good
quality, the total value would approximate $600,000 according to the
valuation of that period ; and on a basis of eight grains each, it
would be $9,600,000, or sixteen times as much. But as original parcels
of pearls from the fisheries, these figures should be divided by three.
Following
1597, the productiveness of the Cubagua beds rapidly decreased. By acts
of cruelty and oppression the Spaniards had converted the surviving
Indians into deadly foes, ready to take advantage of any opportunity to
avenge themselves on their oppressors, and thus terrifying the settlers
into abandoning the enterprise. Early in the seventeenth century the
development of mining resources in Mexico, Peru, etc., attracted the
adventurous Spaniards. A considerable decrease in the value of pearls,
brought about by the skilful manufacture of imitations'at Venice, and
elsewhere in southern Europe, also affected the prosperity of the
fisheries. As a result of these combined influences, the output in
Venezuela was greatly reduced, and it ceased long before the close of
the following century. Thus ended an enterprise which, for a number of
years, represented the greatest single industry of the European people
on the American continent.
According
to General Manuel Laudecta Rosales, the Venezuela archives contain no
reference to any renewal of the fishery until early in the nineteenth
century. At the time of Humboldt's visit in 1799, the fishery was
entirely neglected around the islands of Margarita, Cubagua, and Coche,
and the only evidence of pearls was a few very insignificant ones
picked up about Cumana and sold among the natives at a piaster per
dozen.1
After
the overthrow of Spanish authority on this coast, Messrs. Rundell,
Bridge and Rundell, a firm of well-known goldsmiths of London,
obtained, in 1823, from the government of Colombia, a ten-year monopoly
of the fishery at several places on the coast of the new republic, in
consideration of one fifth of the pearls secured.2 After the
independence of Venezuela in 1829, the taxes imposed were so heavy that
the industry languished, and about 1833 it was practically abandoned.
Owing to the improved physical condition of the reefs, the fishery developed largely in 1845 ! and f°r
several years an average of 1600 ounces of pearls were secured, an
ounce of good quality selling for 150 to 500 bolivars (one bolivar
=19^2 cents), and the inferior quality at 80 to 100 bolivars.3
At that time there was a tax of sixteen bolivars per boat monthly. In
1853 this was increased to forty-eight bolivars per boat, and the use
of dredges (arrastras) was interdicted,
1 Humboldt, "Personal Narrative of Trav- the Pacific Ocean," London, 1851, Vol. I, p.
els to the Equinoctial Regions of the New 217.
Continent, 1799-1804."
3 Rosales, "Gran Recopilacion de Vene-
3 Findlay, "Directory for the Navigation of zuela," Caracas, 1889.
