Rebellion

The governor's right to appoint or remove a teniente from his post became the catalyst for revolt in 1749. Before that date colonists

suspected collusion between Basque governors and Basque Guipuzcoana monopolists, and in the 1740s they came to believe that royal justice was being subverted so that Company ships would have full cargoes of cheaply purchased cacao beans. Tensions peaked as prices dropped to record low levels. As early as 1745 governor Zuloaga was certain that a conspiracy had been formed to demand the expulsion of the Guipuzcoana Company;

I was told secretly by several different ecclesiastics, both seculars and regulars, that a plot has been formed here by the Conde [de San Javier] and Don Alejandro [Blanco Uribe] and their partisans, and as a part of it they have made an alliance with the majority of the many Isleños from the Canary Islands who live in this city and in the different areas adjacent to it. Although the Conde and Don Francisco de Ponte, his cousin, plan to travel to the Court to present their case, they and many others intend to begin something here; to be better able to do it they have elected Alcaldes and a Procurador General favorable to the thoughts of the Conde and Don Alejandro Blanco, and they have gone so far as to propose violence. If I do not agree with them or defer to them they will rebel against me, arrest me if necessary, and arrest the agents of the Guipuzcoana Company so that they can do away with it altogether.^[6]

But no uprising took place in 1745, and, although it is unlikely that Juan Francisco de León would have led a march on the city without the support of some influential mantuanos, when he and the isleños and other Tuy settlers did take their protest to Caracas there would be very little concrete proof to link them and the colony's elites.^[7]

In any event, the occurrence which precipitated León's rebellion had nothing to do with the Caracas elite. Governor Luis Castellanos decided to favor the request of Company factor Juan Manuel Goizueta and send an employee of the Company to control the cacao trade leaving the valleys of Panaquire and Caucagua. Martín de Echeverría, Vizcayan, first met with Juan Francisco de León in Panaquire on March 27, 1749. Together with his patrol of a dozen men, Echeverría, who was mistakenly thought to be León's replacement as teniente de justicia mayor , was immediately forced to leave Panaquire, because, as León wrote to governor Castellanos a week later, "the Vecinos in this Valley refused to allow me to recognize a Vizcayan Teniente or Vizcayan soldiers, afraid as they are of the hostilities that are suffered in the places where there are such

Tenientes and patrols."^[8] Castellanos held León in enough respect to write him a letter of explanation, in which he insisted that Echeverría had a legitimate commission in the Tuy, and that it was within the rights of the Guipuzcoana Company to place officers and soldiers wherever they saw a need in order to stop smuggling and to keep cacao from being shipped to La Guaira by sea. As governor, Castellanos was obliged to assist the Company in this effort and he claimed that he could not overrule the Company if its agent was qualified. What was more, León misunderstood the nature of Echeverría's mission, for he had been sent only as a cabo de guerra y juez de comisos , with authority only to halt contraband, and not as a replacement teniente de justicia .

Under the circumstances, the difference between cabo and teniente was too fine a point for León and his followers, who, to profit from their cacao, had come to depend on the illegal sea trade by way of the Tuy. They were fed up with the Company, its low prices and other policies. Particularly aggravating to them was the complete prohibition, ordered by governor Martín de Lardizábal in 1735, of all commercial activity along the coast east of La Guaira. Only the owners of a handful of haciendas that were located along this coast were allowed to bring their harvests by sea to La Guaira, and this was permitted because, blocked by the mountains that rose steeply from behind their estates, there was no other way for them to get their beans to market. Otherwise, even off-shore fishing was prohibited, as the crown supported the view of local royal authorities that such activity attracted and served as a cover for smuggling.

Therefore, since the only authorized route to La Guaira for cacao from Tuy Valley haciendas was overland by way of Caracas, when the price of cacao fell sharply in the 1740s, the cost of transport over as many as forty leagues of difficult mulepath made the cacao business unprofitable in the Tuy. Despite many appeals to rescind the prohibition, Zuloaga remained steadfast in support of the policy of his predecessor Lardizábal, rejecting in 1744 and 1745 requests to allow the owners of haciendas in the remote valleys of Curiepe, Caucagua, Panaquire, Mamporal, Capaya, and others to ship their cacao to La Guaira by way of the Tuy River and the Caribbean. We may suppose that the policy probably provoked as much smuggling as it prevented, and when the Basque cabo

Echeverría was named for the Panaquire post no cacao had reached Caracas by the legal routes from some of the lower Tuy haciendas for more than two years.^[9]

To protest general conditions and Echeverría's appointment, a march to Caracas was decided upon during the first weeks of April 1749. Several years later, as he was about to surrender to the royal authorities, an anxious Juan Francisco de León claimed that he had not been alone in the organization of the march. They had planned only a simple protest, which the government, not León, had turned into a rebellion. The canario leader emphasized that while those who accompanied him on the march were bold enough to openly challenge the royally licensed Company to the beat of drums with flags flying and arms in hand, there had been many others, in particular several Caracas mantuanos, who had given their encouragement but were careful to protect their anonymity. León later remembered that during this time he had "received a great many letters from all over the Province, but none of them signed."^[10]

Much to the disgust of the king's investigators, the matter of clandestine support would never be made clear, primarily because León refused to name those elites who had called on him to lead the protest. But in 1749 there was no doubt about who actually marched on Caracas. Those who came from the Tuy with León to manifest their opposition to the Company were modest and even humble men from the middling and lower ranks of rural provincial society. Many were isleños, others were free blacks, a few were runaway slaves, and yet others Indians. Most joined the band as it passed by the large cacao haciendas located along the the Caucagua stream, but others had traveled a considerable distance, from the Aragua Valley sixty leagues to the west and from San Sebastián to the south, to participate.

On April 19, several hundred armed men made camp with León at Tócome, about an hour east of Caracas. Upon hearing of the arrival of León there, Manuel de Goizueta, the principal factor of the Guipuzcoana Company, and a number of other Company employees, including the would-be cabo Martín de Echeverría, fled the city straightaway for the safety of the fortress at La Guaira, taking with them only what they could carry. That afternoon the Caracas cabildo met in hurried session and resolved to go as a body

to meet with León, bringing with them don Lorenzo de Ponte y Villegas and the Marqués de Mijares, respectively the oldest and the most prestigious of the town's mantuano men. At the request of governor Castellanos a delegation of leading churchmen was organized to accompany the councilmen, and two officials of the Real Hacienda were sent as the governor's personal delegates with a letter for León.^[11]

As they reached the Tócome encampment this contingent of elites was greeted with shouts of "Long live the King and Death to the Vizcayans." León refused to read the governor's letter, insisting that he was interested only in the departure of the "Vizcayans." He told the emissaries that, although he had no intention of harming anyone, he was determined to accomplish his objective and more than 3000 men were on their way to join him in Caracas. The councilmen informed León that they had never heard rumors calling for the expulsion of the Company, that not even the Conde de San Javier, their spokesman at court, had asked for the removal of the Company. León replied that they were wrong, that the Conde had gone to court exactly for that purpose, but, once in Madrid the king's agents "had tricked him, taking him to dances and parties so that he might enjoy himself."^[12]

Once they determined that there was to be no break in León's resolve to go to Caracas in order to bring a halt to the operations of the Guipuzcoana Company and to force its agents to leave the province, the negotiators returned to the city. The next morning the governor sent Manuel de Sosa Betancourt, archdeacon of the cathedral and an isleño, who succeeded in persuading León not to enter the city with all of his men. León agreed to bring them only as far as the plaza of the Candelaria church in the canario barrio on the eastern fringe of Caracas, but he reiterated to Sosa that his reason for coming to Caracas was to insist on the total destruction of the Guipuzcoana Company. More than that, he told Sosa that he was determined to see that "in all of this Province there does not remain even one person of that [Basque] race; all of them must leave on the first vessel or ship in the bay."^[13]

The arrangement with the archdeacon called for the protesters to arrive at Candelaria the next day, April 21, but when word reached Tócome that Castellanos was about to flee Caracas for La Guaira, León and his men left immediately for the town, and they arrived

in the Candelaria barrio at about three o'clock in the afternoon on April 20, 1749. As events were to prove, this haste was of singular importance. Castellanos's fear for his own safety may have been his primary reason for wanting to go to La Guaira, but as a strategic matter such a move was particularly significant because if it appeared that he, as governor, had been forced to leave Caracas under pressure from León's mob, then the protest against the Guipuzcoana Company could be understood in a much more serious light as an insurrection against the constituted authority of the crown. It was one thing to disobey the governor's orders to detain his march or to keep his men out of Caracas, but it was quite another to be responsible for forcing the king's representative from his post, and, perhaps with this in mind, León had left immediately for Caracas when he heard that Castellanos was preparing to flee.

Ignoring the agreement he had made with Sosa, León entered Caracas with all of his men. To the accompaniment of drumbeats and with banners flying, in a great commotion the band of protesters advanced through the streets of Candelaria and the cathedral parish, stopping only when they reached the Plaza Mayor. Once guards had been placed at the office and warehouse of the Guipuzcoana Company and sentinels stationed at the street corners, a mounted Juan Francisco de León confronted Castellanos, who stood above him on the balcony of the governor's residence. The exchange was strained but polite. Castellanos spoke first: "Your Honor is very welcome señor capitán León. I did not expect Your Honor until tomorrow at noon." León: "That was my intention, but I received three letters today which advised me that Your Highness wanted to go to La Guaira, and for that reason I came more quickly." Castellanos: "I did not have such a plan, and I am here to serve you, Sir."^[14] León then demanded the immediate expulsion of the Company.

With no choice but violence should he refuse, Castellanos issued an order to the purpose. However, unknown to León and those who witnessed the event, earlier Castellanos had signed a secret document discounting anything that he might subsequently agree to do or be coerced into doing.^[15] Believing that they had obtained their initial objective, León and some two thousand men set up camp in the plaza to await the execution of the governor's order. Three-

fourths of them were isleños or other Spaniards, and the rest were Indians, mulattos, and zambos. On the march they had divided themselves into three companies: españoles blancos , blacks and mulattos, and Indians; now the first two groups pitched their tents inside the plaza, the españoles against the walls of the cathedral and the men of color against the royal jail, while the Indian company was divided and placed in appropriate locations on the streets leading into the plaza. León, with permission of the governor, spent the night in the vacant bishop's residence. The poor among the protesters were fed by the vecinos of Caracas, many of whom openly expressed their support for León and his movement.^[16]

The next day León asked Castellanos for an attorney, and a legal counselor was assigned to him.^[17] León also began to receive the advice of elites who were opposed to the Company. It was determined that the governor should give license for an open cabildo, termed by them a junta general , to decide whether the Company had been beneficial or prejudicial to the province during its tenure of nearly two decades. This meeting was of major importance to León and his followers, for a vote against the Company by the town's foremost citizenry meant that they would share responsibility for its expulsion. The procedure would also give much-wanted additional legality to their movement. With alacrity the people of prominence in Caracas came together to denounce the Guipuzcoana Company. Castellanos would write to the king that in the past,

for some Juntas that have taken place, even when the issue was to their advantage, not in two days has it been possible to bring together 20 men, while for this one requested by Juan Francisco de León in less than a half hour 97 people gathered, all of them principales and people of distinction in this town, and in this it is evident that they were involved with León in the planning of the said Junta.^[18]

The decision taken by the assembled town was overwhelmingly in opposition to the Basque monopoly. Among the principal complaints were that it had failed in its obligation to supply the province with clothing and food, it had seriously hindered the cacao trade, it had forced the price of cacao beans down to record low levels, and in these and other particulars it had failed to comply both with many of the terms of its original contract and subsequent royal orders governing its management.^[19]

The Company factor and many of its employees had already disembarked from La Guaira on April 21 when the open cabildo issued its support for expulsion the following day. Not yet satisfied, on April 23 León asked for further guarantees. Among them were two that reflect the perception which the demonstrators had of their own precarious position. First was a request for complete assurance that Castellanos would not leave Caracas, and second was a guarantee of indemnity for León and those who had marched with him. Castellanos agreed to these things as he had to everything else that had been asked of him. To become law these terms had to be announced to the community at large, and for the next three nights on different street corners town criers made the termination of the Company and the indemnity public knowledge. On the third night, beating their drums and firing their arquebuses and shotguns into the air, León led most of his men from the Plaza Mayor down the Calle Real to the Candelaria plaza. Their victory parade was made to the accompaniment of the shouts of thankful Caraqueños. Only a few men were left to guard the governor's residence and to patrol the streets at night, and the anti-Company campaign appeared to have come to a quite successful end.

The character of the León protest changed completely a week later. During the night of May 3, Governor Castellanos, disguised as a priest, repudiated his promise to remain in Caracas and fled to La Guaira. No effort by anyone in Caracas could persuade him to return, and by the end of the month a total collapse of authority, and with it social order, seemed likely. Word of an uprising of slaves in Ocumare del Tuy further frightened an already agitated citizenry, and arrests, torture, and confessions, culminating in the execution of a supposed ringleader, were the result. Some members of the Caracas elite began to try to distance themselves from the León movement by blaming Castellanos for giving in to the protesters and ordering the Guipuzcoana Company out of the province entirely on his own volition, without consulting the municipal authority or anyone else. The cabildo also blamed the governor for the rumored slave uprising, saying that his precipitous flight from the city and his failure to replace the tenientes removed by León from their Tuy Valley posts during the march to Caracas had caused a breakdown of authority and order in the countryside,

which in turn had given slaves the courage to try to claim their freedom.

Anxious that their declared support for León's protest now made them accomplices in rebellion, the town's councilmen told Castellanos that he could not accuse the city of disloyalty, for he had not called on either the cabildo or the militia for assitance before he determined to take refuge in the fortress at La Guaira. For his part León understood perfectly well that the governor's action made him and his mean "traitors and rebels." In frustration and perhaps in an effort to force a direction on events that he felt were carrying him toward open rebellion, he closed the Caracas-La Guaira road in June and refused to allow supplies to be sent to Castellano and the troops in the fortress there. Advised by mantuanos that this would likely lead first to an armed confrontation with the royal and Guipuzcoana Company soldiers stationed at La Guaira and then to a general war when reinforcements arrived from Santo Domingo or Spain, León responded, "then in such case they will kill all of us, for there is no reason why I alone should die in defense of this province."^[20]

The initial support given León by the Caracas elite began to evaporate before the spectre of violence. The possibility of a slave uprising, to come either in direct support of the rebels or simply with the collapse of royal authority in the wake of the flight of the governor, was particularly troubling. Even if it was nothing more than a rumor, this fear was genuinely felt. What had taken place was well understood by the lieutenant governor, Domingo Aguirre y Castillos, a frequent friend of the elite and occasional opponent of Governor Castellanos. In a letter to the king, Aguirre argued that the policies of the Basque governors and the Guipuzcoana Company had created considerable tension in the province. Although his fears of the eventual outcome of the uprising might have clouded his view of León's objectives, he knew very well that the isleño chief had broad popular support:

Juan Francisco de León, until now your Majesty's faithful vassal, has been made over by the Government into a renegade of justice addicted to disobedience; . . . he will be a rebel powerful enough to establish a principality here, a principality whose main strength will consist in the liberty of black slaves and Indians who will come here from the surrounding provinces and from the nearby islands, and even religion and the Catholic faith will be shaken.^[21]

For his part, León decided that his original objective, the expulsion of the Guipuzcoana Company, could now be accomplished only by accepting the role of rebel that Castellanos had cast upon him by leaving Caracas. The intense antagonism felt by León and those who followed him can be seen in a statement made by the reluctant rebel leader in response to the warning that he and his men were about to commit a serious crime of lese majesty by attacking La Guaira. As the lieutenant governor Aguirre recalled in his letter to the king, León had said:

All that was lacking was for us to be accused of treason and rebellion, for His Majesty is ruining the settlers of this Province by giving it over to the Vizcayans [i.e., the Basque Guipuzcoana Company, the Basque governors and their subalterns] as if they were its conquistadors, although in truth there is nothing left to give them but our very wives, for everything else is already theirs, the settlers of the province now work and cultivate the provincial lands for them, lands that we had cleared at our own expense and with our own sweat.^[22]

In late July 1749 León issued a call to his supporters throughout the province to assemble in Caracas in preparation for an attack on La Guaira, which was set for August 1.^[23] In response to this summons to arms at least 5000 isleños and other rural residents of the province converged on Caracas, then a town of about 18,000 people.^[24] Many of the elite traveled the same roads but in the opposite direction, taking refuge on their haciendas in the countryside, while others of similar social station sought sanctuary in the cathedral from what they believed was imminent war. The rebels were deployed on the La Guaira road on August 2, and on the night of August 3 artillery stationed in the plaza of the La Guaira fortress and in the Guipuzcoana Company factory exchanged fire with León's advance troops, which had reached the outskirts of the port town. Neither side suffered casualties however. La Guaira was well defended by several hundred royal and Company troops, who had as reinforcements militiamen from coastal towns and loyal Indians from coastal villages. Although the tension of a seige would have made life difficult there, without a blockade of port, which was probably beyond the military capacity of the rebels, the town could have been supplied by sea for an indefinite period. Rather than attempt a certainly costly assault of uncertain outcome on the fortress, after several days of posturing on the perimeter of

La Guaira and having proved that he was fully committed to his cause, León began negotiations with Castellanos.

The governor made several promises, most of them similar to those he had made earlier in Caracas, and all of them subject to the secret disclaimer he had signed the day before his encounter with León in the Plaza Mayor. The administrative personnel of the Guipuzcoana Company, who had been quietly allowed to return to La Guaira, were again banned from the province and the monopoly was suspended until the king and his ministers heard the colonists' complaints and had resolved the problems surrounding its operation. In the meantime, debts owed by colonists to the Company were recognized as payable and due. For his part, Castellanos promised to return to Caracas in as short a time as possible.

In exchange, León opened the road to Caracas and disbanded his men. Claiming victory, he returned to the isleño barrio of Candelaria to await further developments. The show of force in La Guaira was the limit of the violence exercised against the state by León and his followers. They had given over their protest in favor of armed insurrection, their attack on La Guaira was indeed a serious crime, most certainly an act of treason. Still, no one had died, and both the objective and the general tenor of the event remained one of protest, not rebellion. Perhaps León believed at this point that his behavior would be vindicated now that his complaints about the Guipuzcoana Company and the Basque governors were sure to be heard.