Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- LAST REVIEWED: 24 August 2018
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 August 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0228
- LAST REVIEWED: 24 August 2018
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 August 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0228
Introduction
The geo-historical region of Venezuela, like other Latin American territories during the modern age, has been most frequently studied from an Atlantic perspective by scholars working on different subjects such as slavery, colonialism, revolutions, and imperialism. Nevertheless, the scholarly production for the period about that territory is still small compared to that for Cuba, Brazil, Peru, New Granada, New Spain, and Río de la Plata. This is mainly due to the slight interest that European and, most particularly, US academia has traditionally shown for the past of that region of the world. Paradoxically enough, there is probably no other geo-historical space in Spanish America—with the exception of Cuba—with as many transnational connections as had the mainland of northern South America. Moreover, its geographical location facing the Caribbean Sea, its numerous afro-descendant population, and the many connections it established with the Lesser Antilles (especially with the Dutch island of Curaçao) created a particular dynamic which made it a part of the historical system of the Caribbean and to develop strong ties, mainly through contraband, with other non-Hispanic regions in the Atlantic world. Despite that, only a handful of Venezuelan and non-Venezuelan historians have developed transnational approaches for the study of the referred mainland in the period in question. There are of course honorable exceptions, which in most cases can be found in works that carry out true historiographical dialogues, especially regarding Curaçao and, during the early stages of the Age of Revolution, the French Antilles. An important crossroads in the study of the mainland is the island of Trinidad, which remained part of the Captaincy General of Venezuela until it fell into British hands in 1797. Thus it joined other regions in the Caribbean and the Atlantic world not studied by scholars working on Venezuela, other than to identify the ideological “roots” of the revolutions in the mainland, to study the circulation of patriots in the Antilles, or, and most frequently, to follow the paths of certain revolutionary leaders. The two most studied cases are those of Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Miranda, whose lives and travels throughout the Atlantic world have inspired a great number of studies. Finally, the historiography on the wars of Independence and the post-independence period in the 19th century, in spite of its research potential, remains largely dominated by local national or Latin American perspectives. Something similar could be argued regarding the 16th and 17th centuries, with the exception of certain seminal works on the Welser expeditions and the formation of the white Creole elite of Caracas, respectively.
General Overviews
During the first half of the 20th century a nationalist approach to Venezuelan history prevented scholars from making connections between local events and global processes. For this reason there are no general surveys which specifically study the history of Venezuela as a whole connected to the Atlantic world. However, as well as other Latin American historiographies, we found several works focused on local, regional, or national subjects from transnational or imperial approaches. The focus of these studies may be categorized and defined as Spanish Atlantic perspectives. Most of the works in this section accomplish this refreshing approach, such as continental, entangled, or comparative histories, and cover a wide range of topics on colonial and postcolonial Venezuela from the Age of Revolutions until the early 20th century. The opportunity has been taken to include some seminal overviews of the history of Venezuela. Straka 2012 explores the historiographical problems and possibilities of an Atlantic approach to the history of Venezuela, and Boersner 1978 notices the impossibility of understanding local history if the four-century-long intellectual, economic, and political connections within the Caribbean are denied. Baralt 1841 is a classic book that provides a detailed overview of the process of transition of a colonial society of the Spanish Empire into an independent republic. Caballero 1997 offers a brief compendium of the history of Venezuela from the conquest to the 20th-century dictatorships. Langue 1999 connects the local with the global and focuses on the sociocultural changes and political conflicts in the different phases of colonial and revolutionary Venezuela, and later the author looked inside the Federal War and contemporary Bolivarian Socialism. Meanwhile, Lieuwen 1961 checks a similar historical chronology but offers a valuable macro view of political tensions among liberal and federals in the 19th century and of the oil economy in the 20th. Morón 1963 offers a better perspective on the indigenous societies and the Spanish colonization, but at the same time it evaluates the 19th century and the projection of the caudillismo onto the autocratic governments. The monumental work Brito Figueroa 1986 is a must-read to understand the structural dynamics of capitalism from the 16th to the 20th century. Lombardi and Carrera Damas 1977 offers to scholars and students a useful bibliographic compilation that can be complemented with the excellent Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela.
Baralt, Rafael. Resumen de la historia de Venezuela. 3 vols. Paris: Imprenta de H. Fournier y Compañía, 1841.
A classic historical compendium focused on the history of early modern and modern Venezuela. Inspired by European Romantic historiography, this book explores the consolidation, crisis, and dissolution of the Spanish colonial system and investigates the key political and military leaders of the War of Independence.
Boersner, Demetrio. Venezuela y el Caribe: Presencia cambiante. Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1978.
In this study, Boersner shows that from the age of the conquest the history of Venezuela can’t be understood without considering the geopolitical and commercial connections with the Caribbean and the Atlantic world. These connections are strongly influenced by a changing political scenario where international relations have played a role of mediator between the colonial and neocolonial Empires.
Brito Figueroa, Federico. Historia económica y social de Venezuela. 4 vols. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1986.
One of the first interdisciplinary studies on colonial and postcolonial Venezuela in a global context. From a socioeconomic approach, based on major documentary and statistical sources, this exhaustive research examines the structural dynamics of capitalism in Venezuela in the longue durée.
Caballero, Manuel. De la pequeña Venecia a la Gran Venezuela. Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1997.
A brief overview that summarizes the history of Venezuelan society from the early colonial era to the 20th century. This work is a good starting point for understanding the complexities of the conquest, the fate of the revolution of Independence, the collapse of the Gran Colombia project, the making of the republic, the modernization of the state, and the outbreak of dictatorial governments.
Diccionario de historia de Venezuela. 4 vols. Caracas: Fundación Polar, 2007–2011.
Deeply informed, this dictionary is the best place to start any historical research on Venezuela. Each entry has been written by several Venezuelan scholars, and the work includes an extensive bibliography. It is composed of four volumes ordered alphabetically by entry. Available also in CD format.
Langue, Frédérique. Histoire du Venezuela, de la conquête à nos jours. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999.
Connecting local with global history, this book analyzes the socioeconomic, political, and cultural changes of a country faced with socio-ethnic and military conflicts. Langue argues that throughout four centuries, various phases of violence can be traced through different historical conjunctures such as the plantation economy in the Spanish imperial era, the Independence revolution that became a civil war, and the Bolivarian Socialism led by Hugo Chavez.
Lieuwen, Edwin. Venezuela. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
The author writes a concise reference work aimed at a wide audience. Although Lieuwen gives relatively little attention to the colonial era, instead his purpose is to analyze the economic and political problems of contemporary Venezuela as a set of conflicts over liberalism and federalism, the oil economy, and the international relations of the Betancourt government.
Lombardi, John, and Germán Carrera Damas. Venezuelan History: A Comprehensive Working Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977.
Due to its more than four thousand references, this compilation is the gateway that all researchers interested in the history of Venezuela need. Carrera Damas and Lombardi organize the extensive bibliography not only by chronology, with chapters on the history of the 1810s to the 1930s, but also thematically, with chapters focused on issues such as “Bolívar” or “petroleum.”
Morón, Guillermo. A History of Venezuela. New York: Roy Publishers, 1963.
Morón reviews the composition of indigenous societies and the exploration of the coasts and lands of this strategic colony of the Spanish Empire. Furthermore, this book examines the process of integration and disintegration that determined the transformation of a colonial society into an independent nation. For the author, in the 19th and 20th centuries the people play a key role in the achievement of different political regimes such as autocracy, dictatorship, and representative democracy.
Straka, Tomás. “Venezuela en la revolución atlántica: Algunos problemas y posibilidades.” Anuario de Estudios Atlánticos 58 (2012): 185–214.
A historiographical overview which undoubtedly constitutes the first serious attempt to reconcile the Venezuelan historiography of the revolutionary period with the many paradigms of Atlantic history and also with what the author defines as the “Caribbean revolutions.”
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Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Asia and the Americas and the Iberian Empires
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Brazilian Independence
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cosmopolitanism
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- German Influences in America
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Maryland
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Poetry in the British Atlantic
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos South Atlantic Creole A...
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Atlantic World
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- The Spanish Caribbean
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets