1. Domingo Galindo y Sayas, Pedro Ruiz Arquinzones, José Bolívar, Feliciano Sojo Palacios, Agustín Piñango, Miguel de Aristeguieta, Antolín de Liendo, Mateo de Monasterios, and Miguel de Rengifo were described as "peaceful and loyal to the King" by Sebastián de Eslava, ex-viceroy of New Granada. Demetrio Ramos Pérez, "La política de Marqués de la Ensenada--asesorado por el ex-virrey Eslava--en relación con el levantamiento contra la Guipuzcoana," Estudios de Historia Venezolana (Caracas, 1976), 672.

2. A recent attempt to argue that Company profits came mostly at the expense of contraband trade with the Dutch is made in Eugenio Piñero, "The Cacao Economy of the Eighteenth-Century Province of Caracas and the Spanish Cacao Market," Hispanic American Historical Review 68 (February 1988):86-92.

3. This is my understanding of the benefits available to those who were able to ship their cacao in the tercio buque . The custom is briefly outlined in Eduardo Arcila Farías, Economía colonial de Venezuela , 2 vols., 2d ed. (Caracas, 1973), 1:250-254. Several aspects of the process of taking on cargo remain unclear. Once a ship's captain had received a royal license from the governor to receive cargo, both cosecheros and merchants must have appeared to register the cacao they wanted to export. An agent of the royal treasury probably figured their tax obligations at this point. But what is enigmatic is the method by which it was decided who would get the opportunity to ship when there was more cacao for export than the ship could carry. When there was more cosechero cacao for export than could be accommodated in the hacienda owners' tercio buque, how was it determined who would be allowed to load cacao (and thus be able to profit from the sale of those beans in Veracruz) and who would be obliged to sell cacao at Caracas prices to local merchants or the ship's captain? Did the ship's supercargo accept cacao for these reserved portions of the ship on a first-come, first-served basis? Conversely, when all cosecheros who had cacao available for shipment had loaded it on a given vessel, yet their tercio buque had not been filled, who decided whether the remaining space continue

would be made available to local merchants and not the ship captain? Arcila Farías noted that by order of a royal cédula issued in 1721, before the establishment of the Guipuzcoana Company, it was the cabildo together with the governor who determined the cargo capacity of each ship, and that except in the case of his legitimate incapacity the governor could not delegate his authority in this matter to anyone else. In 1733, with the Company in competition for cargoes with both the English slave asiento and colonial shippers who wanted to sell all their beans to Mexico, the Basque governor Lardizábal reserved for himself alone the right to examine the cacao offered for placement in their tercio buque on ships bound for New Spain by cosecheros on their own account, and to reject any cacao that he believed had not originated on the cosecheros' haciendas. Economía colonial , 251-253. The powerful role of the governor in this may well have been one reason why the Caracas cabildo, dominated as it was by cosecheros eager to maximize their exports, was always eager to exercise gubernatorial authority in the governor's absence.

4. See the discussion in chap. 4.

5. AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 787.

6. In June of 1742 word reached Caracas that the price then being paid for cacao at Veracruz was 52.5 pesos; in Caracas at that time the price ranged from 9.5 to 14.5 pesos; Governor Gabriel de Zuloaga to the king, February 26, 1745, AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 786.

7. The 1744 padrón is located in AGN, Diversos, Tomo XXVII. This was the purpose behind the creation of this well-known document, which has not heretofore been analyzed as to its original function. Presumably the colony's haciendas were to be surveyed frequently, but in the aftermath of the rebellion of 1749 the policy was ended and no other censuses were taken.

8. León to Governor Julian de Arriaga, January 1750; quoted in Arcilia Farías, Economía colonial (1st ed., 1946), 232.

9. They did not find it in their interest to report that from 1740 to 1742 persistent rains, described by Juan Francisco de Leóon as "a constant deluge," had caused floods "never seen before in this province." Juan Francisco de León to Fernando de Mechinel, "Corregidor, Justicia Mayor, Cabo de Guerra Principal, y Juez de Comisos" of Guarenas, November 12, 1742, published in Andrés Hernández Pino, ed., Papeles coloniales: Aporte para la historia de los pueblos del Estado Miranda (Caracas, 1948), 19-20. The fact that exports had tumbled from 1740, when a near-record 63,912 fanegas were carried (a record of 64,829 fanegas had been exported in 1736), to a sixteen-year low of 25,409 fanegas in 1742 (only 16,102 fanegas were exported in 1726), was no doubt due at least in some part to the severe weather that washed away many Tuy cacao groves.

10. Letter of Julián de Arriaga (interim governor of Caracas from 1749 to 1751) to the factors of the Guipuzcoana Company, March 29, 1750, "La política del marqués de la Ensenada--asesorado por el ex-virrey Eslava--en relación con el levantamiento contra la Guipuzcoana," in Ramos Pérez, Estudios de Historia Venezolana , 655.

11. Cabildo to the king, January 1745, AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 786.

12. Examples of Mexican investments in Caracas cacao are included in a Guipuzcoana Company document that lists the ships either lost at sea or continue

taken by enemy corsairs while traveling between Veracruz and La Guaira from 1733 to 1739. In 1733 the frigate of Gerónimo López Barroso, "uno de las del trajín de la Vera Cruz," sank in the Bermuda Channel with 25,000 pesos lost to Caracas and New Spain investors; in 1734 the frigate of Pedro de Arrieta sank off Grand Cayman with cacao worth 150,000 pesos, much of it purchased by New Spain merchants; in 1734 the frigate of Gabriel de Bezama was lost near the island of Arenas, fifty leagues from Campeche, with 10 percent of its cargo silver coin for Caracas; in 1738 a frigate bound for Caracas was taken near the island of Tortugilla with 100,00 pesos in cash and Mexican merchandise. Interested in discrediting the traditional trade, the Company also gave examples of unscrupulous or inept individuals who had stolen or misspent cash intended for the purchase of Caracas cacao: in 1736 Pedro Ariztoy, maestre, could not account for 12,000 pesos he had been given in Veracruz by Andrés González for "the purchase and return of cacaos"; the previous year captain Lorenzo Hernández de Santiago, vecino of Caracas, was jailed in Veracruz for the loss of 50,000 pesos he had received for the same purpose. The directors of the Royal Guipuzcoana Company to the Council of the Indies, March 17, 1739, AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 786.

13. The published broadside is entitled: Segundo Memorial del Conde de San Xavier y de Don Francisco de Ponte en nombre de los vecinos, cosecheros, y cargadores a Nueva España (Madrid, 1746). The observations about the reluctance of New Spain merchants to invest in the cacao commerce and the departure from Caracas as a result of difficulties caused by the lack of capital there were made in an earlier memorial (Madrid, 1745). Copies of these are in AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 786.

14. The directors of the Royal Guipuzcoana Company to the Council of the Indies, March 17, 1739; Governor Zuloaga to the king, February 26, 1745, AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 786.

15. AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 786.

16. AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 787.

17. The average age at death for these women for whom both birth and death dates are available ( N = 17) is 69.2 years; for men ( N = 36) the mean age at death is 62.6. Birth, marriage, and death dates are found in the same sources cited in previous chapters: Iturriza Guillén, Familias caraqueñas and Familias valencianas ; Sangróniz y Castro, Familias coloniales ; and the marriage registry for the cathedral parish, published by the Instituto Venezolano de Genealogía, Matrimonios y velaciones .

18. The 1744 padrón of cacao haciendas was made at the request of Governor Gabriel Joseph de Zuloaga. Archivo General de la Nación, Caracas, Sección Diversos, XXVII, fols. 348-361. Haciendas were listed by location, owner, and number of trees.

19. Documentos relativos a la Insurreción de Juan Francisco de León , 203. Two known signers contributed to this secret fund: Juan Félix Blanco and Juan Rodríguez Camejo.

20. In summary, thirty-eight individuals with cacao haciendas signed the 1744 document; they owned 781,500 cacao trees on sixty-four haciendas. In addition, eleven owners of 263,000 cacao trees on sixteen other haciendas who did not sign can be associated with the signatories by reason of their close kindred to them and other evidence. break

21. Most recently, for example, see Magnus Mörner, "The Rural Economy and Society of Colonial Spanish America," in The Cambridge History of Latin America (Cambridge, 1984), 2:201: "Absentee creole landlords concentrated in Caracas formed a homogeneous, ambitious elite which tenaciously fought royal functionaries and Spanish-born merchants, who from 1728 to 1784 monopolized external trade through the Caracas Company."

22. Sucre, Gobernadores , 243-245.

23. Real cédula, August 11, 1676, AGI, Caracas, leg. 11; this concession was originally granted to the town of Coro in 1560. The years in which Caracas alcaldes ordinarios acted as governor pro tem were: 1705, 1714, 1715, 1720, 1723, 1724, 1725, and 1726. A royal cédula signed January 17, 1723, reiterated the order of 1676. Sucre, Gobernadores , 175-231 passim.

24. Analola Borges, Isleños en Venezuela: La gobernación de Ponte y Hoyo (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1960); Sucre, Governadores , 207-242.

25. The province of Venezuela was transferred from the political jurisdiction of Santo Domingo to that of the viceroy of New Granada in a royal decree signed May 27, 1717; Sucre; Gobernadores , 222.

26. Sucre, Gobernadores , 229-244.

27. In September 1702 an agent of the Habsburg archduke Charles of Austria, don Bartolomé de Capocelato, count of Antería, was arrested in the coastal valley of Ocumare and jailed in Caracas. In May 1703 he escaped, evidently with the help of the governor, Nicolás Eugenio de Ponte y Hoyo, who was accused of sympathizing with the Habsburg cause. Suffering from a debilitating mental illness, Ponte was replaced in November 1703 by the town's alcaldes, but the act of their taking gubernatorial authority was cause for some considerable concern by many who thought that they would go beyond sympathy and actually declare that the province belonged to a Habsburg sovereign. Evidently no charges were brought against anyone for treason, but among those who were later accused of having denounced the Bourbons in favor of the Habsburg archduke Charles were sargento mayor Juan Blanco Infante, elected alcalde ordinario in 1703; capitán Sebastián Nicolás de Ponte y Ponte; his cousin capitán Pedro de Ponte Ochoa; and the regidores Juan Nicolás de Ponte y Loreto, who was also elected alcalde in 1703, and Alejandro Blanco y Blanco. Some of the details of this rather confusing episode are given in Analola Borges, La casa de Austria en Venezuela durante la guerra de sucesión española (1702-1715) (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1963). A generation later the descendants of these Blancos and Pontes were conspicuous in their opposition to the Guipuzcoana Company.

28. Factor Goyzueta is quoted in Castillo Lara, La aventura , 270-271.

29. The cabildo's response is recorded in AGI, Caracas, leg. 418.

30. The woman who supposedly put events in motion on that occasion is also unknown, but factor Goyzueta may have referred to doña Luisa Catalina Martínez de Villegas, aged sixty-nine in 1744, the oldest of those who signed the protest memorial in November of that year, and the first signature on the list. Doña Luisa had been a widow for twenty years in 1744, and in 1741 she claimed that during this time she had been responsible for the care of "a very extensive family," some forty-four people, "counting only children and grandchildren." AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 786. Probably her influence in the colony was great: four of her children continue

also signed the 1744 document, as did members of their spouses' families. Her husband, Alejandro Blanco de Villegas, was regidor of the cabildo and served as alcalde ordinario in 1721 and governor pro tem until May of that year, when a new governor was named for Caracas; Sucre, Gobernadores , 227-228. Their son, Juan Félix Blanco de Villegas, a signatory in 1744, was alcalde in 1746, and would be regarded by the Company as one of its most determined opponents. He was arrested and sent to Spain in 1751; AGI, Caracas, leg. 421. It was doña Luisa who put up a determined fight to keep Juan del Rosario and the morenos libres out of Curiepe in the 1720s.

31. The alcaldes ordinarios for the Caracas cabildo from 1700 to 1749 are given in Sucre, Gobernadores , 200-268, passim.

32. The following men were either fathers of 1744 signatories or signers themselves: Juan Luis Arias Altamirano, the governor pro tem in 1714; Francisco Felipe Mijares de Solórzano (who was the Marqués de Mijares) and Juan de Ibarra in 1715; Francisco Gil de Arratia in 1716; Antonio Alejandro Blanco Infante and Mateo Gedler in 1720; Francisco Carlos Herrera and Ruy Fernández de Fuenmayor in 1724 and again in 1725.

In 1705 Francisco Felipe Tovar y Mijares and Francisco de Meneses comprised the third set of alcaldes ordinarios who governed in the absence of Nicolás de Ponte y Hoyo, who had fallen seriously ill in 1703. The children of these men were among those cacao hacendados who did not sign the 1744 letter to the king. Much later, in 1723, Miguel Ascanio Tovar was elected alcalde and became governor pro tem, and in January 1726 Domingo Antonio Tovar and Diego de Liendo were chosen for the position, with the expressed understanding that, because they did not belong to the factions opposed to Diego de Portales y Meneses, they could facilitate Portales's return to office. These three men did not sign the 1744 protest either.

33. AGI, Santa Domingo, leg. 787. "Rolde de los deudores a la Rl. Ca. Guipuzcoana, 10 de diciembre de 1744."

34. The genealogy of the Condes de San Javier is given in Alejandro Mario Capriles, Coronas de Castilla en Venezuela (Madrid, 1967), 275-279.

35. "Relación y noticia de todas las haciendas de trapiche que a la fecha de ésta se hallan en esta Provincia de Venezuela," April 25, 1752, AGI, Caracas, leg. 368.

36. The 1684 count is found in AGI, Contaduría, leg. 1613; the 1720 census is from Pedro José de Olavarriaga, Instrucción General y Particular del Estado Presente de la Provincia de Venezuela en los años 1720 y 1721 (Caracas, 1965); and the 1744 count is in AGN, Caracas, Sección Diversos, XXVII.

37. The relevant genealogical information is in Iturriza Guillén, Familias caraqueñas , 1:164-168, 211-212.

38. The yield in fanegas per 1000 trees was given on a valley-by-valley basis by Olavarriaga in the 1720 Instrucción ; the 1744 yields are assumed to have been the same as they were in 1720.

39. The relevant genealogical information is in Iturriza Guillén, Familias caraqueñas , 1:202-208.

40. Iturriza Guillén, Familias caraqueñas , 1:203. Ricardos to the king, April 30, 1752, AGI, Caracas, leg. 421.

41. Sucre, Gobernadores , 279-283. In the margin of this letter the secretary of the Navy and Indies in the Council of the Indies, former Caracas continue

governor Julian de Arriaga, noted: "It is understood what he says to me about the contador mayor , and I have always been persuaded that in royal offices it is best to have a European, but not a Vizcayan." José Solano to Arriaga, May 20, 1768, AGI, Caracas, leg. 57. In 1772 Juan Bolívar was still only interim contador , AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 549.

42. Iturriza Guillén, Familias caraqueñas , 2:603-616, AGI, Contaduría, leg. 1613.

43. This was probably the San Matheo estate where Simón Bolívar and other elites gathered in 1808 to discuss their discontent with Caracas's place in Spain's empire. "Real Audiencia (Caracas) a Juan de Casas y Berrera, Gobernador de Venezuela," November 24, 1808, manuscript in the Lilly Library, Indiana University. "Relación y noticia de todas las haciendas de trapiche," AGI, Caracas, leg. 368.