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Ecuador THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
The struggle for independence in the Quito Audiencia was
part of a movement throughout Spanish America led by criollos
(persons of pure Spanish descent born in the New World). The
criollos resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the
peninsulares was the fuel of revolution against colonial
rule. The spark was Napoleon's invasion of Spain, after which he
deposed King Ferdinand VII and, in July 1808, placed his brother
Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne.
Shortly afterward, Spanish citizens, unhappy at the usurpation
of the throne by the French, began organizing local juntas loyal to
Ferdinand. A group of Quito's leading citizens followed suit, and
on August 10, 1809, they seized power from the local
representatives of Joseph Bonaparte in the name of Ferdinand. Thus,
this early revolt against colonial rule (one of the first in
Spanish America) was, paradoxically, an expression of loyalty to
the Spanish king.
It quickly became apparent that Quito's criollo rebels lacked
the anticipated popular support for their cause. As loyalist troops
approached Quito, therefore, they peacefully turned power back to
the crown authorities. Despite assurances against reprisals, the
returning Spanish authorities (Bonaparte's men) proved to be
merciless with the rebels and, in the process of ferreting out
participants in the Quito revolt, jailed and abused many innocent
citizens. They actions, in turn, bred popular resentment among
Quiteños, who, after several days of street fighting in August
1810, won an agreement to be governed by a junta to be dominated by
criollos, although with the president of the Audiencia of Quito
acting as its figurehead leader.
In spite of widespread opposition within the rest of the Quito
Audiencia, the junta called for a congress in December 1811
in which it declared the entire area of the audiencia to be
independent. Two months later, the junta approved a constitution
for the state of Quito that provided for democratic governing
institutions but also granted recognition to the authority of
Ferdinand should he return to the Spanish throne. Shortly
thereafter, the junta elected to launch a military offensive
against the Spanish, but the poorly trained and badly equipped
troops were no match for those of the viceroy of Peru, which
finally crushed the Quiteño rebellion in December 1812.
The second chapter in Ecuador's struggle for emancipation from
Spanish colonial rule began in Guayaquil, where independence was
proclaimed in October 1820 by a local patriotic junta under the
leadership of the poet José Joaquín Olmedo. By this time, the
forces of independence had grown continental in scope and were
organized into two principal armies, one under the Venezuelan Simón
Bolívar Palacios in the north and the other under the Argentine
José de San Martín in the south. Unlike the hapless Quito junta,
the Guayaquil patriots were able to appeal to foreign allies,
Argentina and Venezuela, each of whom soon responded by sending
sizable contingents to Ecuador. Antonio José de Sucre Alcalá, the
brilliant young lieutenant of Bolívar who arrived in Guayaquil in
May 1821, was to become the key figure in the ensuing military
struggle against the royalist forces.
After a number of initial successes, Sucre's army was defeated
at Ambato in the central Sierra and he appealed for assistance from
San Martín, whose army was by now in Peru. With the arrival from
the south of 1,400 fresh soldiers under the command of Andrés de
Santa Cruz Calahumana, the fortunes of the patriotic army were
again reversed. A string of victories culminated in the decisive
Battle of Pichincha, on the slopes of the volcano of that name on
the western outskirts of Quito, on May 24, 1822. A few hours after
the victory by the patriots, the last president of the Audiencia of
Quito signed a formal capitulation of his forces before Marshal
Sucre. Ecuador was at last free of Spanish rule.
Two months later Bolívar, the liberator of northern South
America, entered Quito to a hero's welcome. Later that July, he met
San Martín in Guayaquil and convinced the Argentine general, who
wanted the port to return to Peruvian jurisdiction, and the local
criollo elite in both major cities of the advantage of having the
former Quito Audiencia join with the liberated lands to the
north. As a result, Ecuador became the District of the South within
the Confederation of Gran Colombia, which also included present-day
Venezuela and Colombia and had Bogotá as its capital. This status
was maintained for eight tumultuous years.
They were years in which warfare dominated the affairs of
Ecuador. First, the country found itself on the front lines of
Bolívar's war to liberate Peru from Spanish rule between 1822 and
1825; afterward, in 1828 and 1829, Ecuador was in the middle of an
armed struggle between Peru and Gran Colombia over the location of
their common border. After a campaign that included the near
destruction of Guayaquil, the forces of Gran Colombia, under the
leadership of Sucre and Venezuelan General Juan José Flores, proved
victorious. The Treaty of 1829 fixed the border on the line that
had divided the Quito audiencia and the Viceroyalty of Peru
before independence.
The population of Ecuador was divided during these years among
three segments: those favoring the status quo, those supporting
union with Peru, and those advocating autonomous independence for
the former audiencia. The latter group was to prevail
following Venezuela's withdrawal from the confederation during an
1830 constitutional congress that had been called in Bogotá in a
futile effort to combat growing separatist tendencies throughout
Gran Colombia. In May of that year, a group of Quito notables met
to dissolve the union with Gran Colombia, and in August, a
constituent assembly drew up a constitution for the State of
Ecuador, so named for its geographic proximity to the equator, and
placed General Flores in charge of political and military affairs.
He remained the dominant political figure during Ecuador's first
fifteen years of independence.
Data as of 1989
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