Federico Brito Figueroa was a renowned Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

n Marxist historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and anthropologist. Brito's ideas and writings played an important role in the ideological formation of Hugo Chavez

Hugo Chávez

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

, current president of Venezuela.

Born in La Victoria in Venezuela, Brito was a member of Venezuela's National Democratic Party (Partido Democrático Nacional — PDN, which later renamed Acción Democrática) in 1936. Brito later, after profound schisms appeared in the Venezuelan left, joined the Venezuelan Communist Party (Partido Comunista de Venezuela — PCV), together with Domingo Maza Zavala

Domingo Maza Zavala

Domingo Felipe Maza Zavala was a Venezuelan economist. He was director of the Central Bank of Venezuela from 1997 to 2004. He had previously been a member of COPRE and a Congressional Deputy . A professor at UCV, he also had a financial column in El Nacional from 1949 to 1963.-References:...

 and Luis Miquilena

Luis Miquilena

Luis Manuel Miquilena Hernández is a Venezuelan politician. He was born on July 29, 1919 in Santa Ana de Coro, Falcón State. He was involved in politics in the 1940s, and again after the 1958 restoration of democracy, but retired from politics in 1964 until the early 1990s, pursuing a career in...

.

In 1946 Brito entered the Instituto Pedagógico Nacional (National Teaching Institute) in order to obtain the title of professor of social sciences. Brito later travelled to México

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. There, he studied in the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National School of Anthropology and History). Along with Wenceslao Roces and François Chavalier, Brito graduated with a degree in ethnology

Ethnology

Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...

 and anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

. Brito returned to Venezuela in 1959, after Marcos Pérez Jiménez

Marcos Pérez Jiménez

Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez was a soldier and Presidents of Venezuela from 1952 to 1958.-Career:Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez was born in Michelena, Táchira State. His father, Juan Pérez Bustamante, was a farmer; his mother, Adela Jiménez, a schoolteacher...

's toppling, and began studies at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and was licensed as a historian and obtained his doctorate in anthropology. Brito's doctoral thesis was the renowned and influential work La estructura económica de Venezuela colonial (The Economic Structure of Colonial Venezuela), which he wrote in 1963 and published in 1978.

Key points of his works included the elucidation of slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

, the study of Venezuelan "Federal War" general Ezequiel Zamora

Ezequiel Zamora

Ezequiel Zamora , 1 February 1817 - 10 January 1860) was a Venezuelan soldier and leader of the Federalists in the Federal War of 1859-1863. His life was marked by the romanticism that characterized liberals of the time....

, and a critical and probing analysis of the socioeconomic underpinnings of both colonialism

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

 and neocolonialism

Neocolonialism

Neocolonialism is the practice of using capitalism, globalization, and cultural forces to control a country in lieu of direct military or political control...

. Brito died in Caracas

Caracas

Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...

on 28 April 2000.

Works

• Ezequiel Zamora. Un capitulo de la historia nacional, Caracas, 1951
• Liberacion de los esclavos, Caracas, 1951
• Venezuela, siglo XX, 1967
• La estructura económica de Venezuela colonial, Caracas, 1978
• Tiempo de Ezequiel Zamora, Caracas, 1981
• El problema tierra y esclavos en la historia de Venezuela, Caracas, 1982
• Historia económica y social de Venezuela: Una estructura para su estudio, Caracas, 1979/1987