The Merchant navigation and its practise in Venezuela have got its origins in Christopher Columbus' ships and the historical context of the Discovery of America; Columbus had already traded with wool in Europe and he also had experienced several adventures at sea. After his return from “ La Española ” island, a journey in which Columbus had been to Venezuelan coasts too, he took with him some precious metals and pearls, pottery, textiles, fruits and animals. He carried all those indigenous items and exotic species that represented a new kind of amazing and original merchandise, right from the discovered lands of the New World to the Sanlúcar de Barrameda Port, in Spain .
By the time the trading of these new items was extended throughout the Caribbean Sea, this activity was taken by powerful companies, such as the Welser's, from Germany; they had financed the Spanish monarch Charles V at the beginning of the 16 th century, so the Welsers oriented many of its businesses towards the Spanish America. Few years later, the big Cantabrian-province-based-company named “Jesuita La Guipuzcoana ” entered the scenario and it became the strongest one until the late 1800s.
It was the age of the unrest South American societies because of the revolutionary movements that later led to Independence , and trading of main products demanded a greater organisation to encourage a shipping company in the Venezuelan province. In September 1810, the Revolutionary Junta to Uphold the Rights of Ferdinand VII released a decree to establish a “ Mathematics Academy ” in Caracas . The goal was to provide the youth with useful tools to study any given degree. The decree was also meant to create a Nautical Public School in La Guaira , with a three-year-syllabus.
