Guipuzcoana Company

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Guipuzcoana Company (Spanish: La Real Compañia Guipuzcoana de Caracas) was an 18th century company in charge of maintaining a trade monopoly between Spain and the Province of Caracas or Venezuela, which was a Spanish colony at the time.

The old Guipuzcoana Company House in La Guaira

Created by Philip V on September 25, 1728, and beginning its operations in 1730, the Guipuzcoana Company functioned until 1785. During these years it was the only entety entitled to sell European goods in Venezuela Province and to export Venezuelan agricultural products to Spain. The company's creation can be seen as part of the larger Bourbon Reforms, since it was established to combat extensive contraband, especially in tobacco, which existed along the Orinoco River and mostly benefited Dutch traders. The company was instrumental in the development of large-scale cocoa production along the valleys of the coast. This new area of economic activity, not brought great profits to the company, but also benefitted Criollos with large landholdings, who developed plantations on their properties. In fact, the term "gran cacao" became a nickname for a memeber of this new powerful class (and to this day the term is used jocularly in Venezuela for a VIP). However, it did not help small-time farmers, who continued to participate in the southern contraband trade. In addition the company promoted the exploration and settlement of frontier areas, most famously under the Expedition of the Limits, 1750-1761 headed by company agent José de Iturriaga y Aguirre, which resulted in new settlements in the Guayana region. Nevertheless, the company's control of the major port of La Guaira and Puerto Cabello meant that it effectively monopolized the legal trade of the other Venezuelan provinces. In addition, the company's strict control of the much needed manufactured imports, created a lot of resentment in the mostly agricultural region. Following several rebellions against the Guipuzcoana Company, the largest of which occured in 1749 under Juan Francisco de León, the Spanish crown finally ended the company's monopoly in 1785. (The Company was then transformed into the Philippines Company.) By that time the Venezuelan economy had matured and been tightly linked with Spanish and New Spanish markets, which consumed most of its cocoa. The crown no longer saw the need for a monopolizing company to control and grow the economy. Instead a consulado (a merchants' guild) was established in 1793.

[edit] References

“Juan Francisco de León” in Diccionario multimedia de Historia de Venezuela. Caracas: Fundación Polar, 1995.
Amezaga y Aresti, Vicente. Hombres de la Compañía Guipuzcoana. Caracas, 1963.
Arcila Farias, Eduardo. Economia colonial de Venezuela. 1946.
Baglio, Assunta. 1996. La Guaira, puerto comercial de la Colonia. Infometro, XVIII, (150), 1996. 17-19.
Basterra, Ramón de. Una empresa del siglo XVIII. Los Navíos de la Ilustración. Madrid: Cultura Hispánica, 1970 [1925].
Efemérides venezolanas. La Comapñia Guipuzcoana. Retrieved on 2007-02-10. (Spanish)
MiPunto.com. Comapñia Guipuzcoana. Retrieved on 2007-02-10. (Spanish)
Ramos Pérez, Demetrio. El Tratado de límites de 1750 y la expedición de Iturriaga al Orinoco. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; Instituto Juan Sebastián Elcano de Geografía, 1946.