ABSTRACT: West Indian Workers in the Sur del Lago Zuliano, 1880-1950: Agricultural expansion and labor mobilization

Historians of Venezuela have long acknowledged the contribution made by black workers from the Caribbean in the early years of the Venezuelan oil industry. Less is known about the role they played in the agricultural economy, especially in the western sta tes. Caribbean workers played a significant role in agriculture in the Sur del Lago zuliano, the region lying south of Lake Maracaibo in the western Venezuelan state of Zulia. Present in the Sur del Lago in numbers by the late-nineteenth century, some Wes t Indian immigrants even became landowners and employers of immigrant labor. The development of a modern sugar industry in western Venezuela expanded the role of Caribbean labor after 1910. The modernization of the sugar industry exascerbated an existing labor shortage and increased incentives for the importation of West Indians. Hundreds came to the region to provide the sugar industry with skilled labor. Caribbean migrants to region had to contend with an extremely coercive environment. All workers were --prior to 1935 at least--subject to a harsh system of labor discipline and frequently the targets of governmental and societal discrimination. They found various means to resist, including flight and protest, along with appeals to the authorities and dip lomatic representatives. Caribbean workers made a signal contribution to the development of the Sur del Lago zuliano. And yet by the 1930s the practice of relying on Caribbean contract labor was falling into disuse. Why did the region's landowners gradual ly stop employing large numbers of Caribbean migrant workers? One problem they faced was economic. The sugar industry fell upon hard times in the latter 1920s, reducing the demand for plantation workers. The 1920s and 1930s also saw growing opposition fro m the Venezuelan elite to nonwhite immigration, an opposition informed by race prejudice and positivist philosophy. Those in power became increasingly strident proponents of restricting immigration to white Europeans only. Immigration regulation increasin gly reflected their viewpoint. The state erected increasingly strong barriers to the importation of Antillean workers. by the late 1920s, potential importers of West Indian laborers had to post bond to ensure repatriation at the end of the contract period . Government policy prohibiting "African" immigration combined with the cost of importing such workers from abroad to render them too expensive for all but the most prosperous employers. Finally, by the 1940s Colombian immigrants were becoming increasingl y common in Venezuela, and provided a low-cost substitute to Caribbean migrants. Colombian wage laborers had by 1950 replaced West Indians as immigrants in Zulian agriculture.

Carol Cutler Linder, Ph.D.
Technical Services Advisor
The Jackson Laboratory
600 Main Street
Bar Harbor, ME 04609-1500
FAX: (207) 288-8982
E-mail: ccl@jax.org
micetech@jax.org