Encomienda, African Slavery, and Agriculture in Seventeenth-Century Caracas
F-| OUNDED in 1567, Caracas, as was soon evident, had neither the human nor the mineral resources to sustain a prosperous Hispanic settlement. The earliest descriptions suggest a sense of general stagnation and disappointment. In 1578, forty of the sixty vecinos in the rustic, thatched-roofed village held encomiendas, evidence that in itself an Indian grant was not enough to distinguish an elite from among the colonists. A fair measure of the lackluster appeal of early Caracas is the fact that included among the forty encomenderos of 1578 were just eighteen members of the band of 136 men who had overcome the last Indian resistance to found the town such a short time before. By contemporary estimate, these forty enjoyed the benefit of the labor of 4,000 native tributaries, but this was only onethird the number of Indians who had inhabited the region ten years earlier. For an ambitious, adventuresome generation, these small and shrinking encomiendas did not measure up to the promise of the Indies, and the majority of Caracas's conquistadors had moved on to seek their fortunes elsewhere.' A report to the king by the royal treasurer don Diego de Villanueva indicates that by 1607 Caracas had developed a minor, but regular, trade in agricultural products. Tobacco was the principal export, followed by wheat flour and small amounts of sugar, sarsaparilla, and cotton cloth. Hides, from extensive herds of privately owned cattle, were also traded