Compañía Guipuzcoana

Compañía Guipuzcoana, a company established for the monopoly control of commerce between Spain and the province of Venezuela (1728–1785). From the beginning of the Spanish presence in America, commercial activity with the overseas provinces was controlled by the House of Contracts in Seville. After two centuries this system had not yielded successful results. Bureaucratic red tape, smuggling, conflicts of interest, supply problems, and diverse restrictions all led many subjects to propose the creation of private companies to deal with trade. It was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century and the ascendancy of the Bourbon dynasty to the Spanish throne that the lessons of the French concerning the benefits of a commercial monopoly began to be applied. The idea of creating a company responsible for commerce with the province of Venezuela grew in favor when Pedro José de Olavarriaga visited it from 1720 to 1721 and made a report on the conditions of commerce there, including the boom in Venezuelan cocoa and the obvious deterioration of trade between the province and Spain.

The Compañía Guipuzcoana was created with broad powers by the royal decree of 25 September 1728. In 1730 its first ships sailed, and its business was rapidly established. Three years later it declared a dividend, and its volume of trade was steadily rising. The compañía extended its area of activity to include Maracaibo in 1752. It achieved a substantial reduction in the price of cocoa, increased production, extended areas of cultivation, and increased the crown's revenues.

The formation of the compañía and its success caused great uneasiness in the province, however. Andresote's uprising in Yaracuy occurred between 1730 and 1733, and later the displeasure of the creole elite would be felt with greater force, since the compañía's activities destabilized the business that the local merchants and harvesters had with other Spanish colonies.

In 1749 Juan Francisco de León, backed by a great number of notables and important cocoa growers, led a revolt against the compañía. Added to the discontent were accusations that the directors were benefiting illicitly by making private deals, by not paying dividends to shareholders, and by rendering inadequate accounts to the crown. All of this resulted in the convocation of a general junta to investigate the compañía and the imposition of severe restrictions upon it. A price-regulating junta was formed; the compañía was obliged to reserve up to one-sixth of its ships' capacity for use by the shippers of Caracas; and it was required to take on shareholders from Caracas and Maracaibo. When the intendancy was created in 1776, the compañía's activities were subject to the control of the intendant, José de Abalos. And in 1779, when war with England broke out, its business declined. By 1780 the compañía had lost its privileges, and in 1785 it was finally dissolved by the royal decree of 10 March.

See alsoColonialism; Commercial Policy: Colonial Spanish America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Roland Dennis Hussey, The Caracas Company, 1728–84 (1934).

Eduardo Arcila Farías, Economía colonial de Venezuela (1946).

Ramón De Basterra, Una empresa del siglo XVIII, los navios de la ilustración: Real Compañía Guipuzcoana de Caracas y su influencia en los destinos de América (1954).

Vincente De Amezaga Aresti, Hombres de la Compañía Guipuzcoana (1963).

Mercedes Margarita Álvarez Freites, Comercio y comerciantes, y sus proyecciones en la independencia venezolana, 2d ed. (1964).

Additional Bibliography

Aizpurua, Ramón. Curazao y la costa de Caracas: Introducción al estudio del contrabando de la provincia de Venezuela en tiempos de la Compañía Guipuzcoana, 1730–1780. Caracas: Academia Nacional de Historia, 1993.

Cohen, Jeremy David. "Informal Commercial Networks, Social Control, and Political Power in the Province of Venezuela, 1700–1757." Ph.D. diss., University of Florida 2003.

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