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| Historia de la Masonería Venezolana |
We will begin indicating the existence of an original manuscript (A.N.H., ar: Páez, Jose Antonio) dated in Valencia, 9 of July of 5,823 of the Era Masónica, (1823 of the Christian Era), a request of clear letter to Friendly Lodge N 25 of Maryland. One is a masónica formality to affiliate lodge to masonería international. This document is the only reference of the lodge whose V.: Teacher was Jose Antonio Páez, but in him they appear the companies of próceres of the stature of general Jose Abreu de Lima, general Juan Uslar, colonel the Georges Woodberry, commander Luis Flegel, V. Torres, Pedro Celis, Juan de Escalona and Pedro Guillén; the military, members of the General Staff of general Páez in the Campaign of Carabobo that soon accompanied in the site to Port Hair and the others, civilian authorities of the region. General Páez, did not mention to masonería in his Autobiography, we do not know if he visited lodges during his stay in the United States and Argentina; nevertheless one says that its company/signature appears in the book of registry of the Supreme Council of Degree 33 of Venezuela, but to any historian it has not allowed itself him to study those documents, we either found evidences of his attendance to lodges, after his arrival to the power. We know that masonería arrived first a the islands from the Caribbean, with the British trimmings, and that between the legionaries of worked a lodge referred by Gustavus Hippisley in (Narrative the expedition to the rivers Orinoco and Apure..., London, J. Murray, 1819) where he affirms to have attended the initiation of general Montilla in a lodge that met in the house of James Hamilton in the city of Narrowness. In the file of the Great Colombia, microfilmed in the Boulton Foundation, is a safe-conduct of the British military brotherhood for Dionicio Egan, signed in Achaguas in 1817. The bond of general Páez with the British was described by R.B. Cunninghame Graham (taken from Level Chesterton) in: Jose Antonio Páez. Caracas, A.N.H., 1959, p. 118) of the following form: ' It pleases very specially of the English, to those who it calls brothers, and there is lawyer always with greater enthusiasm by the titles that they have to the gratitude of the country. Its intrepidity makes beloved by them and excepting to Mari6no, the head of Colombia is Páez that enjoys more popularity between ingleses'. He is worth the trouble to indicate that in 1854, for the moment of his death, general Mari6no was the Calmest Great Teacher of the Venezuelan Masonería, perhaps masón older, possibly initiated in Trinidad in the lodge of the street of the Three Oil lamps. In 1853 masones of Caracas asked for the Q:.H:: Jose Gregorio Monagas aministía the patient to prócer, under whose masónica investiture the Great Provisory Lodge in 1854 was created. He would be interesting to be able to observe if masonería and the brotherhood with the English maintains some relation with that qualitative jump that gave general Páez from a frank llanero that educates its wild modales to enter the world of the halls and the protocol. The lodge could be an ideal atmosphere to train in oratoria and to acquire modales. But we either do not forget its acute intelligence, its capacity of adaptation and its will to be placed at level of the high dignity that represented. One masonería more or less organized settled down in Venezuela as of 1824, date that the masónica tradition gave the foundation of the Great Lodge of the Republic of Colombia, with seat in the city of Caracas, presided over by the lawyer Diego Urbaneja Baptist. That same year arrived a controversial French personage from masonería North American, Jose Cernau, granting degree 33 to próceres, including a the same Liberator who not even was in Venezuela. Masones like Gerónimo Pompa, that according to its own testimony, was initiated in 1823, in less of a year received the 33 degrees of masonería, general Páez also figure in the list (A.G.N., White Jose Felix, T.II, CAP 8, fl, 298). The reader masón will be able to imagine this category of masones in one masonería infiltrated by the policy. According to the Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Masonería, and the version been brief of the same one, Cernau usurped the powers of Sovereign Great Commander who had only granted itself to him to work in Cuba. Excellent would be to be able to establish entailment of masonería with power political in century XIX, because the 26 of 1850 July, Páez arrived exile at New York, and in June of 1851 the schism in masonería was made official that maintained it divided until the 12 of January of 1865, 19 days after the Constituent Assembly ratified to general Falcón like President, a teacher masón of the lodge Brotherly Union of Choir. Páez again in exile, and a new generation of masones to the power, after concluded the Federal War. The assembly of reconciliation of masonería was presided over by president the ordered, general Antonio White Guzmán, future protector of the Order. During the opening of this act of masónica unit leyo Psalm CXXXII, 11 and 12: ' In truth Jehovah to David swore. One will not separate from it: Of the fruit of your belly I will put on your throne. If your children kept my alliance, and my testimony that I will teach to them. Their children will seat on your throne for ever.
