The early life of Hugo Chávez spans the first twenty-one years (1954–1975) of the former President of Venezuela's life. Leader of the "Bolivarian Revolution", Hugo Chávez is known for his socialist governance, his promotion of Latin American integration, and his radical critique of neoliberal globalization and United States foreign policy.
Born on 28 July 1954 in rural Sabaneta, Chávez was raised in a poor family in the rural llanos (plains) region of the Venezuelan interior. Chávez later lived with his grandmother and rose through school to obtain entry into the Venezuelan Academy of Military Sciences as a cadet. In his college years, Chávez began associating with leftists and gained exposure to various Latin American populist leaders—including Juan Velasco Alvarado and Omar Torrijos. Meanwhile, he developed a critical perspective on South America's socio-political context. These influences led Chávez to incorporate both nationalist and socialist elements in a new political ideology that he would dub "Bolivarianism". These would all come to bear upon Chávez's thinking, eventually stoking plans for a 1992 coup d'état, seeking the overthrow of Venezuela's government.
Family and ancestry
The second son of Hugo de los Reyes Chávez and Elena Frías de Chávez (née Frías), Chávez was born in the town of Sabaneta, Barinas on 28 July 1954. Sabaneta is situated in Venezuela's Andean lowlands, with the Andes Mountains to the west and south. Both Chávez's mother and father were local schoolteachers there. His father, Hugo Sr., had dropped out of school after completing the sixth grade. However, he later qualified to teach primary school.
The ancestry of the Chávez family has roots in central Venezuela's llanos. Chávez was the great-grandson of rebel Pedro Pérez Delgado, better known as "Maisanta". Maisanta was a lifelong rebel leader who helped spur an uprising that, before his capture in 1922, left dead both a Venezuelan ex-president and a state governor.
Childhood (1954–1971)
Chávez grew up in a small house composed of large palm leaves constructed over a bare dirt floor. His family lived in a small village just outside Sabaneta. Chávez and his siblings were urged by his parents to embrace education as a way of escaping their rural surroundings and attain better lives in the more prosperous cities. Chávez's mother wanted him to become a Catholic priest, and so he was made to serve as an altar boy for one year. One of his duties was to clean and polish figurines depicting the saints and Jesus; Chávez developed a dislike of Jesus' depiction as a simple figurine. Specifically, Chávez was offended by what he saw as his church's portrayal of Jesus as "an idiot" and not, as Chávez considered Jesus to be, "a rebel". These experiences resulted in Chávez's lifelong distrust of religious hierarchies.
Later, Chávez's parents sent him and his older brother Adán to live with their paternal grandmother, Rosa Inés Chávez, who lived in Sabaneta proper. This resulted in Chávez developing a stronger relationship with his grandmother than with his own mother. Later, Chávez's own parents and his siblings moved to a nearby house, Chávez recounts the odd situation of his parents' move to a different house (than that where he and his paternal grandmother lived) in Sabaneta:
"[They moved to Sabaneta] and my father built a little house... diagonally across from my grandmother's house, which was made of thatch. My parents lived there with the other children as they came along .... [Theirs] was a little house made of [cement blocks], a rural house, but it had an asbestos roof and a cement floor."
Thus, Chávez and Adán remained with their grandmother. Yet Chávez did have regular contact with his parents. Although the majority of children in the region where he grew up never pursued higher studies, Chávez proved to be one of the exceptions. He began by attending elementary school at Julián Pino School. Meanwhile, he pursued such hobbies as painting and singing. At the ages of twelve and thirteen, Chávez was a very thin child with unusually large feet, and Chávez's peers dubbed him "Tribilin", the Spanish name for the Disney character Goofy. After school, Chávez worked as a street vendor, selling the caramelized fruit sweets that his grandmother made.