The nickname "Mother City of Venezuela" is not anniversary rhetoric: it has documented historical foundation. Between 1546 and 1620, El Tocuyo was the effective capital of the Province of Venezuela, operations base and logistical center from which departed the expeditions that founded a good part of the country's cities, in addition to towns in what are today Trujillo, Carabobo, Yaracuy, Mérida, Táchira, the Capital District and other states.
Why is El Tocuyo the Mother City of Venezuela?
El Tocuyo is called "the Mother City of Venezuela" because between 1546 and 1620 it was the effective capital of the Province of Venezuela, and from its jurisdiction departed the expeditions that founded the main cities of the center and west of the country: Barquisimeto (1552), Trujillo (1557), Carora (1569), Borburata (1549), Valencia (1555), San Cristóbal (1561), Caracas (1567) and many more. Without El Tocuyo as a logistical, political and religious base, Venezuelan colonial settlement would have taken a different course.
Why El Tocuyo and not Coro
Coro was the nominal capital of the Province of Venezuela, but it was on the arid coast, with poor soils, insufficient water and a hostile climate. El Tocuyo, on the other hand, offered a fertile valley, abundant river, manageable climate and good pastures. That is why, after the founding of 1545, the conquerors and the colonial authorities turned it into their real operational base: there were stored the seeds, livestock, tools and men who later went out to found other cities.
The golden period (1546–1572)
After the execution of Carvajal in 1546, El Tocuyo concentrated the political, religious and military power of the province until the capital was definitively transferred to Caracas in 1577. In that quarter century, the most important cities of central and western Venezuela were founded from El Tocuyo.
List of cities founded from El Tocuyo
1548
San Juan Bautista de Carache (initial Trujillo)
Founder: Juan de Villegas
Direct forerunner of the city of Trujillo. Refounded years later by García de Paredes.
1549
Borburata
Founder: Juan de Villegas
First colonial port of the central region, on the coast of Carabobo. Export route for Tocuyan products.
May 1552 (between the 17th and the 20th)
Nueva Segovia de Barquisimeto
Founder: Juan de Villegas
The "eldest daughter" of El Tocuyo. Today the fourth most populous city in Venezuela. Date traditionally celebrated on September 14, but Brother Nectario María proved that the actual founding was in May.
1555
Valencia (Nuestra Señora de la Anunciación de Nueva Valencia del Rey)
Founder: Alonso Díaz Moreno
Settlers and resources departed from the Tocuyan jurisdiction. Today the third largest city in Venezuela.
1557
Definitive Trujillo
Founder: Diego García de Paredes
Refounding that established the present-day city of Trujillo. It departed from El Tocuyo with Tocuyan logistical support.
1558
Mérida (Santiago de los Caballeros de Mérida)
Founder: Juan Rodríguez Suárez
Although the founding was from New Granada, Tocuyan settlers participated in its later settlement.
1561
San Cristóbal
Founder: Juan Maldonado
Residents of El Tocuyo participated in the founding.
July 25, 1567
Caracas (Santiago de León de Caracas)
Founder: Diego de Losada
From El Tocuyo — then still the logistical capital of the province — departed troops, livestock, resources and authorization for the founding. The capital of the republic is also, in part, a daughter of El Tocuyo.
1569 (refounded 1572)
Carora
Founder: Juan del Tejo (1569); Juan de Salamanca (1572)
Both expeditions departed from El Tocuyo. Today capital of the Torres Municipality of Lara State.
16th century
Cubiro
Founder: Tocuyan settlers
Town in Lara State, in the highlands, founded by colonists from El Tocuyo.
16th century
Guárico (Lara)
Founder: Tocuyan settlers
Today a parish of the Morán Municipality, founded as an agricultural outpost by families from El Tocuyo.
1620
Sanare
Founder: Francisco de la Hoz Berríos
Founded the same year as the Humocaros. Today capital of the Andrés Eloy Blanco Municipality, neighbor of Morán. Famous for the Zaragozas and the Tamunangue.
June 6, 1620
Humocaro Alto and Humocaro Bajo
Founder: Francisco de la Hoz Berríos
Founded as divisions of the Tocuyan Rosary doctrine. Today parishes of the Morán Municipality, famous for their coffee.
Beyond the formal foundings
The condition of Mother City is not reduced to the list of founding acts. El Tocuyo also contributed:
- The first regular cabildo inland of the province.
- The first major church of the Venezuelan interior.
- The first official looms and the industry of Tocuyo cloth, which supplied clothing to the continent.
- The first formal school in the interior, forerunner of Colegio La Concordia.
- The first pictorial school in the country, embodied in The Painter of El Tocuyo.
The words of Briceño Iragorry
The historian Mario Briceño Iragorry summed up the meaning of the Mother City with a phrase that has been repeated countless times:
"El Tocuyo is the most Venezuelan town that Venezuela has."
The idea — shared by historians such as Ermila Troconis de Veracoechea — is that in El Tocuyo, before anywhere else, the cultural, legal, religious and economic traits were forged that would later spread as what is Venezuelan across the rest of the territory.
Why it stopped being the capital
El Tocuyo lost political primacy for a simple reason: it was too far inland in the country, far from the coast and the ports. As colonial trade became more dependent on the Atlantic, the capitals moved north: first Coro kept its nominal title, then El Tocuyo lost it in favor of El Real de Borburata, then it was transferred to Valencia and finally, in 1577, to Caracas, where it remained.
The loss of capital status did not, however, cancel its founding condition: El Tocuyo is the mother, not because it remains a capital, but because it gave origin to everything else.