By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA)
Transition for Readers New to This Series
Spain lost Venezuela, but Spain’s power did not vanish with the empire. After independence, control condensed. Kings disappeared. Strongmen stepped forward. The collapse of Spanish rule opened a political vacuum that was not filled with partnership councils or broad civic participation. Instead, Venezuela entered a long century when CAUDILLOS, personalist rulers whose authority rested on loyalty, violence, and inherited hierarchy. What followed echoed older Anunnaki domination consciousness templates from ancient Sumer.
1830: Separation and the Rise of Páez
In 1830, Venezuela separated from Gran Colombia.
During the wars of independence, Simón Bolívar and José Antonio Páez cooperated as allies against Spanish rule, especially in the Venezuelan plains, where Páez’s llanero cavalry was crucial to key victories such as the Battle of Carabobo in 1821, which effectively secured Venezuela’s liberation from Spanish authority. Páez commanded llanero cavalry, defeated royalist armies, and mastered the politics of loyalty.
Once independence ended, Páez converted battlefield prestige into political dominance. Bolívar was the supreme commander of the libertador forces, and Páez initially acknowledged Bolívar’s leadership in the broader campaign for independence, sharing a common purpose even as their backgrounds differed sharply, with Bolívar’s aristocratic, Enlightenment-inflected vision and Páez’s rougher, plains-born pragmatism.
After independence, however, tensions grew between them as the political landscape shifted. Páez became increasingly powerful in Venezuela and led the La Cosiata movement of 1826, which rejected Gran Colombia’s centralized authority and pressed for Venezuelan autonomy.
Bolívar responded by granting Páez a degree of autonomy, but the episode highlighted a deep divide: Bolívar sought broader regional unity under a strong central government, whereas Páez favored regional autonomy and the dominance of local elites.
This early cooperation, followed by political separation, shaped Páez’s approach to rule. Free of Bolívar’s unifying influence, Páez consolidated power in Venezuela itself, serving multiple presidential terms and exercising authority either directly or behind the scenes. His rule exemplified the 19th-century caudillo model in which personal leadership and military prestige took precedence over institutional governance, a pattern rooted in his wartime prominence but intensified by his break with Bolívar’s vision of integration.
Páez had commanded llanero cavalry, defeated royalist armies, and mastered the politics of loyalty. Once independence ended, Páez converted battlefield prestige into political dominance. He ruled directly, then indirectly, then again directly. Presidents came and went. Páez remained.
I fought for freedom, a veteran thinks. Why does one man still decide everything?
Perhaps the answer for our vet is that Páez spoke the language of republicanism while practicing personal rule. Constitutions existed. Institutions remained fragile and real power flowed through patronage networks, military allegiance, and land control.
Caudillo Politics: Miniature Kingdoms Without Crowns
Across Venezuela, regional strongmen rose. Each controlled territory through private militias, family alliances, and economic leverage. These men ruled like localized princes, commanding obedience rather than consent.
Councils weakened. Courts bent. Armed loyalty replaced law.
This pattern resembled a return to city-state rule: fragmented authority, militarized leadership, and personalized command. In Sitchin-student terms, the old Enlil-line dominator template resurfaced—authority concentrated in a single figure, enforced by force, justified as “necessary order.”
They call it stability, a farmer mutters. It feels like fear.
Class, Caste, and Daily Life
Venezuela’s social structure hardened after independence.
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Creole elites controlled land, trade, and government.
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Llaneros supplied muscle and loyalty, rewarded inconsistently.
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Mestizo and Afro-descendant populations labored on ranches and plantations.
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Indigenous communities lost land and autonomy, pushed to margins or absorbed as cheap labor.
Colonial racial hierarchies survived independence almost intact. Legal slavery ended later, but economic dependency endured.
The land feeds others now, an Indigenous elder thinks. Our names fade from the maps. But Mother Earth [Ninmah] remembers us.
Slavery, Abolition, and Its Limits
Slavery had structured colonial Venezuela’s economy. African slaves worked cacao plantations, ranches, and mines. After independence, slavery persisted until 1854, when abolition finally arrived.
Chains broke. Land did not change hands.
Former slaves entered a society that offered freedom without property, wages without security, and citizenship without power. Many became rural laborers tied to estates through debt and necessity.
Free, someone whispers. But free to go where?
The Federal War: Peasants vs. Oligarchs (1859–1863)
The tensions exploded in the Federal War, a brutal civil conflict that devastated the countryside. Peasants and rural fighters demanded land, federal autonomy, and relief from elite dominance. Oligarchs and caudillos resisted.
Villages burned. Fields emptied. Thousands died.
The war ended without structural reform. Central authority reasserted itself. The countryside paid the price.
We bled for a word, a soldier thinks. Federalism.
Technology and Control
The late 19th century saw the introduction of new tools: telegraphs, improved ports, and export logistics. These technologies connected Venezuela more tightly to global markets—and to foreign capital.
They also centralized control. Information moved faster to the capitals than to the villages. Exports mattered more than subsistence. The groundwork was laid for future external influence, especially from rising industrial powers.
The wires speak faster than we do, a villager thinks.
Páez and the Strongman Pattern
Páez functioned as a prototype: the heroic savior who became the gatekeeper. He commanded loyalty beyond office, shaped governments without always leading them, and justified authority as protection against chaos.
This pattern did not end with him. It embedded itself into Venezuelan political culture.
Only I can hold this together, the strongman believes.
The resemblance to modern populist figures lies not in policy, but in structure: personality over institutions, loyalty over law, spectacle over accountability.
Deeper Memory and the Anunnaki
From my perspective, independence fractured imperial control but did not dissolve ancient domination templates. Authority shifted from European monarchs to local elites who unconsciously reenacted older sky-lord hierarchies—command from above, obedience below.
Yet beneath this structure, Indigenous partnership currents endured. Memory persisted in land rituals, communal ethics, and resistance to absolute rule.
We remember another way, the land whispers.
Conclusion
Between 1830 and 1908, Venezuela replaced the empire with strongmen. The names changed. The structure remained. Power concentrated. Partnership receded. The land absorbed the cost.
These patterns shaped the modern nation—and helped explain why external powers later found leverage in Venezuela’s centralized systems.
Major Sources & References
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John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions
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Leslie Bethell (ed.), The Cambridge History of Latin America
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Brian Loveman, For La Patria: Politics and the Armed Forces in Latin America
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Venezuelan historical archives on abolition (1854)
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Zecharia Sitchin, The Lost Realms
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Comparative caudillismo studies in Latin American political history
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Zecharia Sitchin – The Lost Realms: Explores ancient gold traditions, Andean sacred economies, and suppressed knowledge systems relevant to South America.
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Caudillos of Latin America (Historical Overview)
Provides a comparative framework for understanding strongman politics across the region.
Hashtags
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