Land rights in Venezuela. From the pontifical to the monarchic and republican centuries of the XIX century.

Abstract

The legal historical trajectory of land rights in Venezuela is examined caused by the Alexandrian Bulls of 1493 that conferred to the Catholic Kings the absolute title to ownership of the soil and subsoil on the “discovered and undiscovered lands”. To review this process, the study begins with the reports of Comby and Delahaye regarding “the fabrication of ownership and tenure above and below”. The first one originated by the pontifical donation to the Crown and, the second one by the transfer of monarchical rights to individuals though regulations concerning titling, adjudications, distributions and regulations of tenure, which means that ejidos and vacant lands were idle land, farms and ranches for the benefit of private domains. Next, it is explained how the process was consolidated during the liberation campaigns and the subsequent republican decades the 19th century because the new modalities of titling and tenure under the protection of liberal citizen rights to property, they were favored by determining the rights to state-owned lands and private lands that would be acquired through alienations, legal provisions that went hand in hand with the irregularities of authorities and individuals.