These two factors left a society with enormous inequality and hierarchy, but without an effective state. That meant no state institutions or legal apparatus to control the “Caribs of the Orinoco, the plainsmen of the Apure, the fishermen of Maracaibo, the boatmen of the Magdalena, the bandits of Patia, the ungovernable Pastusos, the Guajibos of Casanare.” Creole elites stuck with what they knew.
