José Tadeo Monagas

The century of the caudillo had started auspiciously in Venezuela, with sixteen relatively peaceful and prosperous years under the authority of General Páez.

Twice elected president under the 1830 constitution, Páez, on the one hand, has consolidated the young republic by putting down a number of armed challenges by regional chieftains.

On the other hand, Páez usually respects the civil rights of his legitimate political opponents.

Using funds earned during the coffee-induced economic boom, he oversees the building of fledgling social and economic infrastructures.

Generally considered second only to Bolívar as a national hero, Páez rules in conjunction with the criollo elite, which maintains its unity around the mestizo caudillo as long as coffee prices remain high.

In the 1840s, however, coffee prices plunge, and the elite divide into two factions: those who remain with Páez call themselves Conservatives, while his rivals call themselves Liberals.

The Liberals first come to prominence in 1846 with Páez's surprising selection of General José Tadeo Monagas as his successor.

Two years later, Monagas ousts all the Conservatives from his government and sends Páez into exile, precipitating a decade of dictatorial rule shared with his brother, José Gregorio.

The abolition of slavery in Venezuela in 1854 is the only noteworthy act by the Monagas brothers.

In 1857 they introduce a new constitution in an obvious attempt to install a Monagas family dynasty.

The regime is ousted the following year in a revolt that includes elite members of both parties.

 

Venezuela's elite factions fail to agree on a replacement for Monagas, however, precipitating twelve years of intermittent civil war so chaotic that few history texts bother to chronicle the details.

Between 1858 and 1863, local caudillos engage in a chaotic power struggle known as the Federal War because the Liberals favor federalism.

In the end, the Liberals triumph, and General Juan Crisóstomo Falcón is named president.

Venezuela has since 1848 been under the dictatorial rule of José Tadeo Monagas or his younger brother, José Gregoria Monagas, who have alternated in the country’s highest office and have tried to extend the presidential term from four to six years.

In March 1858, the brother autocrats are been overthrown in a revolution engineered by Conservatives and Liberals, who are both vying for power.

Civil strife erupts promptly among ambitious caudillos (military leaders) in the provinces, and Venezuela becomes embroiled in the so-called Federalist Wars, mainly pitting Conservatives against Liberals, with the former wanting a centralized government and the latter federalism and democracy.

Juan Crisóstomo Falcón emigrates to Europe at the end of his presidential term in 1868, when a conservative revolution headed by General José Tadeo Monagas ends his term as president. (He will die in Martinique in 1870. The state of Falcón is named after him.)

A member of the liberal Venezuelan Federalist Party, Falcón had first served as president of Venezuela as the supreme chief of a rebel movement in August 1859, but the rebellion had soon been crushed.

He has served as the recognized president of Venezuela from 1863 to 1868.

Also, he had briefly been overthrown in 1865.