Pre-Chavez Economy

Pre Chavez Economy

Colonial Economy:

1. Spanish expenditionaries arrived in what is present-day Venezuela in 1498, but generally neglated the area because of its apparent lack of mineral wealth
2. This time was dominated by a plantation culture, more closely resembling the systems of the Carribbean Islands than that of a South American territory
3. Colonial authorities organized the local Indians into an encomienda system to grow tobacco, cotten, indigo, and cocoa