The Royal Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas (modern spelling variant ''Gipuzkoan'', known also as the ''Guipuzcoana Company'', es, Real Compañia Guipuzcoana de Caracas; eu, Caracasko Gipuzkoar Errege Konpainia) was a Spanish Basque trading company in the 18th century, operating from 1728 to 1785, which had a monopoly on

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 ...

n trade. It was renamed in 1785 to the Royal Philippine Company ( es, Real Compañia de Filipinas).

History

Foundation

The company was founded by a group of wealthy Basques from the province of

Gipuzkoa Gipuzkoa (, , ; es, Guipúzcoa ; french: Guipuscoa) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the autonomous community of the Basque Country. Its capital city is Donostia-San Sebastián. Gipuzkoa shares borders with the French de ...

in 1728. The specific aim of the Basque company, acting almost autonomously with tasks of military nature at their own command and expense, was to break the ''de facto''

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

monopoly on the cocoa trade in the

Captaincy General of Venezuela The Captaincy General of Venezuela ( es, Capitanía General de Venezuela), also known as the Kingdom of Venezuela (), was an administrative district of colonial Spain, created on September 8, 1777, through the Royal Decree of Graces of 1777, t ...

. It was initially based in

San Sebastián San Sebastian, officially known as Donostia–San Sebastián (names in both local languages: ''Donostia'' () and ''San Sebastián'' ()) is a city and municipality located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. It lies on the coast of the ...

and received its

royal decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for ...

on September 25, 1728, by

Philip V of Spain Philip V ( es, Felipe; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was King of Spain from 1 November 1700 to 14 January 1724, and again from 6 September 1724 to his death in 1746. His total reign of 45 years is the longest in the history of the Spanish mo ...

.Kurlansky, M. ''A Basque History of the World''. Vintage, London, 2000. Its creation was part of the larger

Bourbon Reforms The Bourbon Reforms ( es, Reformas Borbónicas) consisted of political and economic changes promulgated by the Spanish Crown under various kings of the House of Bourbon, since 1700, mainly in the 18th century. The beginning of the new Crown's ...

to control unlicensed trading, especially in

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

, which existed along the

Orinoco River The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...

and mostly benefited the foreign, Dutch, English, and French traders, who were preferred by the landholders of Canary Islander descent as trade partners. The Venezuelan possessions and their managerial wealthy Creole class thus operated detached from the metropolis. The Venezuelan colonial system turned into an embarrassment and hardly productive for the Spanish-Castilian Crown in terms of revenue. Between 1700 and 1728 only five vessels set sail from Spain to Venezuela.Douglass, William A. Bilbao, J. 2005, p.87 The establishment of the company resulted from negotiations engaged with the Basque governments in the aftermath of the bloody military campaign ordered by

over the western Basque districts. The government of

in particular came up with a proposal for the re-establishment of commerce with Venezuela that would suit the Basque interests and those of the Spanish king alike. The plan was approved, with the

Basques The Basques ( or ; eu, euskaldunak ; es, vascos ; french: basques ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Ba ...

getting total exclusivity on that commerce. The Guipuzcoana Company was the only body entitled to sell European goods in Venezuela (or Caracas) Province and to

export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is a ...

Venezuelan agricultural products to Spain. Goods imported on to other Spanish territories would incur no custom duties on the Ebro river according to the treaty signed with the Spanish king Philip V, and the company was able to trade freely throughout Europe. The company would in turn export iron commodities to Venezuela. The Guipuzcoana Company became the first shares based company in Spain, participated by Basque shareholders and the king of Spain. Since 1743, the company received permission to charter vessels under the French flag, which could trade directly with Venezuela. The main beneficiaries of that decision were no doubt the coast of the Basque province of

Labourd Labourd ( eu, Lapurdi; la, Lapurdum; Gascon: ''Labord'') is a former French province and part of the present-day Pyrénées Atlantiques ''département''. It is one of the traditional Basque provinces, and identified as one of the territorial c ...

, and

Bayonne Bayonne (; eu, Baiona ; oc, label= Gascon, Baiona ; es, Bayona) is a city in Southwestern France near the Spanish border. It is a commune and one of two subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine r ...

Operations and effects in Venezuela

The company began operating in 1730—four ships departed from

(Donostia) taking on board a crew of 561 and 40–50 cannons. The vessels were hailed with frontal hostility by the Venezuelan Creoles, a refusal to sell cocoa to the company, and an uprising against the newcomers and the local Spanish garrison, until control was re-established. The Basques started to settle down in Venezuelan territory on wealthy ''haciendas'' that boosted plantations and agricultural production. However, the move was resented by other established Creoles based on the fact that it brought down prices to be sold to the company. The Basques established settlements, built dock facilities, and fortifications. The term ''un gran cacao'' became a nickname for a member of the new powerful class (and to this day the term is used jocularly in Venezuela for a VIP). It did not help smaller farmers who continued to participate in illegal trading. The company was instrumental in the development of large-scale

cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter an ...

production along the valleys of the coast and encouraged the production of such crops as tobacco, indigo, cotton and coffee. 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 The Guayana Region is an administrative region of eastern Venezuela. History In the 1970s, after the process of forming the Political-Administrative Regions through CORDIPLAN in the government of Rafael Caldera, the Region of Guyana was f ...

. The company's control of the major ports of

La Guaira La Guaira () is the capital city of the Venezuelan state of the same name (formerly named Vargas) and the country's main port. It was founded in 1577 as an outlet for Caracas, to the southeast. The town and the port were badly damaged during ...

and

Puerto Cabello Puerto Cabello () is a city on the north coast of Venezuela. It is located in Carabobo State, about 210 km west of Caracas. As of 2011, the city had a population of around 182,400. The city is home to the largest and busiest port in the coun ...

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. Several rebellions took place against the company and the Basques in which ethnic confrontation came to a head in 1749—a variety of Creole population supported by the Dutch and English vs the powerful Basques supported by the Spanish Crown. The rebellion was led by Juan Francisco de León, a Canary Islander just replaced as Corporal of War (1749), but the Spanish Crown could not shrink from protecting its own interests by supporting the company, and quelling the uprising that very year.

Effects in Gipuzkoa

Apart from breaking the Dutch monopoly and creating significant wealth in the Basque port cities, the company provided a fast track to job positions for many Basques. The company's activity kept operative the gradually declining Basque forges in the face of growing competition from English industry, and fed indirectly the arms factories of Soraluze (Placencia de las Armas) and Tolosa. Another outcome was the foundation in

Bergara es, vergarés, vergaresa , population_note = , population_density_km2 = auto , blank_name_sec1 = Official language(s) , blank_info_sec1 = BasqueSpanish , timezone = CET , utc_offset = + ...

of the

Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, ...

by a group under the leadership of Xavier María de Munibe e Idiáquez, Count of Peñaflorida, in 1765. Its model expanded to the Spanish heartland prompting the establishment of the " Sociedad Económica de los Amigos del País"—a type of Enlightenment

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-govern ...

Later years

While Basque involvement increased after 1749, the Spanish Crown dealt a critical blow to the Basques when it diffused the Basque grip over the company by transferring its headquarters to Madrid, a move contested by Gipuzkoa, and imposing the requirement to include a Spaniard in a board of directors of three (1751). Facing increasing hostility from English war vessels and weakened by the liberalization of commerce with Venezuela (1776), the company's monopoly came to an end. 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 New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the A ...

, which consumed most of its cocoa. The Spanish crown terminated the company's charter in 1784. A key effect of the Caracas Company, despite its eventual commercial failure, was that it guaranteed the place of Caracas in the captaincy-general. When the crown established a high court (''Real Audiencia'') in the

in 1786, it was sited in Caracas.Inés Quintero, "Audiencia of Caracas" in ''Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture'', 1996, vol. 1, p. 547. The owners of the Guipuzcoana Company transformed it into the '' Royal Philippine Company'' (1785). In Caracas a ''

consulado de mercaderes The ''Consulado de mercaderes'' was the merchant guild of Seville founded in 1543; the Consulado enjoyed virtual monopoly rights over goods shipped to America, in a regular and closely controlled West Indies Fleet, and handled much of the silve ...

'' (a merchants'

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometim ...

) replaced the company in 1793. One of the most active proponents of the move was François Cabarrus, a prominent company stockholder hailing from a merchant family in

(

), increasingly involved in Spanish finances and politics.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Compania Guipuzcoana De Caracas Companies of Venezuela Trading companies established in the 18th century Companies established in 1728 Spanish colonization of the Americas History of Venezuela Basque diaspora in South America Defunct companies of Venezuela 1728 establishments in Spain Trade monopolies Chartered companies Trading companies of Spain