A Basque Connection?

A second possible distinction between signatories and nonsignatories is that of an affinity for the Guipuzcoana Company based on the Basque origins of some of them. A number of the elite hacendados who did not oppose the Guipuzcoana Company in 1744 were of Basque parentage. Three examples will suffice: the father of Feliciano Sojo Palacios Gedler had come to Caracas from Burgos in the 1670s and died in the town in 1703. Don Feliciano had served as alcalde ordinario in 1719, in 1735, 1736, and again in 1744; his son, José de Sojo Palacios Lovera, was born in 1705 and was elected alcalde in 1743. Together father and son owned 57,000 cacao trees on four haciendas; neither of them signed the 1744 memorial. Domingo Rodríguez de la Madrid, born in Santander, immigrated to Caracas and married there in 1664. His son, Andrés Rodríguez de la Madrid

Vásquez, married Germana Liendo Gedler, the granddaughter of Basque immigrants, in 1693. In 1744 don Andrés and his sons, Santiago and Salvador Rodríguez de la Madrid y Liendo, owned 18,824 cacao trees on three haciendas. They did not sign the memorial. Finally, the grandfather of Sebastián de Arechederra Tovar, a Vizcayan, had come to Caracas as royal treasurer late in the seventeenth century. Arechederra's father married Luisa Catalina de Tovar y Mijares, a daughter of perhaps the wealthiest Caracas family, in 1682. In 1729 and 1730, with the cabildo locked in a bitter struggle with Governor Lope Carrillo y Andrade, no elections for alcalde were held and in both years Sebastián de Arechederra was named to the position by the king's representative. In June 1730 the replacement for Carrillo y Andrade arrived at La Guaira aboard the first of the Guipuzcoana Company's ships to sail to Venezuela, and as the new governor disembarked he was received by the alcalde Arechederra.^[22] In 1744 Sebastián de Arechederra and his sister María were owners of 37,000 cacao trees on three haciendas. They did not sign the 1744 memorial.

In general, then, elite hacienda owners whose families were of slightly more recent residence in Caracas, some of whom were of Basque ancestry, did not protest the policies and activities of the Guipuzcoana Company in the years just prior to the 1749 rebellion. And yet, some individuals with deep criollo roots in the colony and no immediate Basque connection did not come forward in outspoken opposition to the Company. Cacao hacendados from several of the colony's oldest families remained silent in 1744: José Bolívar Aguirre, owner of 20,000 trees on two haciendas; sisters Josefa and Teresa Bolívar Arias, with 17,000 trees on two haciendas; the brothers José Domingo, José Manuel, and Fernando Tovar Galindo, owners of 62,500 trees on six haciendas; their cousin Martín Tovar Galindo, whose large hacienda in the coastal valley of Cuyagua contained 24,000 trees; and the brothers Mauro and Antonio Tovar Mijares, who held 27,000 trees on three haciendas. A criollo presence of many generations and no Basque ancestors describes many of the elite who wanted the crown to rescind the Company monopoly; but the fact that there were more than a few mantuanos who fit these criteria yet did not sign the 1744 memorial suggests that other factors may more adequately explain why some mantuanos protested against the Company while others did not.