The Governor and the Bishop: Conquest and Compromise in the German Occupation of Sixteenth-Century Venezuela

Beginning in the late 1520s and continuing until the middle of the century, South German merchant bankers, the Welser Company, organized, financed, and administered an invasion and settlement of Venezuela. Operating under vague and loosely defined contractual directives, administrative and religious officials regularly used their best judgment when carrying out conquest policies such as cultural assimilation, indigenous enslavement, and use of force. Venezuela’s existence on the periphery of the Spanish Main and its distance from the main offices in South Germany allowed those officials to formulate and follow policies that suited the needs of the settlement at any given time. Religious and secular officials often disagreed about policy choices, fomenting conflict among the would-be occupiers. In 1535, Venezuela Governor Georg Hohermuth, known to the Spanish as Jorge de Espira, sought to alleviate the settlement’s financial problems by setting out on an expedition into the Venezuelan interior in search of riches and slaves. Bishop Rodrigo de Bastidas, in his role as Indian protector, opposed Espira’s expedition against the indigenous and fostered an anti-Welser culture in the territory by exposing Venezuela’s poorly managed accounts. When Espira’s expedition returned defeated and empty-handed three years later, Bastidas altered his own policies to expand Venezuela’s profits through Indian slavery and the promotion of Welser interests. During this period, both the administrative and religious leaders of Venezuela failed to properly serve the welfare of the territory. In his role as a religious authority, the Bishop encountered the problems of secular leadership while Governor Espira routinely cast his religious convictions aside in order to make a profit for his South German bosses and Emperor Charles V.