In 1822 Bolivar departed bent on the conquest of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, leaving a New Granadan vice-president as ruler of the great Colombian republic, of which Venezuela was merely one division. The massacres and sackings of ten bloody years had depopulated and impoverished Venezuela, and the cost of maintaining the army and aiding Bolivar in his foreign contests drained its exhausted resources. The educated Creoles, especially powerful in the agricultural regions near the coast, saw no place for themselves in Bolivar's centralising system. They wanted to control the offices in their own localities, and did not relish the establishment of a bureaucracy in which appointments and promotions would be settled at BogotÁ. The predominant radical French ideas added force to the sentiment of local independence. The theorists were offended by Bolivar's manifest predilection toward aristocratic forms and the favours which he granted the clergy. Most dangerous of all, jealousy of the Liberator was rife among the generals.

Paez had been left at the head of military affairs in Venezuela and soon after the capture of Puerto Cabello he became involved in quarrels with the municipal authorities. The llanero general recked little of the arguments of the lawyers, and carried things with a high hand. In 1826, when the BogotÁ government sent an order for the organisation of militia, he filled the measure to overflowing, and the municipality of Caracas made a formal complaint to the central government. A decree for his suspension was issued, but a riot in the streets terrorised the cabildo and he was replaced in power as a sort of dictator. This amounted to a destruction of the influence of the central Colombian government in Venezuelan affairs. Many cities raised the standard of rebellion and made themselves virtually independent. Bolivar hastened back from Peru to reduce his old companion in arms to obedience. He cajoled Paez into temporary co-operation, subdued most of the revolted cities, and, seeing that his system could not be sustained without coercion, assumed a dictatorship. But the news that Peru had revolted destroyed his dream of a continent-wide dominion, and the demand for local autonomy continued so strong throughout Venezuela and New Granada that he was forced to call a national assembly to amend the Constitution on the basis of a compromise. In spite of Bolivar's intrigues nearly half the elected delegates staid away, and a majority of those who presented themselves at Ocana, in March, 1828, though chosen under the pressure of his influence, opposed his measures.

The minority who favoured him withdrew at his suggestion, leaving the congress without a quorum. It dissolved and the Liberator visited Caracas, Cartagena, and BogotÁ, calling popular assemblies whose deliberations were directed by bayonets and which obediently besought him to save the country from anarchy in his own way. He issued a decree virtually abolishing the CucutÁ Constitution, but a conspiracy to assassinate him was formed at BogotÁ in the fall of 1828, and he was saved only by the devotion of his mistress, who stood in the way of the midnight assassins, giving him time to jump from a window and escape. He took a fearful vengeance on the conspirators and banished his worst political enemies, but the incident failed to turn public sentiment in his favour, and it was in vain that he exhibited himself as a martyr. His old friend, General Cordoba, headed an unsuccessful insurrection in the province of Antioquia; insurgents rose in Popayan and Rio Negro, and towards the end of 1829, in Bolivar's native city, Caracas, an assembly of one thousand generals, public functionaries, and prominent citizens announced that Venezuela would shortly separate from Colombia and called upon Paez to assume a dictatorship. The Liberator struggled vainly against the rising tide of federalism; the country was at heart opposed to CÆsarism and union; he had been unable to convince the Creoles of the advisability of providing a strong centralised government; and his only supporters were personal ones. Bitterly protesting that he was falsely charged with aspiring to mount a throne, and insisting that his real ambition had been only to secure the perpetuity of the Colombian union and establish an ordered government, he offered his resignation. Congress, however, contained many of his friends and hesitated at coming to an open breach. He was re-elected and made one last effort to enforce the obedience of Venezuela. But the troops he raised in New Granada did not dare to attack Paez, who with superior forces was waiting in an impregnable position near the frontier. Sick and discouraged, the Liberator renewed his resignation—this time in earnest—and retired to the seacoast, where a few months later he died of a wasting sickness at the early age of forty-seven. Though his courage, energy, and sublime persistence and self-confidence had been the chief factors in securing South American independence, those qualities proved utterly inadequate to hold in check the unruly ambitions of the Creoles. He died clearly foreseeing the decades of anarchy which lay before the northern countries of the continent. "I blush to admit it," he said to congress on the eve of his fall, "but independence is the only benefit we have achieved, and that has been at the cost of all others." On his death-bed he wrote: "Our Constitutions are books, our laws papers, our elections combats, and life itself a torment. We shall arrive at such a state that no foreign nation will condescend to conquer us, and we shall be governed by petty tyrants."

The Venezuelan federalists had not waited for Bolivar's death to complete the formal separation from Colombia. In May, 1830, a constituent congress assembled which named Paez dictator and notified BogotÁ that the country regarded itself as absolutely independent. But Bolivar had partisans and the ruling clique enemies. The eastern provinces refused to recognise Paez's authority and the whole country was soon under arms. But Bolivar's death and the virtual recognition of Venezuela's independence by New Granada brought about a treaty between Paez and Monagas, the chief of the insurrection. The Creole aristocracy came to a working understanding with the generals, and little cliques in each city supported the central government as long as they were recognised as dominant in their own localities. Naturally the ignored outsiders were dissatisfied and plotted to overthrow these oligarchies. In May, 1831, a revolution broke out in Caracas which menaced nothing less than the extermination of the property-holding classes, but it was suppressed and its leaders executed. On paper the form of government was most liberal, congress abolishing the tobacco monopoly and many odious taxes inherited from Spanish times, proclaiming religious freedom, and adopting a Constitution very similar to that of the United States. But in practice the conservative cliques had things their own way. Though ambitious chiefs headed insurrections from time to time, they were all bought off or defeated, and Paez continued president until 1835, leaving the country in a condition of comparative order and prosperity.

Doctor Vargas, a civilian, succeeded him, but against him the generals revolted, declaring MariÑo dictator. Carujo, the soul of the insurrection, said, in the act of making the president and his ministers prisoners, "Doctor Vargas, the world belongs to the strongest," and the latter nobly replied, "No, the world belongs to the just," rÉsumÉing in a word the conflict between force and law, between unbridled ambition and the necessity for order, which has desolated Venezuela to this day and which will last until the selfish elements learn that their own true interests would best be served by promoting the prosperity of the whole people—by relying upon their own industry rather than on chances to despoil the producing classes. The government party appealed to Paez, and the llanero general accepted the command. His prestige with the common people and the army enabled him to gather forces with which he overcame the revolted generals after eight months of bloody civil war. Vargas was recalled from exile, but after a short time refused to continue in the presidency, and his place was taken by the vice-president, Doctor Narvarte. In 1839 Paez was again made president, and was succeeded in 1842 by General Soublette, another of the heroes of the war of independence. Until 1846 there was comparative tranquillity in Venezuela. The population had decreased by a fifth during the Spanish wars, being estimated at six hundred and fifty thousand in 1825, but within the succeeding twenty years it grew to a million and a quarter. Cacao, coffee, and sugar became important articles of export and made the landed proprietors rich. With the cessation of warlike operations on the plains, cattle rapidly multiplied, the first waggon roads were built, and a bank was established.

In 1846 an anti-Creole insurrection broke out among the men of colour, and Paez was again invested with dictatorial powers. When he had completed his work he installed Monagas as president. Popular irritation against the ruling conservative coterie was, however, profound and Monagas quarrelled with congress, and sent his soldiers to break up its meetings. Paez took up arms again and tried to expel his nominee, but was defeated, and for the next nine years Monagas and his brother alternated in the presidency. Though raised to power by the conservative party they abandoned it and before 1850 had thrown themselves into the arms of the liberals, or federalists. Extravagant powers were granted to the states; the provincial coteries ran their localities to suit themselves; the ties binding the different parts of the country together were weakened; an elaborate and confused set of taxes, national, provincial, and municipal, well-nigh choked commerce out of existence. More and more liberty was conceded to the states and municipalities, and, on paper, to the individual also. Slavery was abolished in 1854.

Revolutions broke out from time to time, and finally, in 1858, the so-called conservatives overthrew the Monagas rÉgime. But they immediately divided into warring groups, and their new Constitution proved too centralising to suit the Creole politicians. The liberals hoisted the banner of federalism and several provinces rose in revolt. Under the leadership of Pedro Gual the conservatives were, however, victorious, but they again split to pieces, and Gual himself went over to the liberals. A revolution in Caracas brought back old General Paez, who assumed a dictatorship and tried to re-establish the power of the central government. But it was impossible. Many disappointed conservatives had turned federalist. No politician seemed willing to submit to any administration unless he was a member of it. The struggle had degenerated into a mere selfish contest for power, and the terms liberal and conservative, federalist and unitarian, had ceased to have any real relation to the opinions of the persons who bore these appellations. General Falcon, with Guzman Blanco as lieutenant, led a successful insurrection in Coro and made himself undisputed master of a considerable portion of the country. The province of Maracaibo formally declared itself separated from all connection with Caracas. For three years civil war raged, when finally Paez gave up and Falcon assumed direction of the exhausted country. On only one thing had the rapid succession of dictators, provincial and national, been agreed,—the increase of taxes. Import duties had been raised to such a point that commerce could stand no more. But in spite of the enormous sums wrung from merchant, producer, and consumer, the treasury was empty, for the local chiefs openly took possession of the receipts of the custom-houses in their respective districts, and diversions of public funds to private use were the rule among all ranks of officials.

Falcon's success meant the definite triumph of unrestrained federalism. The twenty states into which the seven old provinces had been divided in the effort to provide enough offices to go around, became in law sovereign; the presidential term was reduced to two years; absolute liberty of the press was permitted, and the right of meeting for any purpose guaranteed. Imprisonment for debt, the death penalty, and religious instruction in the schools were all abolished. During the five years that Falcon was the chief political figure affairs in Venezuela grew worse and worse. State after state burst into revolution. Falcon sometimes whipped the insurrectionists and sometimes bought them off, but more often was unable to secure even a semblance of obedience except by conceding everything. National penury reached the limit, the states collected and pocketed the dues in most of the custom-houses, officials were in regular partnership with smugglers, and finally the feeble ghost of a federal administration simply flickered out of existence because it could pay nobody.

A chief of the so-called unitarian party was declared president in 1868, but Guzman Blanco, now the undisputed head of the federalists, retook Caracas in 1870 and installed himself as dictator. He proved the strongest and most tenacious man who had yet come to the front. With a terrific insurrection raging against him, he concentrated all powers in his own hands, suppressed the peculations of his agents, and relentlessly dragged the half-breeds and negroes into his armies. He finally put down all his enemies and in 1873 was installed as constitutional president. Until 1889 he virtually reigned over Venezuela. Though occasionally he might allow some one else to be elected president, after a short interval he would find a pretext for intervention and oust his nominee. Though the Constitution was left substantially unamended, he interpreted it as he pleased. He organised a regular machine through which he governed the "sovereign" states, taking care that none but his creatures should become governors and that the members returned to congress should be docile. To all intents and purposes his will was the law of the land, for the legislative and judicial departments were his instruments, and his executive decrees covered nearly every imaginable subject. The minutest details of commercial and social life were regulated, the clergy owed their positions to the dictator, and even private property was not safe if Blanco took a fancy to it. But in the main his tyranny was intelligent. The country escaped the desolating outbreaks of local chiefs, with forced loans wrung from property owners and merchants, the seizure of cattle and coffee for "war purposes," and the lassoing of peons to serve in the armed bands. Though the taxes imposed by Blanco were enormously heavy, the marvellous productive forces of the soil could stand almost any burden provided its amount were certain and its collection regular. Though the dictator withdrew millions for his private use, depositing them in Paris against the evil day of his expulsion, indiscriminate exactions by subordinates were suppressed. Large sums were spent on public works and buildings, and the beautification of the city of Caracas, one of the handsomest and best-built cities in America, dates from Guzman Blanco's time. Nearly five hundred miles of railroad were constructed. The country was given and has retained the inestimable blessing of a stable currency, and the coffee and cacao businesses increased enormously. The number of cattle, which the civil wars prior to 1870 had reduced to one million four hundred thousand, increased sevenfold in fifteen years.

But Blanco's system was anomalous and rested on no secure foundation. The commercial and property-holding classes abstained from politics, the people became tired of his busybody tyranny, the peons were still an inert and ignorant mass, harmless by themselves, but furnishing a tempting recruiting ground for ambitious revolutionists. Nor had the Creole politicians changed their nature. There were plenty of talented adventurers whose mouths fairly watered seeing the immense fortune Blanco was accumulating, and who only waited a favourable opportunity to conquer a share in the spoils. The successful outbreak came in 1889, headed by Rojas Paul. His success was a signal for other chiefs to imitate his example. Resolute leaders hastily organised bands of peons, and the old story of pronunciamentos, kidnappings of peaceful peasants, attacks, surprises, forced loans, and all the demoralising and disintegrating horrors of civil war were repeated. Paul was overthrown by Andueza, and in 1892 Crespo got to the head of affairs and held power long enough to accumulate a respectable fortune. Andrade succeeded Crespo, but had to divide the spoils with his predecessor. The disturbances did not become of a character to injure seriously Venezuela's commerce and production until 1896, but there then began a rapid decline in the value of her exports. The government's revenues diminished a third and amounted to less than half the expenditures. The debt grew to alarming figures and the guaranteed interest on foreign capital employed in building railroads was allowed to fall into arrear. In 1899, Castro, a man hitherto unknown in politics, started an insurrection against Andrade in the western state of Los Andes. Marching from one town to another his army grew like a rolling snowball by forced enlistments, and though the sturdy hillmen did not know what they were fighting for and would gladly have been at home, they showed all the stolid bravery that seems inborn in their race. The government troops could not stand against them, and Castro finally entered Caracas in triumph. Though insurrection after insurrection has broken out against him, the dauntless courage with which he leads his men has enabled him to maintain himself. The successful South American revolutionist must be willing to risk losing his own life, for so long as he leads he will be followed, but his cowardice or death means a rapid dissolution of his forces.

Though the solidity acquired by the Venezuelan commercial and financial structure during the long years of Blanco's reign has prevented the country from reverting into the anarchy which prevailed before 1873, and though the spirit of federalism is not so rampant and the chieftains aspire rather to a control of the whole country than to power confined to their own localities, the recent civil wars have disorganised the finances. Internal production has been hampered and external obligations have been deferred—the latter with serious consequences. Anti-foreign sentiment, already raised to a threatening height by the boundary dispute with British Guiana—a long-standing matter which was happily settled by arbitration after menacing a serious rupture between the United States and Great Britain,—was further exacerbated by the blockade of Venezuelan ports and the destruction of the Venezuelan navy by the joint fleets of Germany, England, and Italy in 1902—measures to which the European governments had been incited by the failure of Venezuela to settle claims of their citizens. In the face of this foreign war the civil conflicts were interrupted, and President Castro empowered the American minister to negotiate for the submission of the claims to arbitration. To the weight of the sentiment that international money claims should not be enforced by warlike measures was added the existence of a current of opinion in the United States which favoured arbitration as in this instance certainly the best method of adjustment. The temporary occupation of ports on American soil by European powers might give the latter a military hold in the western continent which would embarrass and complicate more important relations. The submission was quickly and amicably arranged, the claims of the citizens of other countries are to be ascertained at the same time, and the matter is now before The Hague international tribunal.

By a resolution of congress General Castro is empowered to hold the office of president for six years from 1902. Bitter and costly as have been the experiences through which Venezuela has passed during the last twelve years, the vast majority of the intelligent and property-holding classes realise more clearly than outsiders possibly can that internal stability will alone ensure the commercial development of the country; that Venezuela united is far more likely to prosper than if separated into always jealous and often warring provinces. The mass of the people are industrious and peaceable. Real progress has been made since the time of Bolivar in the almost impossible task of adjusting republican forms and procedure to a people who by inheritance and tradition knew nothing of the difficult art of self-government. It cannot fairly be said that Venezuela as yet sees her way clear to a solution of the problem, but her commercial statistics for the last thirty years prove that her people have acquired industrial capacity, and the history of other Spanish-American countries shows that the power for evil of the turbulent military class may perish once for all with startling suddenness when the right stage in national development is reached.