Afro Venezuelans
Encyclopedia
Afro-Venezuelan are descendants of Africans in Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

. They are estimated to be at 5 million and tend to cluster in Barlovento
Barlovento
Several places have the name Barlovento :*Barlovento, a municipality in the northern part of the island of La Palma in the Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands...

 in Miranda State, although they can be found all over the country. Afro-Venezuelans are hard to identify due to strong racial admixture in the population. The argument that there is no racism and everyone is equal is a common theme repeated in Venezuela but questionable. It falls flat when one observes most in the slums are of African descent and with the notion of whitening
Racial whitening
Racial Whitening or "Whitening" is an ideology that was widely accepted in Brazil between 1889 and 1914, as the solution to the "Negro problem." Supporters of the Whitening ideology believed that the Negro race would advance culturally and genetically, or even disappear totally, within several...

, of assimilating to white cultural norms and values, being presented as progress and advancement. Much work has been done studying the culture, tradition, folklore of Afro-Venezuelan, beginning with Miguel Acosta Saignes, in the 1960s.

History

Afro Venezuelans first arrived in Venezuela with the Spanish Conquistadors. They were referred to as ladinos, hispanicized slaves as oppose to bozales, slaves straight from Africa. Most were used as farm hands on subsistence farms. Afro-Venezuelans were used as divers for pearls, a job that run the risk of being attacked by sharks. Slaves came from Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

 and Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

 in Africa. Some slaves purchased their freedom from earnings in pearl mining. Gold was later discovered in the latter part of the 1500s. Numerous slaves perished in the gold mines which made it necessary to import more slaves. By the 1600s, Venezuela had 13,000 slaves.

Mining would not be the primary source of wealth for Venezuela, but farming in wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

, tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

, cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

, and cocoa
Cocoa
Cocoa bean is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter are extracted...

. Numerous cocoa plantation would develop in central Venezuela, away from the more established regions. These more isolated and far regions caused the development of canucos, small homestead, owned and farmed by slaves. Most slaves would be purchased from the Caribbean, because it proved to be too expensive to purchase directly from Africa. With plantation in isolated central regions black people intermarried with Indians producing large population of Zambos. Few white women existed in the colony, white men mated with black women, producing a large Pardo (mulatto, brown) population. As plantations became prosperous and land became scarce, planters began eyeing the canucos farmed by Afro-Venezuelans. Canucos would be taken. Slaves would runaway and formed cumbes, communities in mountainous and isolated areas.

By 1830, Venezuela sought independence from Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

. Simon Bolivar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

 initially refused to accept Afro-Venezuelans into his army but realized he could not be victorious without blacks, Zambos, or mulattos. Bolivar viewed including blacks as a way of diminishing the population and keeping Venezuela a fruitage of white men. Slavery was initially abolished for newly born children. It wasn't until 1845, did slavery end, out of fear of revolt. In 1881, an anti-discrimination law was passed. Most Afro-Venezuelans continued to work on farms. After the 1860s, we see the importation of Afro-Caribbeans workers to work the gold mines. The presence of Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

s workers stirred racial tension. As a result in 1929, people of African descent were banned from entering the country in an attempt to prevent the darkening of the population.

During the 1930s, oil was discovered. The latter caused increased urbanization of Afro-Venezuelans, in search of work in oil refineries. Afro-Venezuelans found themselves at the lowest rung of the society, occupying most of the slums and lowest economic strata. During 1945-1948, known as the trienio, an attempt to address disparities was made by providing education, health care, trade union formation, and land reform. This was aborted by the dictatorship of Perez Jemenez. It was not until the 1960s attempts were made to address the problems of Afro Venezuelans. Reform laws were passed that increase black representation in farm societies, trade unions, and oil unions. Numerous positions were acquired by blacks. The ban on black immigration was removed in 1966. Universities were subsidized to study Afro-Venezuelan art, history, music, and dance. Even with these reform blacks still remain at the bottom of economic ladder into the 1990s.

Religion and Culture

Afro-Venezuelan religion fused with Catholicism, creating a creolized religion. The worship of saints would correspond to African deities, healers and priest would become one, mass would be held with drumbeats. Corpus Christie a Catholic celebration would be celebrated with drumbeats and masked, traced to Congo.

Recently celebrations like Fiesta de San Juan, has emerge to re-assert Afro Venezuelan culture.
Famous Afro-Venezuelans
Afro-Venezuelans have contributed immensely to Venezuela.

Notable Afro-Venezuelans include

  • Pedro Camejo
    Pedro Camejo
    Pedro Camejo, better known as Negro Primero, or 'The First Black' was a Venezuelan soldier who at first fought with the royal army, only to later go over to the rebel army during the Venezuelan War of Independence, reaching the rank of lieutenant.The nickname of Negro Primero was inspired by his...

  • Manuel Rodrigues Cárdenas
  • Jesús García
  • Juan Pablo Sojo
  • Allan Phillips
    Allan Phillips
    Allan Phillips was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela. He's a music producer, composer, arranger, and musician now residing in Southern California. His musical style is a blend of contemporary music with ethnic elements from around the world. On October 18 of 2008, he won an Emmy Award for the musical...

  • Hugo Chavez
    Hugo Chávez
    Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

  • Oscar De Leon
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