Don Bartolomé Gil Naranjo was a Spanish judge who founded several settlements in the province of Mérida in what is today Venezuela in the late 16th century.
His purpose was to gather the indigenous people in villages under Spanish control in part to facilitate religious indoctrination, in part to control the workforce in cultivating the appropriated lands.
[1] An early source records that Gil Naranjo founded thirty three such villages, each dedicated to a particular saint.
[3] He established the first foundation at Mucurubá on 25 March 1586, a school hosted by the Augustinian friars.
[5] Tabay, founded by Gil Naranjo in 1589, became the residence of landowners who years later turned this town into one of the largest producers of coffee in the country.