Venezuela's conditions during colonial times produced a people possessing in the clearest and most accentuated form the characteristics distinctive of the Spanish Creole. Not more than one per cent. of the total population of over eight hundred thousand were native Spaniards; fifteen per cent. were Creoles of pure European descent; sixty per cent. were Indian, two-thirds of whom had an admixture of white blood; and three-fourths of the twenty-five per cent. of negroes and mulattoes were free. The majority did not consist of docile, inert, pure-bred natives as in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay, though the white element was not so large that the Creoles had ceased to occupy the position of a governing and property-owning caste who lived upon the labour of the half-breeds, Indians, and negroes. They regarded themselves as a superior class, entitled by birth to exemption from manual labour, and even considered commercial pursuits unworthy a gentleman. [Illustration: ANCIENT INDIAN ROCK FOR GRINDING MAIZE.] The Spanish government had concerned itself little with this purely agricultural colony, and its hand was felt only in the collection of taxes. The officials were comparatively few, the number of resident Spaniards small, and neither mutual commercial interests nor a solid administration existed to strengthen the flimsy ties that bound Venezuela to the mother-country. So little had the interference of the Spanish government been felt since the abolishment of the Guipuzcoa Company that no well-defined and widespread sentiment in favour of separation existed. There was a vague feeling of dissatisfaction among the masses, but their ignorance prevented them from forming any rational plans for the betterment of their condition. However, the Venezuelan coast is so accessible that the fertilising and disturbing currents of trade and ideas had really profoundly modified the people, and the leaven of unrest was at work. The wealthier Creoles had imbibed radical notions and were ambitious of trying their hands at governing. By heredity, social custom, and environment indisposed to industry and commerce, their unemployed activities naturally flowed into the channel of politics, intrigue, and fighting.