sovereign state. The second was the Federal War (1859-1863), which, by stepping up sharply the trend toward social democracy, had a lasting effect on the conduct of Venezuelan politics. The third, and the least studied, was the 1899 Revolution of the Liberal Restoration, which integrated the Andes into the political mainstream of the nation.1

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , October 1968 , pp. 160 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1968 

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References

1 See Pinzón, Rafael, “Tres revoluciones en Venezuela,” Sumario de occidente, I (September, 1945), 171–231 Google Scholar.

2 Rangel, Domingo Alberto, Los andinos en el poder (Caracas, 1965), pp. 59–61 Google Scholar. Although tending strongly toward an economic-determinist viewpoint, this is the most penetrating and comprehensive study to date of Táchira’s rise to power.

3 lbid., pp. 12–13. See also Siso, Carlos, La formación del pueblo venezolano: estudios sociológicos (2 vols.; Madrid, 1953), II, 225 Google Scholar.

4 Guerrero, Emilio Constantino, El Táchira físico, político e ilustrado (Caracas, 1943), p. 11 Google Scholar. General information on Indians of the region may be found also in Steward, Julian H., ed., Handbook of South American Indians (6 vols.; Washington, D. C., 1948), IV, 18–19, 429–430Google Scholar.

5 Rangel, p. 9.

6 Cubillán, Gonzalo Ramírez, “¿Qué somos los andinos?,” La Esfera (Caracas), January 20, 1965.Google Scholar

7 Ibid.

8 Guerrero, p. 69.

9 Siso, I, 511–514, 519–521. See also Sánchez, Ramón Díaz, “Evolución social de Venezuela (hasta 1960),” in Picón-Salas, Mariano, et al., Venezuela independiente: 1810–1960 (Caracas, 1962), p. 281 Google Scholar. The historical significance of the absence of the Negro slave element in the Andes was also stressed in interviews with prominent Tachirans.

The term “andino“ when used by Venezuelans can signify anyone from the three Andean states, but more often than not, it is used to identify the tachirense. The latter is considered the “true“ Andean, and the merideños and trujillanos are sometimes referred to as “andinos asimilados.”

10 Rangel, pp. 9–10.

11 Guerrero, p. 60.

12 Rangel, pp. 17–18. See also Díaz Sánchez, pp. 281–282, and Villafañe, José Gregorio, Apuntes estadísticos del Táchira (Caracas, 1960), p. 51 Google Scholar.

13 Rangel, p. 20.

14 Ibid., pp. 14–15. See also Griffin, Charles C., “Regionalism’s Role in Venezuelan Politics,” Inter-American Quarterly, III (October, 1941), 30 Google Scholar.

15 Guerrero, pp. 61–66, and Villafañe, pp. 43, 46–48.

16 Guerrero, p. 68.

17 Griffin, p. 30.

18 Rangel., pp. 15–16.

19 Ibid., pp. 24–27.

20 Ibid., pp. 27–29.

21 Villafañe, p. 18.

22 Ibid., pp. 73–76.

23 Guerrero, pp. 69–70. For a brief account of regional intellectual history, see Rosales, Rafael María, Bajo el alegre cielo (Caracas, 1961), pp. 51–61 Google Scholar.

24 Rangel, pp. 31–32.

25 For convenience, Táchira is generally referred to as a state in this paper. Actually it retained its colonial jurisdictional attachment to the Province of Mérida until 1856, in which year it was made an independent province. It became a state seven years later. In 1867 it was annexed to Zulia, but regained its autonomous status the next year. In 1881, as part of President Guzmán Blanco’s centralization policy, Táchira became Sección Táchira in the Gran Estado Los Andes, which included, along with Táchira, Mérida and Trujillo. In 1899 it once again became an autonomous state.

26 Ample evidence of Táchiran participation in the Independence struggle is provided by Rosales, Rafael María in El Táchira en la emancipación (Caracas, 1964)Google Scholar.

27 Rangel, p. 36, and interview with Ramón J. Velásquez, Caracas, March 23, 1965. Velásquez, as was his father, is a noted Táchiran intellectual and regional historian.

28 Interview with Ramón J. Velásquez, March 23, 1965. See also Griffin, p. 31.

29 Villafañe, p. 31.

30 Gilmore, Robert L., Caudillism and Militarism in Venezuela: 1810–1910 (Athens, Ohio, 1964), p. 119 Google Scholar.

31 See Rangel, pp. 43–44.

32 Ibid., p. 34.

33 Although accounts differ as to Castro’s date of birth, this is most likely the correct one; Valeri, José, “Rasgos biográficos del General Cipriano Castro,” Boletín del Archivo Histórico de Miraflores, I (July-August, 1959), 73 Google Scholar.

34 l.e., a secondary school degree, in Spanish-American usage.

35 Rangel, pp. 62–63.

36 In this he was following the example of another noted tachirense of the late nineteenth century, Dr. Santiago Briceño, who also used the local newspapers as vehicles for propagating his reformist ideas; see Rangel, p. 48.

37 Rangel, p. 67.

38 Martínez, José María Siso, Historia de Venezuela (6th ed.; Caracas, 1962), p. 629 Google Scholar.

39 Between 1894 and 1898 llanero President Crespo had managed to impose some degree of order on Venezuela’s restless caudillos. He brought on his own downfall, however, when he followed the time-honored Venezuelan custom of rigging elections (in this case, the national election of 1897) to assure victory for the official candidate. Just as routinely, his chief opponent, General José María Hernández, declared himself in rebellion. The latter’s forces defeated and killed General Crespo, but Hernández himself was subdued by Crespo’s military successor. From that point the situation deteriorated into the anarchic confusion that gave Cipriano Castro the opportunity to strike.

40 Rangel, p. 67.

41 For example, future General in Chief and President of the Republic Eleazar López Contreras, who joined the revolutionary army at the age of seventeen, months after receiving his secondary school diploma from the Colegio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús in La Grita.

42 For a participant’s account, see Contreras, Eleazar López, Páginas para la historia militar de Venezuela (Caracas, 1944), pp. 3–34 Google Scholar. For a contemporary account by a foe of Castro, see Paredes, Antonio, Cómo llegó Cipriano Castro al poder (2d ed.; Caracas, 1954)Google Scholar.

43 López Contreras, pp. 13, 15, and Rangel, pp. 76–77.

44 Giacopini Zárraga, José A., “Los hombres del 23 de mayo,” El Nacional (Caracas), May 23, 1964 Google Scholar. See also Pinzón, p. 215, and Castellanos, Enrique, “Los andinos en los Andes,” El Nacional, March 31, 1965 Google Scholar.

45 For forty-six years Venezuela was ruled by successive andino generals: Cipriano Castro (1899-1908); Juan Vicente Gómez (1908-1935); Eleazar López Contreras (1935-1941); and Isaías Medina Angarita (1941-1945).

46 Zárraga, Giacopini, “Los hombres del 23 de mayo,” El Nacional, May 23, 1964 Google Scholar.