SUSTAINABLE GUYANA AND CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY

Authors

  • Luis Ugalde Universidad Católica Andrés Bello

Abstract

The stable and sustainable foundation of mixed peoples (indigenous and Spanish-Creole) in the immense territory of Guayana had special difficulty. There are 200 years of distance between the founding of Hispanic Caracas (and other cities and towns in the northern part of the center-west) and the founding of Angostura (1764), Upata (1762) and Barceloneta (1769). Adding the three in 1770 there are barely 2,000 non-indigenous inhabitants settled south of the Orinoco 270 years after Columbus appeared at the mouth of this river.
All cities were founded for strategic reasons and none could be founded or maintained without indigenous support. Capuchin missionaries played an exceptional role in establishing these, in addition to the dozens of sedentary towns that were indigenous-only settlements in Guiana.

Published

2022-05-17