Following the Venezuelan War of Independence (part of the Spanish American wars of independence), Venezuela gained independence from the Spanish Empire in 1811. After, it became a part of Gran Colombia. Internal tensions led to the dissolution of Gran Colombia in 1830/31, with Venezuela declaring independence in 1830 after the . For the rest of the nineteenth century, independent Venezuela saw a range of caudillos (strongmen) compete for power. Leading political figures included José Antonio Páez (a leading figure particularly 1829–1847), Antonio Guzmán Blanco (1870–1887) and Cipriano Castro (1899–1908).
In a succession of rebellions, the Federal War (1858–1863) was particularly bloody, and saw the establishment of the modern system of States of Venezuela (replacing the Provinces of Venezuela largely inherited from the colonial era). The turn of the century saw several notable international crises which contributed to the development of the United States' Monroe Doctrine: the Venezuela Crisis of 1895 under Joaquín Crespo (regarding a territorial dispute with Britain) and the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903 (regarding Venezuela's refusal to pay foreign debts) under Cipriano Castro.
Overview Patterns of political ascendancy, rising, and resurgences developed.Morón, Guillermo, A History of Venezuela, 1964 The same geographical reasons that had made possible the formation of Venezuela as a distinct national entity separate from New Granada during the colonial period also make Venezuela difficult to govern. Venezuela had various regions: the Andes, the plains that stretched from the border of New Granada to the Orinoco delta, Guayana, the Maracaibo basin, the Coro region, the Barquisimeto region, and central Venezuela, formed by the Caracas-Valencia axis and its surrounding areas. The llanos themselves comprised different sub-regions: the eastern part, which included the Cumaná region (and the island of Margarita by extension), the Apure llanos, and the central and western llanos. Except for the llanos, where there were no geographical barriers between them, the other regions were separated from each other by either outright mountain ranges or rough mountainous terrains. The distinction between the eastern, central and western llanos was due to political precedents and circumstances. The eastern llanos and Guayana had practically fought their own war of independence within the wider war of independence. They also had outlets to the sea. The central and western llanos, which politically were considered extensions of Caracas (except Barinas), had varying access to the central region. The Apure llanos were a prolongation of the central llanos. The western llanos, with the capital in Barinas, had been a province separate from Caracas, but they were in effect (the same as Apure) part of the same social, military, and political landscape.
Independence saw Venezuela possibly the most impoverished country in Spanish America. In 1800 the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt estimated the population of the province of Venezuela at around one million.Humboldt, Alexander von, Viaje a las Regiones Equinocciales del Nuevo Continente, Caracas, 1941. Humboldt is the ultimate authority on pre-independence Venezuela. A calculation made by Agustin Codazzi, an Italian officer and engineer who chose Venezuela as his homeland, put the population at 810,000Codazzi, Agustin, Resumen de la geografia de Venezuela, originally published in 1841; re-printed in Caracas in 1940 Whether these figures are reliable or not, it is undeniable that after over a decade of incessant warfare, Venezuela's population must have gone down, if not from the wars themselves, from the unstable social conditions they engendered. Venezuela had no means of communication outside of the caminos reales (royal roads) from the colonial period. There existed a stone-paved camino real from Caracas to La Guaira and there were earthen roads that crisscrossed central Venezuela from Caracas to Valencia and from the center to the llanos. In the llanos themselves, there were the trails made by cattle-herders from one town to another. In the rest of Venezuela, roads were no better than mule tracks that followed lines of least resistance. Caracas had started re-building itself when the war for independence ended, but by all measurable social standards the city had deteriorated from its colonial apogee. It had no public buildings of any note. Its cathedral would have been considered a minor church in Mexico. In terms of social organization, Venezuela had inherited the colonial distinctions between the minority ruling whites, the majority un-enfranchised pardos, and the slaves. Government was mostly a local affair. The country was 90% or more rural and the regional caudillos exerted their authority from their own large land holdings through the small towns that acted mostly in name as capitals in all the regions. Despite its relative insignificance as a city, Caracas was the symbol of political power and its control was considered to some extent legitimating. In brief, Venezuela was not a cohesive country, but the political forces that determined its history were not entirely arbitrary or chaotic.
In the seventy years from 1829 to 1899, by one official tally, Venezuela had thirty presidential terms, but this leaves out some transitional presidencies which would boost the figure to 41. In reality, a mere 16 presidents served a total of 28 non-transitional terms. One cannot regard Venezuela as stable during this period: at least thirty insurrections occurred, albeit most of them unsuccessful. The usual pattern was that some local, usually white, caudillo would "recruit" an "army" of 100 or more pardos and make a pompous "revolutionary" proclamation. If this caudillo had some measure of charisma, he could put other caudillos on his side and, with the other recruited pardos, march on Caracas. If he succeeded in seizing power, his continued success depended on his getting other caudillos to put down the minor insurrections that cropped up here and there against him. There were other features of note. In Venezuela, as if the caudillos had a tacit understanding among themselves, there were no political executions with but one minor(?) exception. All a significant caudillo had to fear from failure was either jail, usually for a short term, or exile. However, these privileges did not extend to the pardos, who were easy to recruit, easy to punish, and easy to forget once a caudillo was in power.
Between 1830 and 1899 the series of caudillos who succeeded each other as president came mostly from the llanos, the Eastern region, and from the state of Falcón. From 1899 until 1958, chieftains from the Andean regions held the presidency.Liss, p 10. Liss, Sheldon Diplomacy and Dependency: Venezuela, the United States, and the Americas. Salisbury, North Carolina, U.S.A., 1978.
Roughly, one can divide the history of Venezuela in the 19th century into the following periods:
the ascendancy of José Antonio Páez (1829–1847), during which he had the support of Carlos Soublette; the Monagas ascendancy (1847–1858) the Federal War (1858–1863) the Federalist period (1863–1870) the Antonio Guzmán Blanco ascendancy, with Joaquin Crespo as its main caudillo supporter (1870–1887) the civilian presidencies and the Crespo ascendancy (1887–1899)
Páez ascendant (1829–1847) Following Venezuela's separation from Gran Colombia, the Venezuelan congress approved a new constitution and banned Simón Bolívar from his own homeland.Thus Liss, p 10. Although the 1830 Constitution prescribed democracy, tradition and practical difficulties militated against the actual working of a republican form of government, and in practice an oligarchy governed the nation.
Páez ruled either as president or as the man-behind-the-throne from 1830 to 1846; and later, from 1860 to 1863, as dictator.Liss, p10. A distinguished military leader in the independence war and a colleague of Bolívar, Páez had a strong claim to the Presidency, especially as, despite his pardo origins, the white oligarchy in Caracas supported him enthusiastically.
During his first year in office Páez created a three-man Office of Foreign Relations within the Ministry of Finance. It had little occasion to deal with war-related diplomacy between Venezuela and other states, because Venezuela had only giant military forces and they had the primary function of protecting the presidency from internal threats and of maintaining order. The Foreign Office dealt mostly with difficulties involving foreign citizens doing business in Venezuela: especially breaches of contract, damage to persons and property during civil strife, and acts of oppression such as illegal imprisonment of aliens.Liss, p 10, on the formation and role of the Foreign Office, and p 10 and elsewhere on the mainly internal function of the army.
Doctor José María Vargas, like Páez a member of the Conservative Party, became president in February 1835. As a civilian, he had the support of some who wanted an alternative to the independence-war military veterans who had predominated in Venezuelan politics. In July 1835 the Revolution of the Reforms led by José Tadeo Monagas outed Vargas, but he returned to power when Páez defeated the rebels. He resigned permanently in April 1836.
Monagas, the leader of the rebellion, had served as a distinguished independence-war general. Although defeated, he suffered few consequences because he had his base in the Eastern llanos, a region where Páez had no effective control. Besides, Monagas had as much right as Páez to count among the "liberators" of Venezuela and he had the additional credential that, whereas Páez had turned his back on Bolivar's Gran Colombia, he, at least in principle, had manifested his allegiance to it until its disintegration was irremediable.
Independence-war general Carlos Soublettea hero of the Venezuelan War of Independence, Carlos Soublette — Official biography. Carlos Soublette Biography a Conservative, became president in 1837. Páez succeeded him in 1839 and the Venezuelan nation finally acknowledged its debt to the man to whom it owed its very freedom. In 1842, Bolívar's remains were brought from Santa Marta, Colombia, where he died, to Caracas and entombed in the national cathedral. Soublette took the reins from Páez again in 1843, and governed until 1847.Liss, p 12, says he governed until 1848.
Monagas ascendancy (1847–1858) Carlos Soublette proved an honest but lackluster president, in some ways a foil to Páez, and he could not prevent the "election" of Monagas to the presidency in 1847. It is the accepted wisdom that all the "elections" in the Venezuelan 19th century were a sham or non-existent, but this is not exactly accurate. There were elections, but these were held at the municipal level and of course the pardos had no vote. This tradition of indirect elections through local councils would last in Venezuela until 1945.
President Monagas broke with the Conservative Party. In 1848, his supporters assaulted parliament and he imposed personal rule and sent Páez into exile. His younger brother, José Gregorio Monagas, won election as president for the 1851–1855 term and also governed dictatorially. José Tadeo returned as president in 1855 but resigned in March 1858 in the face of an insurrection in Valencia led by Julián Castro and which included elite members of both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party.
Both brothers governed as Liberals. José Gregorio abolished slavery in 1854, and José Tadeo abolished capital punishment.
The eastern llanos produced many caudillos because its economy was open to international trade and the exports from that region (cattle, hides, coffee) were staples of the Venezuelan economy.
Federal War (1858–1863)
Three days after José Tadeo Monagas' resignation, Julián Castro seized the Presidency in a coup d'état.