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Venezuel The First European Colonization Of Venezuela

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Venezuela is located in northern South America, bordering the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, between Colombia and Guyana, and north of Brazil. Christopher Columbus was the first European to visit Venezuela. He came in 1498 during his third voyage to the New World, and landed on the Peninsula de Paria. More explorers came a year later, and it was Alonso de Ojeda who gave the country its name. Arriving at Lake Maracaibo, he admired the stilted houses that the Indians had build above the lake and called the place Venezuela, which means “Little Venice.” Early colonization in Venezuela was much less rampant than it was in other parts of South America, and the viceroy ruled the colony from the city of Santa Fe, which is now present-day

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