Venezuela

The Basque community of Venezuela was born of a negotiation. In 1939, a country that wanted more people, and that had recognised Franco, accepted the Basque exiles while it closed its door to the Spanish Republicans; the PNV chose whom to send, and three ships left France that summer.

A country looking for people

At the end of the thirties, the government of General Eleazar López Contreras wanted Venezuela to have more inhabitants. His Plan Trienal (Three-Year Plan) of 1938 led to the creation of the Instituto Técnico de Inmigración y Colonización, which from the spring of 1939 was run by the writer Arturo Uslar Pietri.⁶ Its deputy director, Simón Gonzalo Salas, signed on 14 May 1938 a report whose title left no doubt about whom they were looking for: Inmigración vasca para Venezuela (Basque immigration for Venezuela).⁶

Basques yes, Spanish Republicans no

Venezuela had recognised Franco’s government in 1938.⁶ Even so, it agreed to take in Basque exiles, against the general ban on admitting Spanish Republican exiles. One of the reasons, and at the same time one of the conditions, was that the Basques were seen as people who were “religious and orderly”.¹⁰¹¹ The Venezuelan press of the time presented Basque immigration as one of the most desirable for the country.⁷

On the Basque side the negotiators were the vice-president of the Basque Government, Jesús María de Leizaola, and Julio de Jáuregui.⁶ What they obtained was favourable for anyone who was going to embark: Venezuela advanced the costs of the journey and of settling in and offered permanent work contracts, without sending the newcomers to the harsh agricultural colonies of the interior; in return, the Basques undertook to pay the money back within a reasonable period.⁶

The selection had a political slant. Venezuela asked for the emigrants to be members of the Basque Nationalist Party, and it was the PNV that chose them.⁶¹⁰ According to the historians Eneko Sanz and Óscar Álvarez Gila, that filter gave the Basque community of Venezuela its own character: it was, above all, a colony of nationalist exiles.¹⁰ Not exclusively, because there were also Basque Republicans who became part of it.¹⁰

“Better if they don’t come”

Not everyone was convinced. José María Bengoa, a Basque doctor who had arrived in Venezuela in April 1938, wrote advising against emigration: anyone who did not bring capital, or was not willing to work in the country’s harsh interior, would find few opportunities, and he also warned of endemic diseases such as malaria. His phrase, “better if they don’t come”, gives its title to Koldo San Sebastián’s study of this exile.⁶

The three ships of 1939

In 1939 three organised expeditions left France. The first, on the Cuba, sailed from Le Havre on 25 June and reached La Guaira on 9 July with 82 exiles. The Flandre left on 28 July with 139. The Bretagne, which sailed from Bordeaux, arrived on 26 August with 53.⁷

On board the Cuba were men, women and children, and among them doctors, engineers, accountants, farmers and skilled workers.⁸⁹ The expedition was led by the merchant navy captain Ricardo de Maguregui.⁷ At La Guaira they were met by, among others, Arturo Uslar Pietri and the writer Antonio Arráiz.⁸

At the end of 1939 some 300 Basques were living in Venezuela; in 1940, nearly 500. After the Second World War many more arrived.⁷