Indigenous peoples in Venezuela

[2] There are at least 30 indigenous groups in Venezuela, including the Wayuu (413,000), Warao people (36,000), Ya̧nomamö (35,000), Kali'na (34,000), Pemon (30,000), Anu͂ (21,000), Huottüja (15,000), Motilone Barí, Ye'kuana[2] and Yaruro.

Archeologists have discovered evidence of the earliest known inhabitants of the Venezuelan area in the form of leaf-shaped flake tools, together with chopping and scraping implements exposed on the high riverine terraces of the Pedregal River in western Venezuela.

The Manicuaroids pre-ceramic communities was formed, primarily in Punta Gorda and Manicuare that followed one another on the islands of the Margarita and Cubagua, off the eastern coast of Venezuela, and that seem to constitute a unique cultural tradition.The bone point, shell gouge, and two-pronged stone are characteristic in this places.

Archaeological research of the site has also shed light on the patterns of migration of this pre ceramic peoples from mainland actual Eastern Venezuela to the Lesser Antilles between 5000 and 2000 BCE.

After 250 CE a third group, called the Barrancoid people migrating up the Orinoco River toward Trinidad and other island of the Antilles navigating in wooden canoes.

The Timoto-Cuica culture was the most complex society in Pre-Columbian Venezuela; with pre-planned permanent villages, surrounded by irrigated, terraced fields and with tanks for water storage.

Termed the Mayoid cultural tradition, dividing their territory with the Arawak, against whom they fought during their expansion toward the east and navigating the Lesser Antilles until Puerto Rico.

[11] In the islands of Cubagua and Margarita off the northeastern coast of Venezuela the indigenous people as expert divers harvesting the pearls that normally used as ceremonnial ornaments.

Spain's colonization of mainland Venezuela started in 1514, establishing its first permanent South American settlement in the present-day[update] city of Cumaná.

[12] Amerindian caciques (leaders) such as Guaicaipuro (circa 1530–1568) and Tamanaco (died 1573) attempted to resist Spanish incursions, but the newcomers ultimately subdued them.

The early colonial settlements focussed on the northern coast,[9] but in the mid-eighteenth century the Spanish pushed further inland along the Orinoco River.

[14] In 1913, during a rubber boom, Colonel Tomas Funes seized control of Amazonas's San Fernando de Atabapo, killing over 100 settlers.