caa a22 4500 386355134 CHVBK 20180307111848.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e198906 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0022216X00014437 doi S0022216X00014437 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0022216X00014437 Singh Kelvin Kelvin Singh is Senior Lecturer in Latin American History in the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad. Oil Politics in Venezuela during the López Contreras Administration (1936-1941) [Elektronische Daten] [Kelvin Singh] When the Venezuelan dictator, Juan Vincente Gómez, died on 17 December 1935, after ruling Venezuela with an iron fist for 27 years, an outburst of popular unrest and nationalistic fervour was unleashed against the foreign oil companies operating on Venezuelan soil. The dominant oil interests in Venezuela at the time were Royal Dutch Shell, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and the Gulf Oil Company. There were several smaller companies such as British Controlled Oilfields, a British state-owned company with a network of Venezuelan affiliates, and the Socony Vacuum Company, a New York-based company which was a significant latecomer. It was the first three aforementioned companies, however, that constituted the Big Three.1 The oil companies were associated in the popular mind with the odious Gómez dictatorship and partly for this reason became the object of the people's wrath. Yet there were also practical economic and social reasons for the popular feeling against the companies. The latter paid low wages, provided miserable housing and social amenities for their workers and discriminated against Venezuelans in their employment practices.2 For more than a year after the dictator's death Venezuela was in the throes of popular unrest. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989 Journal of Latin American Studies Cambridge University Press 21/1-2(1989-06), 89-104 0022-216X 21:1-2<89 1989 21 LAS https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X00014437 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X00014437 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Singh Kelvin Kelvin Singh is Senior Lecturer in Latin American History in the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Journal of Latin American Studies Cambridge University Press 21/1-2(1989-06), 89-104 0022-216X 21:1-2<89 1989 21 LAS CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge