San José de Guaribe, Guarico State, Venezuela

🇻🇪 The Municipality of San José de Guaribe is one of the 15 municipalities that are part of the State of Guárico, Venezuela. It is located in the eastern part of the State and has an area of 1,128 km²,which represents approximately 2% of the state's territory. This municipality is bordered to the east by the Anzoátegui State, to the west by the José Tadeo Monagas municipality to the north by the Miranda State and to the south by the José Félix Ribas municipality. The distribution of the population by age groups for the year 2006 assumes the form of a pyramid, characteristic of developing countries. This means a high concentration of the population in the younger age groups and the progressive decrease in this concentration as the years of life increase. It can be said, therefore, that the population of this municipality is fundamentally young. 65% of the population is under 30 years of age and 50% of it is composed of the child-youth population group (0 to 19 years old)

Agriculture is the main economic activity of the municipality.

From 1970 it belonged to the old Monagas District until 1989, when it was divided into José Tadeo Monagas Municipality and the Autonomous Municipality of San José de Guaribe.

Name The Municipality is named after its capital parish: San José de Guaribe.

"San José de Guaribe is a place name that shows the contact of cultures: indigenous culture and Hispanic culture. Guaribe or Guarive is a voice of Caribbean origin, of imprecise meaning".

History On the banks of the Guaribe River, from its source to its mouth, there were two great ethnic groups: in the upper Guaribe, the Guaiqueríes and in the middle and lower Guaribe, the Indians of the Caribbean, Guarives or Guaribes of Caribbean origin. Testimony of this presence is made in his "MEMORIES", Captain Rafael Sevilla, of the royalist army, which rest in the archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain. Similarly, the anthropologist J. M. Cruxen, who in 1948 carried out a series of excavations in San José de Guaribe itself, finding samples of pre-Hispanic pottery in an archaeological site extended in an area of 150 meters in diameter and that chronologically belonged to a culture that existed three or more centuries before the Spanish invasion of Venezuelan territory. These vestiges have been found in Guaribito, Cerro de la Peña, Santa Rosa, the Ambulatory, the Monseñor Crespo Basic School, on Orituco Street, in Barrios Caracas, on 3 de Mayo Street and in the old Aserradero.

The first accusation of land was made by the Canarian Esteban José Marrero, according to a document dated October 19, 1831, who introduced in San Rafael de Orituco, capital of Cantón del Orituco, a request that was favored by the Republican government, where he is awarded the real lands of the "Posesión Guaribe", which from that time on begin to be called "Tierras Marreñas".

At the end of the federal war, the definitive settlement begins since by 1873, according to the population and housing census, Guaribe is a hamlet in the Monagas District, with 50 houses inhabited by 299 people and was known by the following names: Paso Real de Guaribe, Guaribote and Guaribe el Paso.

Don Leonardo Aragort is pointed out along with his family, the first to settle in this region. They came from the Orituco Valleys. The truth is that by the date of the aforementioned census the following families lived in the territory: Aragort, Bandrés, Rojas, Correa, Marrero, Medina, Palacios, Pérez, Pantoja, Espinoza, González, Guayurpa, Álvarez, Sifontes, Cardier, Ron, Characo, Rivero, Malavé, Barrios, Arcila, Graffe, Armas, Seijas, Bustamante, Rangel, Itriago, Blanco, Puerta, Maldonado, Arveláez, Herrera and others. Most of them came from the Orituco Valleys, the Guanape Valleys, Zaraza, Clarines, Aragua de Barcelona, Barbacoas and other parts of the country.

In 1895, definitively, Monsignor Felipe Nery Sendrea, second bishop of the Diocese of Calabozo, on his first visit confirmed the name of San José de Guaribe, deigning from that moment the patriarch San José as the protective patron saint.

On December 22, 1903, by decision of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Guárico, the hamlet of San José de Guaribe was elevated to the category of Municipality, with the same name. This is how our parish life is born.

On February 20, 1904, the local public authorities were installed, with Mr. Miguel Graffe Hernández appointed as President of the Municipal Board and Mr. León Ricardo Blanco as the first Civil Chief.

In 1920, the owners of the "Posesión Guaribe" or "Tierras Marrereñas" donate to the population ad-perpetuam, an extension of 121 hectares that covers the perimeter of the population from the north-west corner of Plaza Bolívar (550 meters to each of the cardinal points), according to a document protocolized in the Office of Subalterno Registry of the Monagas District of the Guárico State, under N.º 62, Folio 14 to 19, First Additional Protocol, Second Quarter of 1920.

In another document N.º 3, dated January 9, 1954, authenticated in the Court of San José de Guaribe, Mr. Julián Aragort Bandrés makes a donation of 30 hectares of land, which Mr. Rafael Elías Armas receives as President of the Municipal Board. Both sign this document.

By new Law of Territorial Political Division of the State of Guárico, approved by the Legislative Assembly on 9 days of December 1988 and published in the Official Gazette dated January 4, 1989, San José de Guaribe emerges as one of the 14 Autonomous Municipalities of the Guárico State.

There is a transition stage where the Municipal Board disappears to make way for the Organizing Board of the new Municipality.

After the first direct Municipal Elections, on December 3, 1989, the first Mayor and the first Councilors of the Municipality were elected. On January 2, 1990, Mr. Oscar Rojas Espinoza took office as mayor and the citizens José Martínez Rangel, Dante Aragort Rojas (Vice President), Nery Sierra Peñalver, Yamile de Carpavire and Otilia de Ramos formed the Legislative Body. As Municipal Secretary: Ida Zoraida Rondón.

Hamlets that make up the Municipality of San José de Guaribe San José De Guaribe (Capital) with 6,809 inhabitants, El Cinco with 477 inhabitants, Uveral with 379 inhabitants, Las Aguaditas with 330 inhabitants, Congorocho with 275 inhabitants, Las Lajas with 245 inhabitants, El Cedro with 219 inhabitants, Cunaguaro with 148 inhabitants, La Ceiba with 142 inhabitants, Los Médanos with 106 inhabitants, El Totumo with 99 inhabitants, Río Negro with 96 inhabitants.

Reviewing the distribution of the population within the territory of the municipality, it is perceived as the city of San José de Guaribe is the one that concentrates most of the population of the municipality. Most of the populated centres constitute small towns, hamlets and farms. The average population per Town Center, without considering the capital city, is 79 inhabitants.

In this way, it is observed as characteristic of this municipality, the existence of small populated centres, scattered within the territory that makes it up. The estimated population density for 2006 is 10 people per km².

For the year 2001, using the Unmet Basic Needs method (structural poverty), it was estimated that in the municipality of San José de Guaribe 36% of households were in poverty. Figure that is similar to that estimated for the state of Guárico for that same year and higher than the poverty estimates made for the National total.