Luis Cárdenas Saavedra was a professor and founder of the first public school of

Caracas Caracas ( , ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas (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 northern p ...

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

Establishment

In May 1591, Saavedra went to the local government (''Cabildo'') and offered to teach orphaned children in the city of Caracas. The Cabildo approved his request and named a commission headed by the mayor

Alonso Díaz Moreno Alonso is a Spanish name of Germanic origin that is a Castilian variant of ''Adalfuns''. The original Visigothic name ''Alfonso'' suffered the phonetic change of the phoneme /f/ into the mute /h/ in the Early Middle Ages (around 9th Century), w ...

and alderman Lorenzo Martínez, who gathered 50

ducat The ducat ( ) coin was used as a trade coin in Europe from the later Middle Ages to the 19th century. Its most familiar version, the gold ducat or sequin containing around of 98.6% fine gold, originated in Venice in 1284 and gained wide inter ...

s of 8

Spanish real The ''real'' (English: /ɹeɪˈɑl/ Spanish: /reˈal/) (meaning: "royal", plural: ''reales'') was a unit of currency in Spanish Empire, Spain for several centuries after the mid-14th century. It underwent several changes in value relative to oth ...

s to pay Saavedra's salary for a year. The collection had to be made from the inhabitants of the city, primarily from wealthy families. On July 16, 1591, the Cabildo received and approved the request. Assistants at the meeting and signatories included the

Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

and Captain General of the province of

Diego de Osorio Diego de Osorio y Villegas (1540 in Villasandino – 1601 in Santo Domingo) was a sixteenth-century governor of Venezuela Province (1589–1597), the Venezuela Province being a part of the Spanish Empire. He was governor at the time of t ...

; the captain Sebastián Díaz Moreno; and Lorenzo Martínez. At that time, education was limited to the children of wealthy families who paid teachers, priests or university students. As a result, most of the people were illiterate.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cardenas Saavedra, Luis People from Caracas