Notes to Counting and Classifying, Hamlets to Cities

NOTES

Notes to Counting and Classifying

1. In the preparation of this chapter and, indeed, throughout the entire project, I have been aided, nourished, and encouraged by the wealth of information, the sensible methods, and the breadth of interest displayed in the works of Borah and Cook, especially the two volumes by Woodrow W. Borah and Sherburne F. Cook, Essays in Population History: Mexico and the Caribbean, 2 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971-1974). For a panoramic view of Latin American population history, see Nicolas Sánchez Albornóz, The Population of Latin America. A History, trans. W.A.R. Richardson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974). Students interested in the wide-ranging literature on Latin American population history would do well to consult the excellent notes and comprehensive bibliographies in Borah and Cook and Sánchez Albornóz, plus the essays in Paul Deprez, ed., Population and Economics. Proceedings of Section V (Historical Demography) of the Fourth Congress of the International Economic History Association, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, September 9-14, 1968 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1970), especially Borah's piece on "The Historical Demography of Latin America. Sources, Techniques, Controversies, Yields," pp. 173-205. Because of the easy availability of these excellent works, no attempt will be made here to include everything pertaining to Latin America's colonial demography. See, too, Enrique Florescano, comp., "Bibliografía de historia demográfica de México (época prehispánica-1910)," Historia mexicana 21(1972), 525-537. [return to text]

2. Perhaps the most intensive use of Venezuelan parish records, although not strictly for demographic purposes, can be found in two studies by Stephanie B. Blank: "Social Integration and Social Stability in a Colonial Spanish American City, Caracas (1595-1627)," in Indiana University, Latin American Studies Occasional Papers (Bloomington, 1972), and "Patrons, Clients, and Kin in Seventeenth-Century Caracas. A Methodological Essay in Colonial Spanish American Social History," Hispanic American Historical Review 54(1974), 260-283. Parish records in Venezuela come to us as a result of the order contained in Diego de Baños y Sotomayor, Constituciones sinodales del obispado de Venezuela y Santiago de León de Caracas. Hechas en la santa iglesia cathedral de dicha ciudad de Caracas, en el año del Señor de 1687 (Madrid: Joseph Rico, 1761), p. 116. For an example of the kind of material available in the smaller parish archives in Venezuela, see Milagros Contreras Dávila, "El Archivo parroquial de San Miguel de Cubiro," Boletín histórico (Caracas) 28(1972), 146-164. Lino Gómez Canedo's Los archivos históricos de Venezuela, Monografías y Ensayos, no. 5 (Maracaibo: Universidad del Zulia, Facultad de Humanidades y Educacón, 1966) is of course the fundamental guide to Venezuelan archival sources. For the classic explanation of family reconstitution, see Louis Henry, Manuel de demographie historique (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1967). For an excellent discussion of the origins of parish records and a country by country survey, see Elio Lodolini, "Los libros parroquiales y de estado civil en América Latina," Archivum (Revue InterNacionale des Archives) (Paris) 8(1958), 95-113. Also see Claude Morín, "Los libros parroquiales como fuente para la historia demográfica y social novohispana," Historia mexicana 21(1972), 389-418. For Martí's remarks about the state of parochial archives, see Mariano Martí, Documentos relativos a su visita pastoral de la Diócesis de Caracas, 1771-1784, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, nos. 95-101, 7 vols. (Caracas, 1969). One of the better examples of local genealogical history is Pedro M. Arcaya U., Población de origen europeo de Coro en la época colonial, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, no. 114 (Caracas, 1972). [return to text]

3. For a wide selection of missionary accounts, see the notes to the previous chapter where the major pieces in this category are mentioned. [return to text]

4. Most travelers' accounts cluster around the turn of the century and the end of the colonial period, but if we consider many of the Spanish reports by explorers and itinerant officials as part of this category, the chronological spread becomes much wider. The best beginning for any survey of travel literature is Maria Luisa Ganzemuller de Blay, Contribución a la bibliografía de viajes y exploraciones de Venezuela, Colección de 467 fichas (Caracas: Escuela de Biblioteconomía y Archivos, Facultad de Humanidades y Educación, Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1964). The best known are Alexander von Humboldt, Viaje a las regiones equinocciales del nuevo continente hecho en 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803, y 1804, trans. Lisandro Alvarado, Biblioteca Venezolana de Cultura, Colección "Viajes y naturaleza," 2d ed., 5 vols. (Caracas: Ediciones del Ministerio de Educación, Dirección de Cultura y Bellas Artes, 1956); and Francois de Pons, Viaje a la parte oriental de Tierra Firma en la América Meridional, trans. Enrique Planchart, Colección Histórico-Económica Venezolana, vols. 4-5, 2 vols. (Caracas: Banco Central de Venezuela, 1960). All of us who use these classic accounts in translation must be wary of translator's slips, as Germán Carrera Damas has reminded us in "La supuesta empresa antiesclavista del conde de Tovar y la formación del peonaje. Estudio crítico del testimonio de Humboldt," Anuario del Instituto de Antropología e Historia (Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela) 2(1965), 67-84. [return to text]

5. Because the Relaciones geográficas have been available to scholars for a good many years, they are a relatively well-known and well-consulted source. For Venezuela, see Angel de Altolaquirre y Duvale, ed., Relaciones geográficas de la gobernación de Venezuela (1767-68) (Madrid: Patronato de Huérfanos de Administración Militar, 1908) and Antonio Arellano Moreno, comp. Relaciones geográficas de Venezuela, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, no. 70 (Caracas, 1964). Also see Antonio Arellano Moreno, "Relación geográfica del valle del Tuy, 1768," Boletín ANH.C. 56(1973), 523-529. For examples of Relaciones for other parts of America and an extended discussion of the origins of the reports, see Marcos Jimenez de la Espada, ed., Relaciones geográficas de Indias, 4 vols. (Madrid: Ministerio de Fomento, 1881-1897). The text of the King's order for the Relaciones geográficas for Venezuela is in the "Descripción de la ciudad del Tocuyo, año de 1578," in Arellano Moreno, Relaciones geográficas, pp. 143-160. Like most other Spanish colonial population data for Venezuela, the Relaciones geográficas cluster in the late sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. See also Charles Gibson, comp., The Spanish Tradition in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), pp. 136-149, for a translated text of the Relaciones instructions. [return to text]

6. The classification of special government surveys outside the Relaciones geográficas covers a heterogeneous but extremely rich group of data. Following are some examples of this kind of information. Data on population can be found in Church documents not related to parish administration, as can be seen in Eduardo Arcila Farías et al., La obra pía de Chuao 1568-1825, Comisión de Historia de la Propiedad Territorial Agraria en Venezuela, no. 1 (Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, Consejo de Desarrollo Científico y Humanístico, 1968). Miscellaneous reports from towns or regions are also helpful; see Antonio Arellano Moreno, "La población de Caracas, Valencia y Puerto Cabello en 1767," Boletín ANH.C. 54(1971), 527-531, and his "El primer informe sobre Santiago León de Caracas," Boletín ANH.C. 52(1969), 347-352. For similar reports from government officials, see José María Aurrecoechea, "Memoria geográfico-económico-política del departamento de Venezuela... (1814)," in Arellano Moreno, Relaciones geográficas, pp. 533-558; and Luis de Chavez y Mendoza, "Mensura y descripción de los pueblos de indios situados en las provincias de Nueva Andalucía y Nueva Barcelona... (1782-84)," in César Pérez Ramírez, comp., Documentos para la historia colonial de Venezuela (Caracas: Editorial Crisol, 1946). For a look at some of the materials generated by the military requirement to know the size of a potential army or by the government's requirements for tribute administration, see "New matriculas ordered to assess tribute and taxes 1794," vol. 5, folios 254-256, Reales Cédulas, Archivo General de la Nación, Caracas; and especially the design for a military-oriented census sent out in 1777, "Procedures for taking a military census, 1777," vol. 19, folio 241, Gobernación y Capitanía General, Archivo General de la Nación, Caracas. Included within this category, although slightly outside the chronological framework of this book, is the exceptional survey of Venezuela conducted by Giovanni Battista Agostino Codazzi in the mid- to late-1830s and published in Obras escogidas, Biblioteca Venezolana de Cultura, 2 vols. (Caracas: Dirección de Cultura y Bellas Artes, Departamento de Publicaciones, 1961) and the earlier survey of the province of Caracas by the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, published in their Memorias y estudios 1829-1839, Colección Histórico-Económica Venezolana, vols. 1-2, 2 vols. (Caracas: Banco Central de Venezuela, 1958). [return to text]

7. In addition to Martí's extraordinary visita, other prelates visited Venezuela in the eighteenth century. In his introduction to the edition of Martí's visita records published by the Academia Nacional de la Historia, Lino Gómez Canedo refers to three: Martínez de Oneca, Fray Iñigo Abbad y Lasierra, and Manuel Jiménez Pérez (Martí, Documentos, Vol. 1, xxxix-xl). The account of Fray Iñigo Abbad, Viage a la America, has been published in facsimile in Caracas, 1974, by the Banco Nacional de Ahorro y Préstamo. Covering the eastern part of Venezuela, plus Puerto Rico and Trinidad, Fray Iñigo evidently arrived in Cumana with Bishop Manuel Jiménez Pérez of Puerto Rico in 1773. The Viage contains information similar to that found in Martí, but in less detail. Still, it remains one of the best sources for the population of eastern Venezuela at the end of the eighteenth century. There is no way to encapsulate Martí's accomplishment in the space of a footnote; it will be quite a while before we will have mined the Martí documents for all their treasures. It should be mentioned that the seven volumes of the visita fall into four categories. The first two volumes of this edition include Martí's "Libro personal" with his private comments about a wide variety of subjects related to the parishes visited, including a good collection of gossip. The two volumes of "Inventarios" include only a representative selection and abridgement of the original because of the quantity of material involved. These will be indispensable for the historian of material culture. The "Libro de providencias" records the official measures taken by the Bishop during his visita. And the two volumes of the "Compendio" contain the population data. Although this monumental edition has been prepared with the greatest care, the documents must be used with some caution because an occasional missing page or broken line is not clearly marked and can lead to erroneous identification of parishes. There is an incomplete, earlier edition of the compendio, Mariano Martí, Relación y testimonio íntegro de la visita general de este obispado de Caracas y Venezuela hecha por el illmo. Señor d.d....1771-1784... que la concluyo en el pueblo de Guarenas..., 3 vols. (Caracas: Editorial Sur-América, 1928-1929). For a catalogue of the archive where Martí's originals are preserved, see Jaime Suriá, Catálogo del Archivo Arquidiocesano de Caracas (Madrid: Escuelas Profesionales "Sagrado Corazón de Jesús," 1964). [return to text]

8. This discussion of the matrículas is based on an examination of the collection of documents of this type preserved in the Sección Parroquias of the Archivo Arquidiocesano, Caracas, and on an intensive study of the matrículas for the parishes of Caracas carried out during the summer of 1973 under the auspices of the Foreign Area Fellowship Program's Collaborative Research Training Project II on The Historical Demography of Venezuela. The participants in that project carefully worked through the matrículas for four Caracas parishes for the year 1788. Although the results of the study are still in draft form, the experience we acquired in the course of the project has permitted me to develop the discussion in this section. The Project, under the joint direction of Professor Germán Carrera Damas (Universidad Central de Venezuela) and myself (Indiana University) included the following individuals to whom I am grateful for the insights that made these remarks possible. G. Reid Andrews (University of Wisconsin--Madison), Anthony Ginsberg (New York University), and Kathy Waldron and Mary B. Floyd (Indiana University) for the United States, and Victor Gruber, Antonieta Camacho, Cármen Gómez, José Rafael Lovera, and Lourdes Fierro de Suels (all of the Universidad Central de Venezuela). These matrículas have also been studied by the Joint Oxford-Syracuse Population Project, which proposes to analyze all of the eighteenth-century parish level data available in major Spanish American centers. They have published a preliminary study that in the main confirms the conclusions of the FAFP seminar, and contains a very interesting discussion of census-taking procedures in Caracas. See David J. Robinson, The Analysis of Eighteenth Century Spanish American Cities: Some Problems and Alternative Solutions, Discussion Paper Series, Department of Geography (Syracuse: Syracuse University, 1975). For the printed version of a fragmentary matrícula of this type, see Francisco Trias, "Padrón de varias casas formado en Caracas en 1806," Boletín ANH.C. 12(1929), 218-222 and 299-309. A more elaborate version of this format, giving ages and occupations along with other information, can be seen in the reproduction of a matrícula taken for Los Angeles in J. Gregg Layne, "The First Census of the Los Angeles District. Padrón de la Ciudad de Los Angeles y su Jurisdicción. Año 1836," Southern California Quarterly 18(1936), 81-99 and facsimile pages. For an example of a similar population account system modeled on the matrículas used in Venezuela, see the form cited in Note 6 above in vol. 19, folio 241, Gobernación y Capitanía General, Archivo General de la Nación, Caracas. [return to text]

9. In understanding the annual censuses available for Venezuela, it is helpful to refer to the comparable data from other Latin American countries and Spain for much the same period. See, for example, Marcello Carmagnani and Herbert S. Klein, "Demografía histórica. La población del obispado de Santiago 1777-1778," Boletín de la Academia Chilena de la Historia 72(1965), 57-74; Luis Lira Montt, "Padrones del Reino de Chile existentes en el Archivo de Indias," Revista de estudios históricos (Santiago de Chile) 13(1965), 85-88; Alicia V. Tjarks, "Comparative Demographic Analysis of Texas, 1777-1793," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 77:3(1973-74), 291-338; and Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, La sociedad española en el siglo XVIII, Monografías Histórico-sociales, vol. 1 (Madrid: Instituto Balmés de Sociología, Departamento de Historia Social, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1955). In the sequel to this study, the 1813 and 1807, plus other non-standard formats, will be explored in detail. The most extensive publication of late colonial population data has been produced for the Rio de la Plata area. This incredibly rich collection of matrículas, padrones, and other population lists and summaries can be seen in "Padrones de la ciudad y campaña de Buenos Aires (1726-1810)," "Padrón de la Cuidad de Buenos Aires (1778)," "Padrón de la campaña de Buenos Aires (1778)," "Padrones complementarios de la ciudad de Buenos Aires (1806, 1807, 1809, y 1810)," and "Censo de la ciudad y campaña de Montevideo (1780)," in Volumes 10, 11 and 12 of Emilio Ravignani, ed., Documentos para la historia argentina, 35 vols. (Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1913-1974). [return to text]

10. Most of the information for this discussion comes from the annual, Type III, census returns. The population data from these are categorized and summarized in the tables in Part II of this book. The comments appended to each return have not been coded, mostly because the demographic yield of the remarks proved extremely low. But a study of the notes each parish priest appended to his returns sometimes provides an indirect view of the process of census-taking. The innovative features of the Type III census format are made clear by Martí, who received the royal order in the middle of his visita, and promptly changed his method of recording population totals. See Martí, Relación y testimonio, Vol. 1, p. 6. The short order that put this admirable census-taking procedure into operation runs as follows: "El Rey quiere saver con puntualidad, y certeza el número de vasallos, y havitantes que tiene entodos sus vastos Dominios de América y Filipinas, acuio fin ha resuelto, que todos los Virreyes, y Gobernadores de Indias, y de dhas Islas, hagan exactos Padrones con la devida distinción de clases, estados, y castas detodas las personas de ambos sexos sin excluir los Párbulos. De órden de S. M. lo participo a V. S. para que expida las correspondientes, afin de que todos los Gobernadores, y personas, aquien corresponda desu jurisdición, y distrito, formen desde luego los mencionados Padrones, y repitan todos los años esta operación, remitiendolos al fin de cada uno por mano de V. S. con la prevención de que han de anotar en cada estado annual, el aumento o diminución, que resultare respecto del anterior. Y para su puntual complimto manda S. M. que cuide de que no haya en ello la menor omisión: que remita asu tpo por esta via reservada de Indias, los referidos Padrones: y que me de aviso de quedan en esta inteligencia. Dios gue a V. S. ms. as. Sn Lorenzo 10 de novre de 1776. Jph de Gálvez (firmado)," vol. 5, folio 264, Reales Ordenes, Archivo General de la Nación, Caracas. For a discussion of similar royal projects, see Dominquez Ortiz, Sociedad española XVIII, pp. 44, 58, and 60; and Jorge Nadal Oller, La población española, siglos XVII a XX (Barcelona: Ediciones Ariel, 1966), pp. 24-26, 70. For the Mexican counterparts to the Venezuela censuses, see Borah and Cook, Essays, Vol. 1, especially pages 40 and 50, and Tjarks, "Texas, 1777-1793." See also Trent M. Brady and John V. Lombardi, "The Application of Computers to the Analysis of Census Data: The Bishopric of Caracas, 1780-1820," in Deprez, ed., Population and Economics, pp. 271-278. [return to text]

11. Even though the definition of párvulo is open to some question, since the age of responsibility seems to have varied in practice from time to time and place to place within the Spanish empire, the seven-year level used here seems to fit the data and have the weight of informed opinion behind it. The seven-year level is specified, for example, in a variety of other census documents of the period in Venezuela, and the fifteen-year level, another common break point, appears to have been used more for military purposes than for ecclesiastical population accounting. For a discussion of this point with reference to Mexican data, see Borah and Cook, Essays, Vols. 1 and 2, and for Spanish practice, see Dominguez Ortiz, Sociedad española XVIII, p. 68. [return to text]

12. To be sure, Venezuelan clerics and others employed the terms mestizo, moreno, and zambo, as well as some of the other less common racial names. But these usages occur so infrequently as to be indications, perhaps, of individuals more accustomed to Mexican than Venezuelan practice. Occasionally, a document may also distinguish between American-born whites and Spanish-born whites, especially in the 1813 census, a one-time exercise. The literature on race mixture and classification in Latin America is extensive. Rather than overburden this account, the reader is referred to some of the authorities in the field, for example, Magnus Morner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1967); David W. Cohen and Jack P. Green, eds., Neither Slave nor Free. The Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World, The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History (Baltimore, 1972); and John V. Lombardi, "Comparative Slave Systems in the Americas: A Critical Review," in Richard Graham and Peter H. Smith, eds., New Approaches to Latin American History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974), and the notes accompanying these items. For Venezuela, the following proved particularly helpful: Miguel Acosta Saignes, Vida de los esclavos negros en Venezuela (Caracas: Ediciones Hespérides, 1967); Ermila Troconís de Veracoechea, comp., Documentos para el estudio de los esclavos negros en Venezuela, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, no. 103 (Caracas, 1969); and James F. King, "A Royalist View of the Colored Castes in the Venezuelan War of Independence," Hispanic American Historical Review 33(1953), 526-537. Also very helpful in comprehending the social context of Venezuela's racial terminology are the documents relative to the participation of blacks in the wars for independence. Fear of a race war brought out clearly the tensions involved and displayed the dynamics of the system. See John V. Lombardi, The Decline and Abolition of Negro Slavery in Venezuela, 1820-1854 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1971), especially Chapters 2 and 6 and their notes. Also important are the documents in the valuable collection focused on the royalists in Vols. 4-6(1967-69) of the Anuario de la Instituto de Antropología e Historia (Caracas, Universidad Central de Venezuela). On the question of classifying Indians, see Eduardo Arcila Farías, El régimen de la encomienda en Venezuela, 2d ed. (Caracas: Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Economía, Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1966). The Indian problem is complicated by the ending of the encomienda in the early eighteenth century, but the continuation of tribute payments until 1811. For the role of blacks in another colony, Frederick P. Bowser's account gives a valuable perspective, helpful for understanding Venezuela's situation, in The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 1524-1650 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974). Borah and Cook, Essays, Vols. 1 and 2, also have a considerable amount of helpful information and commentary on this subject, as on most other matters related to Spanish colonial population accounting. [return to text]

Notes to Hamlets, Villages, Towns, and Cities

1. This urban-oriented conquest and settlement pattern is so obvious from the accounts and chronicles of the period, and from the subsequent studies of conquest and colonization, that an elaborate citation of authorities would serve little purpose. Those interested in reviewing the sweep of conquest and colonization in closer detail are referred to the items cited in the notes to Chapter 1. Urban history as a special field within Latin American history has attracted an able core of scholars, whose work is reviewed and discussed in Richard M. Morse, "Trends and Issues in Latin American Urban Research, 1965-1970," Latin American Research Review 6:1(1971), 3-52 and 6:2(1971), 19-75. For Venezuela, urban studies have for the most part focused on individual towns, especially Caracas, or on twentieth-century urbanization resulting from the post-war oil boom. Without a comprehensive analysis of the colonial Venezuelan urban network, the best source of information and the best view of the Spanish American mind set can be acquired through the better town histories, particularly those that focus on the founding generation. Two of Brother Nectario María's books are excellent examples of this type. See Historia de la fundación de la ciudad de Nueva Segovia de Barquisimeto a la luz de los documentos de los archivos de España y de Venezuela, 2d ed. (Madrid: Juan Bravo, 1967); and Los orígenes de Boconó (Madrid: Juan Bravo, 1962). Also important are the works of De Armas Chitty cited in the previous chapters. For an interesting although not wholly satisfactory procedure for the ordering of colonial urban centers by function and by size, see Jorge E. Hardoy and Carmen Aranovich, "Urban Scales and Functions in Spanish America toward the Year 1600: First Conclusions," Latin American Research Review 5:3(1970), 57-110. If we are ever to comprehend the significance and dynamic relationships of the urban net, we will need to develop regional and local studies. An example of what can be done along these lines can be seen in David J. Robinson and Teresa Thomas, "New Towns in Eighteenth Century Northwest Argentina," Journal of Latin American Studies 6:1(1974), 1-33. For a grand view of the formation and structure of colonial Latin American cities, one focusing mostly on the great capitals and infused with a strong eurocentric bias, see George A. Kubler, "Cities and Cultures in the Colonial Period in Latin America," Diogenes 47(1964), 53-62. [return to text]

2. In any account of the conquest, settlement, and administration of Spanish America, the student will find myriad examples of the role of towns and town-oriented functions in the establishment and maintenance of the Spanish imperial structure. For the early period, James Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 1532-1560: A Colonial Society (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968) shows rather elegantly the importance of the urban nucleus in the creation of careers and organization of society. Within a somewhat larger institutional framework, John L. Phelan's excellent The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century: Bureaucratic Politics in the Spanish Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967) relates the individual's local presence to the demands of the imperial bureaucracy. Unfortunately, we still lack such masterworks for Venezuela. Federico Brito Figueroa's suggestive and imaginative synthesis, La estructura económica de Venezuela colonial (Caracas: Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Economía, Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1963) has some useful insights, as do the classic works on the colonial period by Eduardo Arcila Farías, Economía colonial de Venezuela, Colección Tierra Firme, no. 24 (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1946) and Comercio entre México y Venezuela en los siglos XVII y XVIII (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 1950), along with his Encomienda cited earlier. But because none of these works focus on the local level, with the possible exception of Arcila Farías, Encomienda, they fail to convey a clear notion of the importance of urban nuclei in the colonial Venezuelan frame of reference. A better feel for the situation comes from histories of individual places, the records of cabildos, abstracts of town registers, and similar documents. For some representative samples of this kind of data, see the following items. Nueva Valencia del Rey, Venezuela, Cabildo, Actas del Cabildo de la Nueva Valencia del Rey, 2 vols. (Valencia: Publicaciones del Concejo Municipal del Distrito Valencia, 1970-71); Petare, Venezuela (Canton), Cabildo, Actas del Cabildo de Petare, 2 vols. (Petare: Concejo Municipal del Distrito Sucre, del Estado Miranda, 1970-); Pedro Manuel Arcaya U., El Cabildo de Caracas (Caracas: Ediciones del Cuatricentenario de Caracas, 1965); Stephanie B. Blank, "Social Integration and Social Stability in a Colonial Spanish American City. Caracas (1595-1627)" (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1971); Erdmann Gormsen, Barquisimeto. Una ciudad mercantil en Venezuela. Edición venezolana de Barquisimeto, eine Handelsstadt in Venezuela, Heidelberg, 1963, revisada y ampliada, trans. Hannelore Martens de Gormsen (Caracas: Instituto Otto y Magdalena Blohm, 1965); Agustín Millares Carlo, Archivo del Registro Principal de Maracaibo. Protocolos de los antiguos escribanos (1790-1836). Indice y extractos (Maracaibo: Centro Histórico del Zulia, 1964); Agustín Millares Carlo, Archivo del Concejo de Maracaibo. Expedientes Anexos, 2 vols. (Maracaibo: Centro de Historia del Estado Zulia, 1969); Agustín Millares Carlo, Protocolos del siglo XVI. Archivos de los registros principales de Mérida y Caracas, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, no. 80 (Caracas, 1966); Agustín Millares Carlo, Los Archivos municipales de Latinoamérica. Libros de actas y colecciones documentales. Apuntes bibliográficos (Maracaibo: Universidad del Zulia, 1961); Caracas, Cabildo, Actas del cabildo de Caracas, 1573-1629, 6 vols. (Caracas: Editorial Elite, 1943-1951); Manuel Pinto C., Los ejidos de Caracas (Caracas: Ediciones del Consejo Municipal del Distrito Federal, 1968); and Manuel Pinto C., Los primeros vecinos de Caracas. Recopilación documental (Caracas: Comisión Nacional del Cuatricentenario de la Fundación de Caracas, Comité de Obras Culturales, 1966). One way to view the Spanish concern with town living or town-sanctioned residence in Venezuela is through the eyes of Mariano Martí, who during his visita had occasion to comment on the living patterns of his flock. Perhaps most revealing is his comment about a group of individuals living together outside the town proper and evidently carrying on an unauthorized semi-organized existence. Martí ordered them back into the town proper and suggested their houses and agricultural plots be destroyed so there would be no incentive for them to return. See Martí, Documentos relativos a su visita pastoral de la Diócesis de Caracas, 1771-1784, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, nos. 95-101, 7 vols. (Caracas, 1969), Vol. 1, pp. 569-570. In the matter of raising sitios to parish status, examples can be seen throughout Martí, Documentos; one such example is in Vol. 7, p. 312 (a new curato established in sitio of Tapipa, removed from parish of Caucagua, 1784). [return to text]

3. For a detailed discussion of records for the population history of colonial Venezuela, see Chapter 2 [Counting and Classifying in this e-text] and its accompanying notes. [return to text]

4. This discussion is based on a close reading of Martí's "Compendio" and the aggregate parish censuses of the Bishopric available in the Archivo Arquidiocesano de Caracas. Unfortunately for the elegance of these ideal type parishes, reality in colonial Venezuela failed to conform to this typology except in an approximate way. Whether the types developed here are useful tools of analysis will depend on the results of parish-based studies, as yet only begun. From the incomplete evidence in Martí, Documentos, and from a survey of the census returns distinguishing between those living within and those living without the town proper, it would seem that in some areas of the country and in some sizes of parish, half or more of the parishes' population could be found outside the town proper. Naturally where subordinated sitios existed, subject to the jurisdiction and record keeping of the main parish, these outsiders could certainly account for a substantial portion of the parishes' population. And contracted parishes may have had less hinterland to collect outsiders. In spite of these problems, the parish structures defined as standard, extended, and contracted still seem useful analytical devices, because they draw our attention to the structure of these residential units. The hypothesis underlying that structure would read something like this. In a standard parish, individuals have a stronger orientation or identification with the urban nucleus than comparable residents could be expected to have in extended or contracted parishes. Parishioners in standard parishes presumably had no other embryonic centers on which to focus, as would be the case in an extended parish, nor a coequal parish within the urban nucleus to dilute the primary identification, as would occur in a contracted parish. Having established this analytical scheme at this point, the testing of the construct must await the development of some consistent measures of these characteristics. In the sequel to this book, when the nonstandard data have been processed, it should be possible to determine if this typology can help provide a greater understanding of the dynamics of Venezuela's urban network. For examples of each type of parish, see the following. Standard Parish: Calabozo, Martí, Documentos, Vol. 7, pp. 17-22 (of the 428 families in this parish, almost 60 percent lived in the town proper in 1780); Extended Parish: El Tocuyo, ibid., Vol. 6, pp. 206-223 (this city had 49 differently named sitios, although some with as few as one family); Contracted Parish: Caracas, San Felipe, Barquisimeto. Neither San Felipe nor Barquisimeto had been divided into two administratively separate parishes at the time of the Martí visita. Caracas, of course, already had several parishes, but for some reason the detailed accounting for Caracas was not included in Martí's visita records. For the special status of these three places, see their records reproduced in Part II [contained in the Data section of the e-text] of this book. It should be noted that even though San Felipe, for example, counts as a contracted parish, its component fractions may have had sitios attached to them. There is also the complication, in any discussion of parish types, posed by wandering parish sites. Although much more common in the early years of conquest and settlement, the phenomenon is well worth careful consideration. See Pablo Vila, "Consideraciones sobre poblaciones errantes en el período colonial," Visiones geohistóricas de Venezuela (Caracas: Ediciones del Ministerio de Educación, 1969), pp. 112-120. [return to text]

5. Martí, Documentos, Vols. 6-7, and Giovanni Battista Agostino Codazzi, Obras escogidas, 2 vols. (Caracas: Dirección de Cultura y Bellas Artes, Departamento de Publicaciones, 1961), Vol. 1. See also the list compiled by Eduardo Arcila Farías, El régimen de la encomienda en Venezuela, 2d ed. (Caracas: Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Economía, Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1966), pp. 66-70, from a summary document evidently based on Bishopric sources. [return to text]

6. Since no one can agree on what it takes to make a town, or tell where urban shades into rural, I have devised these limits for the parishes of the Bishopric of Caracas because they correspond to a reasonable notion of the orders of magnitude involved. In the case of the six parishes of contracted type, their classifications as towns or cities can be misleading, because in every case they are part of urban centers almost twice as large or larger. In subsequent refining of the data introduced here, it may be necessary to reunite these contracted parishes and work with them as the urban units they were in real life. [return to text]

7. The question of Caracas' primacy within the Venezuelan context and in comparison with other major Latin American urban centers has generated considerable interest. Because at the present time Caracas' primacy is beyond dispute, some tend to project this predominance backward in time. The question, however, is somewhat more complex. Caracas was neither first in time nor predominant in function or population from the early days of Venezuela's settlement, and marking the moment when the city assumed primacy proves a difficult task. A number of authorities have attempted explanations of the primacy of Caracas. For example, Germán Carrera Damas, "Principales momentos del desarrollo histórico de Caracas," in Estudio de Caracas, 6 vols. in 7 (Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, Ediciones de la Biblioteca, 1967-70), Vol. 2, Part 1, pp. 23-102, is particularly helpful in placing the development of the city in perspective. So, too, are the rest of the monographs in the Estudio de Caracas collection. Primacy, of course, is measured as much by function as by size, although population is the easiest variable to measure and has enjoyed considerable popularity among urban analysts. See Surinder K. Mehta, "Some Demographic and Economic Correlates of Primate Cities: A Case for Revaluation," in Gerald W. Breese, comp., The City in Newly Developing Countries: Readings in Urbanism and Urbanization (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969), pp. 295-308; and Richard M. Morse, "Trends and Patterns of Latin American Urbanization, 1750-1920," Comparative Studies in Society and History 16(1974), 416-447. In any effort to discover the origins of Caracas' primacy, some attention must be paid the concentration of institutions and functions in the city. For Venezuela, see Mercedes M. Alvarez F., El tribunal del Real Consulado de Caracas. Contribución al estudio de nuestras instituciones, 2 vols. (Caracas: Ediciones del Cuatricentenario de Caracas, 1967); Antonio Arellano Moreno, Caracas: su evolución y su régimen legal (Caracas: Ediciones del Cuatricentenario de Caracas, 1967); Jose Antonio De Armas Chitty, Caracas: Origen y trayectoria de una ciudad, 2 vols. (Caracas: Fundación Creole, 1967); Ildefonso Leal, ed., Documentos para la historia de la educación en Venezuela. Epoca colonial, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, no. 87 (Caracas, 1968). Manuel Nunes Dias, El Real Consulado de Caracas (1793-1810), trans. Jaime Tello, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, no. 106 (Caracas, 1971-72); Santiago Gerardo Suárez, Las instituciones militares venezolanas del periodo hispánico en los archivos, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, no. 92 (Caracas, 1969); Ermila Troconis de Veracoechea, Las obras pias en la Iglesia colonial venezolana, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, no. 105 (Caracas, 1971). In addition to the institutional aspect of primacy, there is a cultural dimension best seen through material elements such as housing, dress, possessions and the like. See, for example, Enrique Marco Dorta, ed., Materiales para la historia de la cultura en Venezuela, 1523-1828. Documentos del Archivo General de Indias de Sevilla (Caracas: Fundación John Boulton, 1967); Carlos F. Duarte, ed., Materiales para la historia de las artes decorativas en Venezuela, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, no. 104 (Caracas, 1971); Graziani Gasparini and Juan Pedro Pasani, Caracas a traves de su arquitectura (Caracas: Fundación Fina Gómez, 1969). In an effort to clarify some of these problems, Germán Carrera Damas and I have begun a long range project to investigate the "Origins, Structure, and Dynamics of a Primate City: A Case Study of Caracas, 1560-1960," with the cooperation and support of the Mid-West Universities Consortium for International Activities (MUCIA), the Centro de Estudios del Desarrollo (CENDES), Indiana University, and the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Four monographs are underway in this project. [return to text]

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