The history of Coro (Venezuela) and its connection to Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.
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| Coro, Venezuela. Coro is the capital of the Falcon State in Venezuela and the second oldest city in Venezuela, founded on July 26th 1527 by Juan de Ampies. But what has Coro got to do with the ABC islands? Today I want to show you guys a short introduction regarding the history of Coro and the ABC islands. Caquetios. The Caquetio indians were natives of northwestern Venezuela who lived around Lake Maracaibo and inhabited the Falcón State of which Coro is the capital. The Caquetio indians had goot relationships with their Caquetio cousins in Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao and there also traded with them, and intermarriages were very common between them. Also the Caquetios indians of the ABC islands had their own Caciques (chiefs, leaders) but their supreme leader, was the Great Cacique Manaure who pretty much had a legendary status and the Caciques all claimed that they were descendant from him. The great chief Manaure.  Even when the Dutch eventually conquered the islands from the Spanish, they still believed that they hold jurisdiction on the islands because of the Caquetios who still dependent on them on religious matters. They asked them for blessings, baptisms, marriages. And this was because of the fact that Caquetio Indians were catholic, just like the African slaves and some Europeans. So they send alot of priests from Coro (But Caracas aswell) to help them. Even during the Dutch period, many Caquetios were migrating back and forth from Coro to the ABC islands. Africans.  It is not known how many African slaves made and survived the dangerous passage in vulnerable canoes from Curaçao to the Venezuelan coast. Archives in Coro from 1690 mention the presence of 14 runaway slaves from Curaçao. According to an ongoing research project (April 2006, Millet and Ruiz Vila), in 1585 a district of 'African Negroes' or loangos, called Guinea, was founded by people from Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire. Most of these runaway slaves were born in Africa and were called "people from Guinea," but also loangos, after Luango on the coast of West Africa. According to Paula's definition, a maroon is a slave who frees himself for a short period (petit marronage) or permanently (large marronage) from the slavery system to which he / she legally belonged. This type of resistance existed on all islands. According to a Royal Decree of April 17, 1575, that year there was a village of the same name La Guinea in the mountains of Coro and it stretched from Curimagua to Coro. Another source mentions that in 1761, 400 of these Curacao Maroons lived in the south of Coro in the Los Ranchos district. It is the same district that was called La Guinea by the inhabitants. The families were known for their dance 'al son del tambu' with songs from distant countries in their own language. On the border on this forgotten district of La Guinea, lies the district of Curazaito. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, Curazaito was known for the tambu, or loango tambu and the singing in Papiamento. It is also interesting to note that Bastiaan Karpata (Or Sebastián Carpata) and Louise Mercier who fought along side Tula and Pedro Wacao, were from Coro. And the co-leader of the slave uprising in May 1795 in Venezuela, Coro, was a ex-slave from Curacao, Jose Garidad Gonzales. In the year of 1774 alone, 140 slaves from Curacao succesfully escaped to Coro. Another group, which consisted of 76 slaves, tried to escape to Coro but only five of them were successful. By the 1790s, 400 ex-slaves from Curacao (Some might be from Aruba and Bonaire aswell) were living in the southern part of Coro and also founded a community called 'Santa Maria de la Chapa' and was predominantly inhabited by males. Sephardic Jews.  Jewish cemetery of Coro, started by Mr.Joseph Curiel and his wife Debora Levy Maduro. In 1827, a group of Jews emigrated from the small island of Curaçao to the nearby port city of Coro, Venezuela. Twenty-eight years later, violent riots drove the entire Jewish population - 168 individuals - back to Curaçao. It was the first time that Jews had been expelled from an independent country in South America. The hostility directed at Coro’s Jews was in part economic in nature. Venezuela's banking system was in chaos, its government corrupt and unemployment rampant. Xenophobia - resentment of foreigners - was running high. Curacaon Jews had emigrated to Coro at the urging of that colony's Dutch government. In 1831, the Creole residents of Coro rioted to protest the rapid economic success that the immigrant Jewish shopkeepers and merchants had attained. While the local government suppressed the riots, in 1832 it imposed a special security bond which only Coro's Jewish merchants had to pay. The Jewish businessmen protested, so in 1835 the local government revised the tax so that all foreign entrepreneurs, not just Jews, had to pay twice as much for their business licenses as native-born Venezuelans. Despite this burden, and despite the hostility of the population, the Jewish merchants of Coro prospered. Historian Isidoro Aizenberg, writing in the journal of the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), observed, "Their success could not have gone unnoticed, either by the population or the government." Starting in the 1840s, the municipal government of Coro and the local military garrison asked the Jewish community for loans as advances against their taxes. These were made interest free, and at times were simply “voluntary” contributions as it became clear that the loans would not be repaid. Aizenberg notes, "With the passing of time these payments became not a financial resource which the government could tap in case of urgent need, but a regular source of funds which it came to expect as a matter of course." Fearing that the local military would grow powerful at the expense of civilian rule, the national government of Venezuela asked the Jews of Coro not to pay these unauthorized levies to fund salaries for the local garrison. The Jewish community acquiesced to the central government's request and declined meet yet another request for funds. On January 30, 1855, unable to meet the payroll, the military command at Coro dismissed the troops quartered there. The next day, a handbill circulated the city which asked, "Don't we have businesses in this city that can help the Government by advancing funds for the garrison?" This question was followed by an extortionate threat: “Aren't the businesses afraid to remain exposed to the dangers that such scandalous and unique circumstances may bring about?” A second and more direct handbill blamed the “distorted avarice” of the Jews for the “misery and helplessness” of the populace. It claimed that “many daughters of Coro, previously models of virtue,” were being “prostituted by the Jews.” It concluded by warning the Jews to leave Coro. Two nights later, a band of 30 armed men wandered through the streets, according to Aizenberg, “shooting at Jewish homes, tearing doors down and looting the shops” belonging to prominent Jewish merchants. Like many at the time, Aizenberg believes that the military, wanting to intimidate the Jews into renewing their support, printed and distributed the leaflets, as well as supplied the manpower for the riots. Ironically, the strategy backfired. By February 10, the last of Coro’s Jews had fled the city on a ship sent by the government of Curacao to rescue its citizens. A pamphlet issued that day in Coro proclaimed, “With great joy in our hearts we see today our land is free of its oppressors. . . The Jews have been expelled by the people. ” With them, of course, went the funds for any loans. When asked to do so by the Coro Jews, the Dutch governor of Curacao strongly protested their expulsion .. The Dutch did not want to see the Jews expelled because their absence might harm Curacao's trade with Coro, and they wanted to uphold the general principle that law-abiding foreign nationals had a right to protection under Venezuelan law and international treaties. The Dutch demanded that the Coro Jews be compensated for their losses and that their safe return to their adopted city be guaranteed. The Venezuelan government at first bridled at Dutch intervention and insisting that the Jews, if they considered themselves wronged, should sue in a Venezuelan court. A stalemate lasted for three years. Two Venezuelan military officers confessed to writing the incendiary anti-Semitic pamphlets in 1855, but they invoked the right of free speech and were acquitted. Finally, when two years later, on May 6, 1858, the Venezuelans agreed to pay damages and guarantee the safe return of the exiled Coro Jews. On May 6, 1858, a pamphlet circulated in Coro proclaiming, “The people of Coro do not want Jews. Get out, get out like the dogs; and if you don't leave soon the vultures will enjoy your corpses. ” Some brave Jews did return, under a guarantee from a new military governor, but the number that returned was far smaller than the one that had departed three years earlier. Today, all that remains of the Jewish community of Coro are a few small commercial establishments owned by the descendants of the early Jewish settlers, and the old cemetery in which the settlers are buried. Sources: |
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