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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
A significant but largely overlooked phenomenon in twentieth-century Latin America has been the extended dominance of a single region over an entire nation. To one degree or another this type of regionalism has existed in several countries, including revolutionary Mexico, with the rise of the North and the Sonora Dynasty, and Brazil, with the control of national politics by the São Paulo-Minas Gerais axis from the 1890’s to 1930, followed by the rise of Rio Grande do Sul. In the following pages I will examine this type of regionalism as it occurred in Venezuela, in the form of Táchiran dominance over the government and armed forces for the first forty-five years of this century. My purpose is to explain how the men of one small agricultural state could maintain such long-term mastery over the country, what sort of reaction this “hegemony” produced, what the limits of regional control were, and, finally, when Táchiran rule definitively ended.
1 Villafañe, José Gregorio, Apuntes estadísticos del Táchira (Caracas, 1960), 18–19, 43–46, 73–77 Google Scholar; Constantino Guerrero, Emilio, El Táchira físico, político e ilustrado (Caracas, 1943). 68–74 Google Scholar; Rangel, Domingo Alberto, Los andinos en el poder: balance de una hegemonía (Caracas, 1965), 13–16, 24 32Google Scholar; Grffin, Charles C., “Regionalism’s Role in Venezuelan Politics,” Inter-American Quarterly, III (October, 1941), 30 Google Scholar; Cubillán, Gonzalo Ramírez, “¿Qué somos los andinos?,” La Esfera (Caracas), January 20, 1965.Google Scholar
2 Burggraaff, Winfield J., “Venezuelan Regionalism and the Rise of Táchira,” The Americas, XXV (October, 1968), 162–169.Google Scholar
3 Ibid., 170–171, and Rangel, 50, 66–68.
4 Rangel, 126–127, 153–154, 165–166, and Rourke, Thomas, Gómez: Tyrant of the Andes (New York, 1941), 132.Google Scholar
5 Leal, Roque, “La pava persigue a los generales,” Venezuela Gráfica (Caracas), October 3, 1958, 6 Google Scholar; Special Operations Research Office, The American University, U. S. Army Area Handbook for Venezuela (Washington, D. C, 1964), 536–537 Google Scholar; Lieuwen, Edwin, Venezuela (London and New York, 1961), 46.Google Scholar
6 See Johnson, John J., The Military and Society in Latin America (Stanford, Calif., 1964), 107–109 Google Scholar, and Rangel, 165. Morón, Guillermo (A History of Venezuela [London, 1964], 194)Google Scholar claims sixty-five per cent of all officers were Táchirans. Based also on interviews with Horacio Cárdenas Becerra, Caracas, May 5, 1965, and Antonio Requena, Caracas, May 27, 1965. Cárdenas, a prominent regional historian and intellectual, is a former Dean of the Humanities Faculty of the Central University of Venezuela and former Táchira deputy to the National Congress. Requena, a prominent Caracas physician and scientist, was president of the Patriotic Junta, 1958–1959. His father, Rafael Requena, was for two decades the private secretary to General Juan Vicente Gómez.
7 Rangel, 177–183.
8 Ibid., 179.
9 Betancourt Sosa, Francisco, Pueblo en rebeldía: relato histórico de la sublevación del 7 de abril de 1928 (Caracas, 1959), 45 Google Scholar; Rangel, 264; interview with Antonio Requena, May 27,1965.
10 Based on interviews with the following Táchirans: Horacio Cárdenas Becerra, May 5, 1965; Ramón J. Velásquez, Caracas, March 23, 1965; and Rafael María Rosales, San Cristóbal, June 19, 1965. Velásquez, a historian and journalist, has been editor of two Caracas newspapers, Secretary General of the Presidency (1959–1964) and Minister of Communications (1969– ). Rosales, a San Cristóbal, Táchira, businessman and intellectual, is a nationally known writer and leading regional historian.
To illustrate the point, Cipriano Castro’s first cabinet did not include a single Táchiran. Moreover, of Gómez’ cabinet members over a twenty-seven year period, sixty-five per cent were non-Andean, and thirty per cent were caraqueños.
11 Arturo Cardozo, Proceso de la historia de los Andes (Caracas, 1965), 108; Betancourt Sosa, 45–46; and interviews with the following Tachirans: Horacio Cárdenas Becerra, San Cristóbal, June 18, 1965; Rafael María Rosales, June 19, 1965; and Aurelio Ferrero Tamayo, San Cristóbal, June 22, 1965. Ferrero Tamayo, former governor of Aragua State, is a San Cristóbal attorney and regional historian.
12 Rangel, 184–185.
13 Ibid., 258–260.
14 Ibid., 263–264.
15 Ibid., 267–274; Cardozo, 109; and Eleazar López Contreras, Proceso político-social: 1928–1936 (2d ed.; Caracas, 1955), 3.
16 Vicente Fuentes, “La ficción del regionalismo y su lógica solución en el país,” El Universal (Caracas), February 12,1936.
17 Widespread anti-Andean sentiment in the immediate post-Gómez period was noted in U. S. diplomatic dispatches. See Decimal Files, Department of State, 831.00/1547, Nicholson to Secretary of State, Caracas, December 21, 1935, and 831.00/1557, Nicholson to Secretary of State, Caracas, December 30, 1935.
18 E. Urdaneta Aubert, “Los prejuicios regionalistas,” La Esfera, February 3, 1936.
19 López Contreras, 41–42.
20 Luzardo, Rodolfo, Notas histórico-económicas: 1928–1963 (Caracas, 1963), 92.Google Scholar
21 Ramírez, Heriberto, “Candidaturas o en la lonja de la política,” El Universal, April 16, 1941.Google Scholar
22 Diez, Julio, Historia y política (2d ed.; Caracas, 1963), 10–11.Google Scholar
23 Luzardo, 113.
24 “Las dos candidaturas y los Andes,” El País (Caracas), October 4,1945.
25 Lanz, Laureano Vallenilla, hijo, Escrito de memoria (Caracas, 1967), 305.Google Scholar
26 Lieuwen, 97.
27 Ibid., 95; and Taylor, Philip B. Jr., The Venezuelan Golpe de Estado of 1958: The Fall of Marcos Pérez Jiménez (Washington, D. C, 1968), 37–38.Google Scholar
28 Betancourt, Rómulo, Venezuela: política y petróleo (Caracas, 1967), 580.Google Scholar
29 Monroy, Lorenzo, interviewed in El Nacional (Caracas), May 3, 1965.Google Scholar
30 Sumario de Occidente, I (October, 1945). Only volume published.
31 Based on interviews with Horacio Cárdenas Becerra, May 5, 1965; Aurelio Ferrero Tamayo, June 22, 1965; Rafael María Rosales, June 19, 1965; and Ramón J. Veláquez, Caracas, July 7,1965.
32 See Así se fraguó la insurrección: documentos clandestinos, 1956–1958 (Caracas, 1958), and José Umaña Bernal, Testimonio de la revolución en Venezuela (Caracas, 1958).
33 Cardozo, 110.
34 This decline was chronicled in an exhaustive study prepared by the Pérez Jiménez government: Venezuela, Consejo de Bienestar Rural, Problemas económicos y sociales de los Andes venezolanos (2 vols.; Caracas, 1955–1956 [?]).