Guipuzcoana Company
Encyclopedia
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
) was a Spanish trading company in the 18th century, operating from 1728 to 1785, which had a monopoly on 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...
n trade. It was renamed in 1785 the Real Compañía de Filipinas.
History
The Company was founded by a group of wealthy Basques from the province of Gipuzkoa in 1728, under the leadership of the Count of Peñaflorida, Xavier María de Munibe e IdiáquezXavier María de Munibe e Idiáquez
Xavier María de Munibe e Idiáquez, Conde de Peñaflorida , was an important figure of Enlightenment Spain...
. The specific aim of the Company was to break the de facto Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
monopoly on the cocoa trade in the Captaincy General of Venezuela
Captaincy General of Venezuela
The Captaincy General of Venezuela was an administrative district of colonial Spain, created in 1777 to provide more autonomy for the provinces of Venezuela, previously under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Audiencia of Santo Domingo...
. It was initially based in San Sebastián
San Sebastián
Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...
and received its royal decree
Decree
A decree is a rule of law issued by a head of state , according to certain procedures . It has the force of law...
on September 25, 1728, by Philip V of Spain
Philip V of Spain
Philip V was King of Spain from 15 November 1700 to 15 January 1724, when he abdicated in favor of his son Louis, and from 6 September 1724, when he assumed the throne again upon his son's death, to his death.Before his reign, Philip occupied an exalted place in the royal family of France as a...
. Its creation was part of the larger Bourbon Reforms
Bourbon Reforms
The Bourbon Reforms were a set of economic and political legislation introduced by the Spanish Crown under various kings of the House of Bourbon throughout the 18th century. The reforms were intended to stimulate manufacturing and technology in order to modernize Spain...
to control unlicensed trading, especially in 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...
, which existed along the Orinoco River
Orinoco
The Orinoco is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes called the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3% of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia...
and mostly benefited the foreign, Dutch traders.
Operations and effects in Venezuela
The Guipuzcoana Company was the only body entitled to sell European goods in Venezuela (or Caracas) Province and to exportExport
The term export is derived from the conceptual meaning as to ship the goods and services out of the port of a country. The seller of such goods and services is referred to as an "exporter" who is based in the country of export whereas the overseas based buyer is referred to as an "importer"...
Venezuelan agricultural products to Spain. It began operating in 1730 and quickly prospered because the Basque ports were not part of the regular Spanish customs zone and were able to trade freely throughout Europe. The company was instrumental in the development of large-scale cocoa production along the valleys of the coast. This new area of economic activity not only brought great profits to the company, but also benefitted Criollos
Criollo (people)
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
with large landholdings, who developed plantations on their properties. In fact, the term un gran cacao became a nickname for a member of this new powerful class (and to this day the term is used jocularly in Venezuela for a VIP
VIP
VIP and V.I.P. is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:-In general:* Vacuum insulated panel* Values, Influence, and Peers, an anti-crime campaign in Ontario elementary schools* Variable Information Printing, a form of on-demand printing...
). However, it did not help smaller farmers who continued to participate in illegal trading. In addition the company promoted the exploration and settlement of frontier areas, most famously under the border expedition of 1750-1761 headed by a company agent, José de Iturriaga y Aguirre, which resulted in new settlements in the Guayana region
Guayana Region
The Guayana Region is an administrative region of Venezuela.The region has a population of 1,383,297 inhabitants and a territory of 458,344 km². It borders the independent nation of Guyana which forms part of The Guyanas...
.
The Company's control of the major ports of La Guaira
La Guaira
La Guaira is the capital city of the Venezuelan state of Vargas and the country's chief port. It was founded in 1577 as an outlet for Caracas, to the southeast. The town and the port were badly damaged during the December 1999 floods and mudslides that affected much of the region...
and Puerto Cabello
Puerto Cabello
Puerto Cabello is a city on the north coast of Venezuela. It is located in Carabobo State about 75 km west of Caracas. As of 2001, the city has a population of around 154,000 people. The city is the home to the largest port in the country and is thus a vital cog in the country's vast oil...
meant that it effectively monopolized the legal trade of the other Venezuelan provinces. In addition, the Company's strict control of much needed manufactured imports naturally created a lot of resentment in a region which depended on these. Following several rebellions against the Company, the largest of which occurred in 1749 under Juan Francisco de León, the Spanish crown finally ended the Company's monopoly in 1785. The crown no longer saw the need for a monopolizing company to control and grow the economy, since by that time the Venezuelan economy had matured and been tightly linked with the markets of Spain and New Spain, which consumed most of its cocoa. Instead a consulado de mercaderes (a merchants' guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
) was established in Caracas in 1793. The owners of the Guipuzcoana Company transformed it into the Real Compañía de Filipinas
Effects in Gipuzkoa
Apart from breaking the Dutch monopoly and creating significant wealth in the Basque port cities, another outcome was the foundation in BergaraBergara
Bergara is a town located in the province of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of Basque Country, in the north of Spain.An Enlightened center of education operated by the Real Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País , it was the place where Faustino Elhuyar discovered wolfram.During the Carlist...
of the first Sociedad Económica de los Amigos del País
Sociedad Económica de los Amigos del País
The Sociedades Económicas de Amigos del País were private associations established in various cities throughout Enlightenment Spain, and to a lesser degree in some of her colonies .-History:The Sociedades Económicas were founded as part of a movement to...
—a type of Enlightenment
Enlightenment Spain
The Age of Enlightenment came to Spain in the eighteenth century with a new Bourbon dynasty after the decay of the Spanish economy, bureaucracy, and empire in the latter years of the former Habsburg dynasty...
think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
—by Peñaflorida in 1766.
See also
- Captaincy General of VenezuelaCaptaincy General of VenezuelaThe Captaincy General of Venezuela was an administrative district of colonial Spain, created in 1777 to provide more autonomy for the provinces of Venezuela, previously under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Audiencia of Santo Domingo...