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Cattle, Corruption, and Venezuelan State Formation During the Regime of Juan Vicente Gómez, 1908–35

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Doug Yarrington
Doug Yarrington*
Affiliation:
Colorado State University
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Abstract

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This essay seeks to expand our understanding of state formation in Venezuela by examining the business enterprises established by Juan Vicente Gómez and his political allies to exploit the agrarian economy, especially the cattle trade. It argues that these enterprises were critical both in cementing the allegiance of officials to Gómez, and in establishing the regime's authority over society. Venezuelans engaged in a variety of forms of protest against officials' profiteering and occasionally won concessions from the regime, signaling that corruption constituted an issue around which the terms of state control were negotiated. Relying on Gómez's correspondence, as well as British and U.S. diplomatic records, this essay argues that business networks among members of the regime fundamentally shaped not only the internal dynamics of the state, but also its relationship to society, a topic usually neglected in studies of Venezuelan state formation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , 2003 , pp. 9 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by the University of Texas Press

References

1. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage, 1963), 9.

2. Examples include Gilbert Joseph and Daniel Nugent, eds., Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994); and Richard Graham, Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990).

3. Examples include Florencia Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); and Roger Lancaster, Life is Hard: Machismo, Danger, and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).

4. Steve Ellner, “Venezuelan Revisionist Political History, 1908–1958: New Motives and Criteria for Analyzing the Past,” Latin American Research Review 30, no. 2 (1995):91–121.

5. On the regime's ideology, see Arturo Sosa, La filosofía política del gomecismo (Barquisimeto: Centro Gumilla, 1974), and Ciro Caraballo Perichi, Obras públicas, fiestas y mensajes (un puntal del régimen gomecista) (Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1981). For Gómez's reliance on political terror, see Thomas Rourke, Gómez, Tyrant of the Andes (New York: William Morrow, 1941). On the army, see Angel Ziems, El gomecismo y la formación el ejército nacional (Caracas: Ateneo de Caracas, 1979).

6. Luis C. Rodríguez, Gómez: Agricultura, petróleo y dependencia (Caracas: Trópykos, 1983); T. Polanco Alcantara, Juan Vicente Gómez (Caracas: Grijalbo, 1990); Y. Segnini, La consolidación del régimen de Juan Vicente Gómez (Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1982); and B. S. McBeth, Gunboats, Corruption, and Claims: Foreign Intervention in Venezuela, 1899–1908 (London: Greenwood, 2001).

7. Fernando Coronil, The Magical State: Nature, Money, and Modernity in Venezuela (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 76–84.

8. J. Ewell, Venezuela and the United States (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 120; Polanco Alcantara, Gómez, 247–58; and Beaumont to FO, 31 August 1917, Public Record Office (hereafter, PRO), Foreign Office (hereafter, FO) 371/3074.

9. Emilio Pacheco, De Castro a López Contreras (Caracas: Domingo Fuentes, 1984), 42.

10. H. E. Chehabi and Juan J. Linz, eds., Sultanistic Regimes (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).

11. H. E. Chehabi and Juan J. Linz, “A Theory of Sultanism 1: A Type of Nondemocratic Rule,” in ibid., 5; and idem., “A Theory of Sultanism 2: Genesis and Demise of Sultanistic Regimes,” in ibid., 27.

12. For a discussion of various definitions of corruption, see Robin Theobold, Corruption, Development, and Underdevelopment (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), 1–18.

13. Elias Pino Iturrieta, “Estudio Preliminar,” in Los hombres del Benemérito: epistolario inédito, 2 vols. (Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1985), vol. 1, 18–25; and Polanco Alcantara, Gómez, 435–43.

14. For a wider theoretical discussion, see Donatella della Porta and Alberto Vannucci, Corrupt Exchanges: Actors, Resources and Mechanisms of Political Corruption (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1999).

15. Knut Walter, The Regime of Anastacio Somoza, 1936–1956 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 109–10, 198–9; Robert D. Crassweller, Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 123–8, 251–9.

16. McBeth, Gunboats, 106–7.

17. For documents regarding these partnerships, see Boletín del Archivo Histórico de Miraflores (hereafter, BAHM) no. 89 (Jan. 1976):121–33; see also Polanco Alcantara, Gómez, 79–80, 84–7.

18. For background on Venezuela's cattle industry, see Gaston Carvallo, El hato venezolano, 1900–1980 (Caracas: Tropykos, 1985), and Tarcila Briceño, La ganadería en los llanos centro-occidentales venezolanos, 1910–1935 (Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1985).

19. Gómez's property acquisitions are listed in C. Dupuy, Propiedades del General Juan Vicente Gómez (Caracas: Contraloría General de la República, 1983).

20. “Venezuela Annual Report, 1912,” p. 12, PRO, FO 371/1861. For Pimentel and Galavís, see Luis C. Rodríguez, “Gómez y el agro,” in Elias Pino Iturrieta, ed., Juan Vicente Gómez y su época (Caracas: Monte Avila, 1988), 104.

21. Polanco Alcantara, Gómez, 416.

22. Baldó to Gómez, 25 March 1915, in BAHM nos. 61–3 (1969):72–3; and Galavís to Gómez, 2 Oct. 1910, Los hombres, vol. 1, 327–8. Baldó was state president of Portuguesa, and Galavís was Inspector General of the Army. See also Peter Linder, “Agriculture and Rural Society in Pre-Petroleum Venezuela: The Sur del Lago Zuliano, 1880–1920,” Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin at Austin, 1992, 230–2.

23. Gómez to Murillo, 5 Dec. 1908, BAHM nos. 114–15 (1981–82):9.

24. Harford to Grey, 12 Feb. 1914, PRO, FO 420/258; McGoodwin to Department of State (hereafter DS), 10 Feb. 1914, 831.00/630, National Archive and Records Administration (hereafter NARA), Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Venezuela, 1910–29, microcopy no. 366; and Freeman to McGoodwin, enclosed in McGoodwin to DS, 8 Oct. 1917, 831.00/807, NARA, microcopy 366.

25. “Venezuela. Annual Report, 1914,” in PRO, FO 371/2501; and Emilio Arévalo Cedeño, Viva Arévalo Cedeño (el libro de mis luchas) (Caracas: Seleven, 1979 [orig., 1936]), 9–11.

26. Harford to Grey, 6 July 1915, PRO, FO 371/2502.

27. Harford to Grey, 29 Jan. 1916, PRO, FO 371/2801. In eastern Venezuela, according to a U.S. consul, “Men who have refused to sell their farms to [Gómez] or his friends … have been sent to prison as political offenders, have had troops camped upon their places and have had young goats by the thousands turned into their plantations of cocoa.” Brett to DS, 23 Sept. 1915, 831.00/753, NARA, microcopy 366.

28. McGoodwin to DS, 3 Aug. 1917, 831.52/49, NARA, microcopy 366. Gómez also reportedly skimmed four percent of all Venezuelan payments to British creditors. McGoodwin to DS, 21 Sept. 1917, 831.51/52, ibid.

29. Dupuy, Propiedades del General, 46; and Harford to Grey, 6 July 1915, PRO, FO 371/2502.

30. Polanco Alcantara, Gómez, 476; and Cook to DS, 26 June 1926, 831.00/1302, NARA, microcopy 366.

31. Summerlin to DS, 15 July 1931, 831.00/1487, Box 5785, Record Group 59, National Archives, College Park, Maryland (hereafter, NA).

32. Beaumont to Curzon, 26 May 1923, PRO, FO 371/8530.

33. Pérez Soto to Gómez, 26 June 1915, in Los hombres, vol. 2, 276.

34. Jurado to Urdaneta Maya, 23 June 1924, in Los hombres, vol. 2, 84–5.

35. Gómez to Martínez Méndez, 4 Dec. 1913, BAHM nos. 64–66 (1970):299; and Hidalgo to Gómez, 2 Sept. 1915, BAHM nos. 61–63 (1969):359–60.

36. Work to Harford, 14 May 1915, PRO, FO 199/224.

37. McGoodwin to DS, 10 Feb. 1914, 831.00/630, NARA, microcopy 366.

38. Arévalo Cedeño, Viva Arévalo, 8 (see also pp. 9–11).

39. “The Situation in Venezuela,” McGoodwin to DS, 16 March 1914, 831.00/640, NARA, microcopy 366.

40. Sauer to DS, 31 March 1919, 831.00/898, NARA, microcopy 366.

41. “Venezuela Annual Report, 1932,” 17, PRO, FO 371/16622.

42. “Memorandum on the present conditions, economic and commercial, in Venezuela,” enclosed in Keeling to Simon, 2 March 1934, PRO, FO 371/17618. See also, Rodríguez, “Gómez y el agro,” 104.

43. See “Memorandum”in note 43 above. At 1934 exchange rates, 11,000 bolívares was US$3,000.

44. Ramírez to Gómez, 24 May 1934, in Los hombres, vol. 2, 331–2.

45. “Venezuela, Annual Report, 1935,” PRO, FO 371/19847.

46. Ibid., and Keeling to Simon, 20 May 1935, PRO, FO 371/18782.

47. Nicholson to DS, 30 Dec. 1935, 831.00/1557, Box 5785, Record Group 59, NA.

48. For examples, see C. Heredia, El año 29: recuento de la lucha armada (Caracas: Avilarte, 1974); and the documents in “La campaña de Apure,” BAHM nos. 130–2 (1989–90):163–208.

49. McGoodwin to DS, 13 April 1914, 831.00/651, NARA, microcopy 366; and McGoodwin to DS, 27 Jan. 1919, 831.00/887, ibid.

50. Pérez Soto to Gómez, 3 March 1928, in Los hombres, vol. 2, 301–2.

51. For an account of the etiquette of bribery in India, see A. Gupta, “Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State,” American Ethnologist 22, no. 2 (1995):379–81.

52. Polanco Alcantara, Gómez, 456.

53. Williams to DS, 30 Nov. 1922, 831.6232/3, NARA, microcopy 366; Dormer to Curzon, 1 March 1920, PRO, FO 371/4622; Pérez Soto to Gómez, 3 Jan. 1919, BAHM no. 74 (1972):195; Pérez Soto to Gómez, 1 Sept. 1919, in ibid., 206–8; and Pérez Soto to Gómez, 4 July 1920, ibid., 228–30.

54. García to Gómez, 21 May 1913, in Los hombres, vol. 1, 357–8; Pérez Soto to Gómez, 29 Nov. 1924, in Los hombres, vol. 2, 285–6; Jurado to Gómez, 16 Dec. 1931, in ibid., 91–92; Rivas to Gómez, 14 Feb. 1931, in ibid., 379–80.

55. For social expectations surrounding corruption in Africa, see J. P. Olivier de Sardan, “A Moral Economy of Corruption in Africa?,” The Journal of Modern African Studies 37, no. 1 (1999):25–52.

56. Doug Yarrington, A Coffee Frontier: Land, Society, and Politics in Duaca, Venezuela, 1830–1936 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997), 138–55.

57. “Venezuela Annual Report, 1914,” p. 4, PRO, FO 371/2501.

58. Cecil Meyerheim, “Memorandum on Revolutionary Efforts in the Eastern Areas of Venezuela,” 27 April 1915, enclosed with Harford to Grey, 28 April 1915, PRO, FO 371/2502.

59. Ibid.; and Elliott to Dormer, 30 Dec. 1920, PRO, FO 199/219.

60. Harford to Grey, 15 March 1915, PRO, FO 371/2051.

61. McGoodwin to DS, 1 March 1915, 831.00/722, NARA, microcopy 366.

62. For most documentation of events in Los Caños, see the two files: “Caños, Government Raid On,” PRO, FO 199/185; and “Caños, Government Raid On and Claims,” PRO, FO 199/186. See also Harford to Grey, 16 July 1915, PRO, FO 371 /2501; Harford to Grey, 13 Aug. 1915, PRO, FO 371/2051; Beaumont to Balfour, 15 Oct. 1917, PRO, FO 371/3074; and “Memorandum de los hechos realizados,” BAHM nos. 61–3 (1969), pp. 183–5. For testimony from two British subjects, see Thomas to British Minister, 12 March 1915, PRO, FO 371 /2501; and Rochemont to British Minister, 29 March 1915, PRO, FO 371/2501.

63. For the 1921 settlement of the claims, see “Venezuela Annual Report, 1921,” PRO, FO 371/7325.

64. “Venezuela Annual Report, 1932,” 12, PRO, FO 371/16622; and Parada, De Ocumare, 74–5.

65. Sloan to DS, 8 April 1926, 831.00/1293, NARA microcopy 366.

66. Ibid. In June, Gómez transferred Febres Cordero to the presidency of Trujillo. The U.S. minister believed Gómez removed Febres because he proved too weak to govern Zulia; see “General Conditions Prevailing in Venezuela,” enclosed with Cook to DS, 7 June 1926, 831.00/1298, NARA, microcopy 366. Fernández's challenge to Febres added to the perception of the latter's weakness.

67. Galavís to Gómez, 24 Sept. 1925, and 23 Sept. 1926, in Los hombres, vol. 1, 333–4 and 335–6.

68. González to Gómez, 4 Sept. 1911, in Los hombres, vol. 1, 493–4; García to Gómez, 21 May 1913, in Los hombres, vol. 1, 357; and Pérez Soto to Gómez, 14 Nov. 1913, in Los hombres, vol. 2, 271–2.

69. Parada, De Ocumare, 75–6. The dictator supported the state president's efforts to curb gambling.

70. For a theoretical discussion linking ritual to the normalization of state power, see William Beezley, Cheryl English Martin, and William E. French, “Introduction: Constructing Consent, Inciting Conflict,” in idem., eds., Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance: Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1994), xiii–xxii.

71. Germán Carrera Damas, “Gómez el hombre,” in Arturo Sosa et al., Gómez, Gomecismo y Antigomecismo (Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1987), 198–99; Rourke, Tyrant, 133.

72. Engert to DS, 25 May 1928. 831.00/1380, NARA, microcopy 366.

73. Rourke, Tyrant, 137–38; and Caraballo Perichi, Obras públicas, 71–3.

74. Students were motivated in part by opposition to Gómez's “política interior de peculado y monopolio.” Rómulo Betancourt and M. Otero Silva, as quoted in A. Sosa, “La generación estudiantil del año de 28,” in Gómez, Gomecismo y Antigomecismo, 12. Sympathy for the students reflected bourgeois opposition to Gomecista monopolies. Engert to DS, 7 March 1928, 831.00/1350, NARA, microcopy 366.

75. Germán Carrera Damas, El culto a Bolívar (Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1973).

76. Jurado to Gómez, 1 April 1914, in Los hombres, vol. 2, 77–8.

77. Emil Sauer, a U.S. consul, visited Táchira and reported on Eustoquio Gómez's abusive business tactics, especially “the beef, hide, and rum monopolies,” in Sauer to DS, 31 March 1919, 831.00/898, NARA, microcopy 366. After an attempt on Eustoquio Gómez's life, Sauer indicated again that the unrest in Táchira derived from Gómez's monopolies. Sauer to DS, 3 May 1919, 831.00/905, ibid.

78. Linder, “Agriculture and Rural Society,” 230–3; see also Los hombres, vol. 1, 345–73.

79. Donald (U.S. consul at Maracaibo) to DS, 6 June 1916, 831.00/773, NARA, microcopy 366. All quotations in this paragraph are taken from this source.

80. For a theoretical discussion of “the negotiation of rule”—a concept widely used in current historiography—see Gilbert Joseph and Daniel Nugent, “Popular Culture and State Formation in Revolutionary Mexico,” in Joseph and Nugent, eds., Everyday Forms of State Formation, 3–23.

81. “Venezuela Annual Report, 1922,” pp. 7–8, PRO, FO 371/8530; Galavís to Gómez, 13 June 1922, BAHM no. 60 (1969):203–4; Beak to Minister of Development (Fomento), 20 July 1922, ibid., 205–8; and correspondence enclosed with Beak to Beaumont, 27 Feb. 1923, PRO, FO 199/219.

82. Beaumont to Balfour, 13 July 1922, PRO, FO 199/188; and “Venezuela, Annual Report, 1922,” pp. 7–8, PRO, FO 371/8530.

83. Beaumont to Curzon, 26 May 1923, PRO, FO 199/188.

84. “Memorandum on the present Conditions, Economic and Commercial, in Venezuela,” enclosed in Keeling to Simon, 2 March 1934, PRO, FO 371/17618.

85. Brett to DS, 23 Sept. 1915, 831.00/753, NARA, microcopy 366; and Parada, De Ocumare, 74.

86. Parada, De Ocumare, 68–9.

87. Ibid., 84.

88. Ibid., 73–5.

89. MacGregor to Eden, 24 Dec. 1935, PRO, FO 371/19845.

90. Nicholson to DS, 30 Dec. 1935, 831.00/1557, Box 5785, Record Group 59, NA.

91. MacGregor to Eden, 2 Jan. 1936, PRO, FO 371/19845; Pitaluga to López Contreras, 25 Dec. 1935, in Eleazar López Contreras, Proceso político social, 1928–1936, 2d ed. (Caracas: Editorial Ancora, 1955), 103; Yarrington, A Coffee Frontier, 181–92.

92. Nicholson to DS, 30 Dec. 1935, 831.00/1557, Box 5785, Record Group 59, NA.

93. MacGregor to Eden, 11 Feb. 1936, PRO, FO 371/19845.

94. MacGregor to Eden (with enclosed newspaper article), 24 Jan. 1936, PRO, FO 371/19845.

95. Nicholson to DS, 28 Jan. 1936, 831.00/1572, Record Group 59, Box 5785, NA.

96. The confiscation decrees are reproduced in Dupuy, Propiedades, 147–9.

97. Corruption and “the imagined state” in India are discussed in Gupta, “Blurred Boundaries,” 389–92.