Rufino Blanco Fombona, a prolific writer from Caracas in nineteenth-century Venezuela, published The Iron Man, an emblematic novel where he problematized the issue of nationality corrupted by neocolonial values that shaped the nascent middle class of a consumerist nature and imitative of the chic French fashion of the time.
Precisely in that setting he recounted the experiences in Caracas of some main and secondary characters during that bitter hour of the earthquake of October 29, 1900, the day of Saint Narcissus.
Regarding this, he recounted that “that morning the crowd invaded the squares and public gardens. City life was interrupted by panic. The stores did not open their doors; vehicles did not move. Only in the pharmacies, the printing presses, and the telegraph office did people crowd together, squeezing each other. The public devoured the news from Maracaibo, Valencia, Cumaná, Ciudad Bolívar, Coro, Barquisimeto, La Victoria, Mérida; those who had relatives there were in anguish…”.
It is striking that 126 years after the earthquake that shook the country, false news was still spreading everywhere, causing panic among the population; the author described how “suddenly a strange piece of news circulated. A black flag was flying at the Astronomical Observatory. And along with a chill of dread, came the anonymous and absurd announcement that a volcano would erupt at noon on Mount Ávila.”
Of course, people panicked, and amid the fierce aftershocks, they expected the supposed crater to explode. Besides the malicious gossip, foreign capital ridiculed the actions of Cipriano Castro's government as ineffective, labeling him a coward for his alleged escape by jumping from the balcony of the Yellow House, leaving behind his wife, Doña Zoila.
This event confirms that cognitive warfare is a long-standing practice in the country. Large foreign monopolies, eager for strategic raw materials to develop their productive forces, did not let such a terrible event go unpunished, exploiting the already weakened morale of Venezuelans as a consequence of this destructive event.
At the national level, incited by big capital, they called Castro "the corporal" and the "jumping president", beginning his delegitimization as ruler.
