Chacao (cacique)

Chacao was a 16th-century Carib

cacique A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a Spa ...

who governed in the region of the

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...

, at the time called San Francisco, in present-day

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. Today the region,

Chacao Municipality, Miranda Chacao is one of the five political and administrative subdivisions of the city of Caracas, Venezuela. The other four are Baruta, El Hatillo, Libertador and Sucre. This legal entity is known as the Caracas Metropolitan District. Chacao is also o ...

, bears his name. Around 1567, Chacao was taken prisoner by

Juan de Gamez ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...

upon the orders of

Diego de Losada Diego de Losada y Cabeza de Vaca (1511 – 1569) was a Spanish conquistador and the founder of Santiago de León de Caracas, the current capital of Venezuela. Losada was born in Rionegro del Puente, in what is now the province of Zamora. H ...

, who had told him to go out and capture natives; Losada later slackened the order. Losada's reasons for the order remain unknown, but it has been suggested that he wanted to befriend the cacique before attempting to pacify the region. Regardless, in 1568, Chacao allied himself with

Guaicaipuro Cacique Guaicaipuro was a legendary native (indigenous) Venezuelan chief of both the Teques and Caracas tribes. Though known today as Guaicaipuro, in documents of the time his name was written Guacaipuro.http://www.saber.ula.ve/bitstream/handle/ ...

and several other local chiefs in a futile attempt to stop the advance of the

conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, O ...

s; they were beaten, by the same Losada, in the

Battle of Maracapana The Battle of Maracapana (1567 or 1568) was an important military engagement between the Spanish conquistadors and their allied indigenous people, and the coalition of Caribbean tribes who were led by Guaicaipuro and commanded by Chief Tiuna. The ba ...

. 16th-century births Indigenous leaders of the Americas Venezuelan people of Carib descent Carib people Year of death unknown {{Venezuela-hist-stub