At the end of the eighteenth century, members of the colonial elite of the Captaincy General of Venezuela addressed a letter to the king of Spain in which they sought permission to have a printing press in the city of Caracas. In the letter, they argued that the establishment of such a press was fundamental for the economic and commercial development of the Captaincy. Months later, they learned that the permission for a printing press had been denied without further explanations. Venezuela became one of the last capital cities in colonial Spanish America to possess this technology. The lack of a printing press during this politically dynamic period moved by the Atlantic revolutions did not necessarily affect public access to reading, sharing of information, and political debate in Venezuela. Venezuela's unique geographical location, and its open and frequent connections with the Caribbean region during the Age of Revolutions allowed for the effective entrance and transit of people and written materials that spread revolutionary ideas and impressions, creating a dynamic and contested political environment. Here I argue that during the late-colonial period, semiliterate forms of knowledge transmission, partially promoted by Spanish reformism, mobilised a socially diverse public that openly debated the monarchical regime, the system of slavery, and the hierarchical socio-racial order of colonial society. The colonial public sphere in Venezuela was shaped, then, within a context of emerging socio-racial tensions and became a space of contestation and struggle, animated by the overlapping of contradictory political discourses.

This study contributes to recent debates about the character, nature, and relevance of the public sphere in the colonial world. It explores the circulation of manuscripts and ephemeral written materials, the different modes of production and reception of texts that developed in the colonial context, and an analysis of the character of the urban spaces that facilitated the performativity of texts. It thus offers a new framework for understanding the emergence of a public sphere in Venezuela, a colonial peripheral province with no printing press.

十八世纪末，委内瑞拉总督的殖民地精英成员致西班牙国王的信，他们在信中寻求允许在加拉加斯市拥有印刷机。他们在信中争辩说，建立这样的新闻社对于船长的经济和商业发展至关重要。几个月后，他们得知没有进一步解释就拒绝了印刷机的许可。委内瑞拉成为西班牙殖民时期拥有这项技术的最后一个首都城市之一。在大西洋革命所影响的政治活跃时期，缺乏印刷机并不一定影响委内瑞拉的公众阅读，信息共享和政治辩论。委内瑞拉独特的地理位置，革命时代与加勒比海地区的开放和频繁联系使人们和书面材料的有效进入和过境得以传播，这些思想和印象散布着革命性的思想和印象，创造了一个充满活力且充满争议的政治环境。在这里，我认为，在殖民时代后期，半文盲形式的知识传播（由西班牙改良主义部分推动）动员了一个社会多元化的公众，公开辩论君主制，奴隶制和殖民社会的等级社会种族秩序。委内瑞拉的殖民公共领域被塑造，然后，在新出现的社会种族紧张关系的背景下，由于相互矛盾的政治话语的重叠，成为竞争和斗争的空间。

这项研究有助于最近有关殖民世界公共领域的特征，性质和相关性的辩论。它探讨了手稿和临时书面材料的发行，在殖民地背景下发展的文本的不同生产和接受方式，以及对促进文本表现力的城市空间特征的分析。因此，它为了解委内瑞拉的公共领域的出现提供了新的框架，委内瑞拉是一个没有印刷机的殖民边缘省份。