Guarico

Guárico lies in the central Venezuelan Llanos, where the Guárico River winds across a plain of savannas and seasonal wetlands. Near its banks, Capuchin missionaries gathered Indigenous people from the Orinoco and the Llanos into settlements that included Guaiquerí, Mapoyo, Tamanaco and Otomaco families. In 1724 a cross was raised at the site of Calabozo, marking the foundation of a new town. During the second half of the eighteenth century Calabozo became a centre of the plains' livestock economy, where cattle, mules and horses could be gathered and traded.