"From natives to settlers to immigrants", a series of posts to tell the brief history of Latin American cities through a diversity, money, density, and creativity lens, borrowing the model from the Museum of the City of New York.
The settlement of Caracas took place in the 1560s, after that of other regions in the country: Cumaná in 1523 (east) and Coro in 1527 (west). Francisco Fajardo, the son of a Spanish captain and an Indian chief's daughter established a ranch in the valley of Caracas in 1557. Attempts to found the town were destroyed by Indians in 1561, and in 1567, Diego de Losada founded the city. He named it Santiago de León de Caracas, in honor of the apostle James (Santiago in Spanish), patron saint of Spain, Don Pedro Ponce de León, the provincial governor at the time, and the Caracas Indians, who inhabited the region.
The cabildo, or town council, of Caracas grew its executive power in the central region, and in 1577 Caracas became the provincial capital. In 1595, the city was sacked by English buccaneers. The Indian resistance to settlement quickly ceased in part due to an epidemic of smallpox that decimated the native population.
Primer plano de Santiago de León de Caracas, 1578. Copia dibujada por Antonio Muñoz Ruiz del original que se conserva en el Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla, España, junto a la Relación de la Descripción de la Provincia de Caracas por el Gobernador Don Juan Pimentel.
Given a reduction in encomiendas, the Spanish labor system that rewarded conquerors with labor of non-Christian peoples, Venezuela was the least favorite destination for Spaniards to cross the Atlantic at the end of the 16th century.
In the 18th century, Caracas saw the foundations for independence. Simón Bolívar, the most renowned of South American heroes, was born in Caracas in 1783 into a family involved in Venezuelan affairs. Bolívar participated in the first republic's formation (1811-12) and he invaded Venezuela with a small force recruited in New Granada. After the wars of independence, Gran Colombia (present day Colombia, Panamá, Venezuela, and Ecuador) won independence from Spain in 1821, and Caracas became the capital of Venezuela. In 1830, Venezuela seceded from Gran Colombia.
Given the wars' damages, Caracas did not prosper again until the end of the 19th century. In 1879, Caracas experienced urban transformation under President Antonio Guzmán Blanco, who tried to make Caracas a replica of Paris. By 1881, the city had attained a population of 56,000. In 1883, the Caracas-La Guaira Railway was inaugurated, it climbed the steep coastal range to connect the capital with its Caribbean seaport.
In the early 20th century, the city's first urban real estate development (for the upper class) was built in suburban El Paraíso in the center, followed by a development for the middle class in Catia to the west. In 1936, the country's 27 year long dictator, Juan Vicente Gómez, died and the country experienced an era of prosperity led by petroleum exploitation. Unprecedented urban development allowed the city to double in only 14 years, from 200,000 people in 1936 to 500,000 in 1950; with a total metropolitan population of 700,000.
Ultimo Plano de Razetti. ÚRicardo Razetti, 1929.
From 1952-57, the country was ruled by another military dictator, Marcos Pérez Jiménez, who devoted primary attention to the modernization of Caracas. Slums were cleared and replaced by high-rise apartments and superhighways were built to connect Caracas with the coast and the country's interior. The old city was now replaced with commercial and government buildings. In parallel, shantytowns sprang up very quickly on the hillsides as migrants from rural areas sought employment and better living conditions in the capital.
In 1989, the Caracazo took place, in which a hike in bus fares caused masses of looters and rioters descended from the slums to the main business districts, hundreds were shot and killed by federal troops. Slums on the steeper hillsides have been vulnerable to natural disasters, such as earthquakes and mud slides that have killed thousands of people in the metropolitan area.
Caracas' population grew rapidly to 1.7 million people in the early 1970s, and by about 500,000 more in the urban rim. The government then had efforts to limit the growth of the capital, which had 2 million in the early 21st century; and around 5 million in the metropolitan region.
Satellites, Mapa Satelital de Caracas.
Despite considerable problems, Caracas remains a dominant force in Venezuelan national life, and it is one of Latin America's more developed urban centers thanks to its dynamic business districts, high-rise apartments, office buildings, and bustling superhighways.
Sources
Britannica, Caracas History.
Medium, Vicente Quintero. Los pueblos originarios prehispánicos de Caracas: el pasado indígena de la capital de Venezuela.
Scielo, Marina Miliani de Mazzei. Los proyectos de inmigración y colonización en Venezuela como política de poblamiento en el siglo XIX.
University of California Press, Robert J. Ferry. The Colonial Elite of Early Caracas
Formation & Crisis 1567–1767.
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