Venezuela

Today’s blog on a nation state may have entered your consciousness over the past year. At the beginning of 2026, Donald Trump authorized a raid on Venezuela to capture its current president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, who are currently awaiting trial in the state of New York for the federal crimes of drug trafficking and narco-terrorism. What has Maduro done to be given the same treatment as another villain from the same region, Manuel Noriega, got over three decades ago? How did we get to a state of confrontation between the United States and Venezuela? And what does the future hold for this once prosperous nation. This is where focusing on history may give us a clue.

As we continue evaluating the current nation states of the world, there is going to be a lot of discussion about “Empires” and colonization. Especially the largest and most impactful empires of the last 500 years. As the liberal media and education system set about trying to destroy history and riddle Europeans with blood guilt for the behavior of their ancestors, it is important to have perspective about these empires and their colonies. While the focus is often on the brutality of these empires especially in their treatment of rebels or the cultures they created that had very clearly defined lines between the classes as well as a history of slavery, most of these imperial colonies had one defining purpose; economics. This is probably the greatest crime that was committed against most of these nations. But focusing on cynicism also overlooks the fact that colonialism was not completely negative for every nation. Many colonies to this day have benefitted especially at a financial level from the changes that were brought about by foreign interests. South America has developed as an offshoot of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires with both languages and many cultural traditions from that era still celebrated in these nations today. In fact, it is impossible to know what South America would have become if these two empires had never taken notice of the continent. Would it just be a continent loaded with tribes each living inside of their own designated territories?

Venezuela is currently called the Bolivaran Republic of Venezuela named after one of the country’s heroes (Who will be discussed later), Simon Bolivar. This name was adopted in December of 1999 when the socialist Hugo Chavez took power who idolized Bolivar. Despite the kidnapping of Maduro, Venezuela remains a socialist republic run by Acting President Delcy Rodriguez who so far has not moved the country away from its socialist economy. Venezuela declared independence from Spain in 1811, from Gran Colombia in 1830 and was internationally recognized for the first time in 1845. Currently ,Venezuela has a population of 33.8 million people. The capital of the nation is Caracas located at the north end of the nation on the Caribbean Sea. Caracas has a population of 3.242 million. Their currency is the Venezuelan Bolivar. Economically, Venezuela has been in decline since even before the socialist takeover in 1999. GDP capita is on the lower end of nations (127th) despite being the 69th richest country in the world due to its large size, and vast agricultural and mineral wealth which the current government has had difficulty exploiting. The United States considers Venezuela a socialist dictatorship. Other nations perceive it as a socialist state with a president and Congress. A couple of interesting facts about present-day Venezuela.

1. The majority race is Moreno (51%). This is the term given to multiracial indiivduals who are usually a mix of Amerindian, European or African. 43% of the nation is genetically “White.”
2. Since Venezuela was an indigenous nation many years before the Spanish decided to colonize it, the Constitution of this nation recognizes all indigenous languages spoken among these tribes (Over 20 different languages) and has gone about preserving their existence as the encroachment of globalism has caused many unique indigenous languages to go extinct.
3. Venezuela is very mountainous with the top of the Andes riddling the Western borders of the country and the Guiana Highlands littering the southeast. The difficult topography has made building infrastructure very difficult and is the reason Venezuela is still considered a developing country.
4. In 2026, Venezuela won the World Baseball Championship against the United States in the Final. This baseball-crazed nation has provided dozens of major league baseball players to many professional teams.
5. Venezuela borders Colombia to the west, Brazil to the south and southeast, and Guyana to the east. The borders with Guyana are in flux at present.​ ​

Venezuela has one of the nost beautiful color combination flags in the world. The yellow represents wealth, the blue represents the Caribbean Sea, and the red represents the blood that was shed for the country’s independence. The eight stars in a semi-circle inside the blue stripe are a symbol for the eight original provinces of the land.

The history of Venezuela begins with its discovery. Christopher Columbus was the first individual in Eruope to spot the land observing its coast in 1498 and calling it “Tierra de Garcia.” The name Venezuela (Little Venice) comes from the description given to the land by later explorers Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci (Who “America” is named after). Before the Spanish discovery, the country was filled with indigenous tribes scattered throughout the region. The most famous were the Timoto-Cuica people of the Andes in the west while the coast and the internal lowlands hosted the Arawak and Carib people who survived on small-scale farming, hunting and fishing. After Spain began its colonization, the Arawak and Carib people responded violently and resisted the early colonial period but were eventually subjugated.

The first Spanish settlement was at Cumana in 1523. Caracas was founded a little later in 1567. For a short period of time, a German family called the Weisers were given a concession for a settlement from the King of Spain, Charles V, who owed them a great deal of money. The Weisers were attached to the great money families of Europe during that time. After 18 years, the Germans admitted defeat as the last colonists died from disease or fighting with the indigenous tribes. The Weisers abandoned it in 1546. Venezuela is over 92% Christian with Catholic being the majority religion. After the Spanish subdued the territory, many of the tribes were converted to Catholicism. Venezuela’s territory in the 1700s was almost the entirety of its current borders plus the countries of Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana plus chunks of northeastern Brazil. At its peak, Venezuela had six provinces.

1)    Barinas Province (Established in 1786): Located in Southern Venezuela
2)    Guayana Province (Established in 1585); Located in the southern portions of Guyana and northeast Brazil
3)    Maracaibo Province (Established in 1676): Western Venezuela and a chunk of Eastern Colombia
4)    Margarita Province (Established in 1525): Present day Trinidad and Tobago
5)    New Andalusia (Also called Cumana) Province (Established in 1537):  Northern Guyana and Surinam
6)    Venezuela (Also called Caracas) Province (Established in 1527): The heart of modern day Venezuela

Venezuela declared independence on July 11, 1811. But establishing its own republic proved difficult. A devastating earthquake and an internal rebellion destroyed the first one after just a year. The Second Republic declared in 1813 with Simon Bolivar re-capturing most of the territory was crushed by the royalist Jose Tomas Boves just a few months later. With the Spanish weakened, Bolivar declared the Third Republic in 1817. The Congress of Angostura in 1819 brought New Granada and Venezuela together into the new nation of Colombia in 1819. The Venezuelan War of Independence that started in 1811 officially ended in 1821 at the Battle of Carabobo and New Granada became independent again in 1823 after the Battle of Lake Maracaibo. One of the leaders of this revolution went onto liberating Ecuador and Bolivia. The union with Colombia officially ended in September of 1830 when Venezuela became its own nation. Jose Antonio Paez became the first official president of Venezuela.

The present day border dispute with neighboring Guyana goes back to the late 19th Century. The British controlled the Essequibo territory which it declared part of its empire. The Venezuelans protested and said that this was their land. This led to a crisis between both countries in 1895. The matter went to international arbitration in Paris and the UK was awarded the territory in 1899 which they would later name Guyana.

Oil was discovered in Venezuela in the early 20th Century and the nation became extremely wealthy. With wealth came corrupt politics. Like many South American countries, Venezuela fell under the control of various dictatorships. The Gomecista Dictatorship ruled from 1935-1945 and was eventually overthrown with an internal citizen rebellion. After a short three year period of democracy, the country was again rocked by a coup where it became a military junta from 1948-1958. After the republic was restored, Venezuela entered a period of time where their natural resources as well as government corruption began hurting the country’s wealth. Economic crises occurred throughout the latter half of the 20th Century with one president being imprisoned for embezzlement in 1993. This brings us to the Bolivaran Revolution.

Avowed socialist Hugo Chavez won the presidency in 1998 and began reforming the Venezuelan economy. His actions turned the United States against Venezuela. Multiple coup attempts were made to remove him from power but all failed. And while the new socialist economy of Venezuela worked for a short time, terrible inflation began to have its impacts. Chavez died in 2013 and Maduro won the election to be his predecessor. This brings us to the current state of things inside Venezuela. The economy continues to struggle and despite the intervention of President Trump, Venezuela is still facing massive economic turmoil that will not resolve anytime soon.
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Next week: Our first Caribbean island country and the second nation I have visited, Antigua and Barbuda. Until then.