Hector A. Ruiz

Not much can be said about Venezuela’s history between the early years of 1600 and the mid 1700s. It seems that this is where the differences of the British and the Spanish Colonies begin.

Most scholars agree that Venezuela was not considered as key place and that its importance as a Colony of Spain was displaced by the more important Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru. Approximately 2,000 people lived in the country, with an economy that was based on livestock and goldmines, in somewhat of a feudal system.

By the end of the 1600s, there was an established higher education school named “School Seminary of Saint Rose de Lima”. Given that there was no university in the country and that for people living in the country who wanted to get a college degree, the only choices were the universities in Bogota (Colombia), Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) and Mexico, the Rector of the Seminar made a formal request to the King of Spain for the creation of a University in Venezuela. This led to a royal decree that resulted in Venezuela’s first university, established on December 22, 1721: Universidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas, which centuries later would become the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) and offered degrees in Theology, Philosophy, Canon Law and Medicine. The Real y Pontificia would be Venezuela’s only university until 1810, when the Universidad de Los Andes was founded in Merida.

In my book I will touch base on the importance of higher education as part of a successful system, and of course, on the importance of the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and Venezuela’s other universities.

Today’s post will go over the subject of the origin of Venezuela’s name.

The most commonly accepted theory of how Venezuela got its name, is that Alonso de Ojeda named the land after Amerigo Vespucci’s comment during a voyage made along the new land’s coast. Historians are almost certain that Vespucci made four trips to the new continent. In one of the two trips of which there is almost complete certainty that happened (the second one led by Ojeda, the other one being the third), Vespucci commented to Ojeda that the stilt houses the indians built on top of pillars in Lake Maracaibo reminded him of Venice, which led Ojeda -Captain and Leader of the expedition- to name the country with an italianized variation “Venezziola”, roughly meaning “little Venice”. The houses Ojeda and Vespucci saw are known as “Palafitos”.

A second theory states that Ojeda named the country after encountering a small local indian tribe who named themselves “Veneciuela”. The third and least accepted theory is that the name came from a variation of the city “Valencia”.

During the years I lived in Venezuela, I would say that 99% of the population accepted the theory of the houses on the lake theory. There were dozens of references and stories about it in the Venezuelan culture, including many songs that were titled “Pequeña Venecia” (Little Venice).

In my next entry, I will discuss the arrival process of the European conquerors and how they set their new ventures in this new territory that would be now known as “Venezuela”.

As a first time author, for several weeks I thought about what to post on this site, and given that my first book will be released soon, I concluded that it would be a good idea to build up a thread of short posts that would help bring context of Venezuela’s history to a foreign reader unfamiliar with the country that is the main topic of case study of my book, the introductory manual of How to Destroy a Country.

Venezuela’s modern history begins in 1498 with Columbus’ third voyage. Six years before, the italian sailor had discovered America thinking it was the coastal indian islands of Asia, while seeking for more efficient trade routes to the east.

This event triggered the race to colonize the newfound lands, with Spain, Portugal, England, France and Netherlands being the primary colonizers seeking the vast resources of the new continent.