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Ecuador The Era of Conservatism, 1860-95
García Moreno is the father of Ecuadorian conservatism and no
doubt the most controversial figure in the nation's history,
condemned by Liberal historians as Ecuador's worst tyrant but
exalted by Conservatives as the nation's greatest nation-builder.
In the end, both appraisals may be accurate; the man who possibly
saved Ecuador from disintegration in 1859 and then ruled the nation
with an iron fist for the subsequent decade and a half was, in
fact, an extremely complicated personality. Born and raised under
modest circumstances in Guayaquil, he studied in Quito, where he
married into the local aristocracy, then traveled to Europe in the
aftermath of the 1848 revolutionary uprisings and studied under the
eminent Catholic theologians of the day.
García Moreno's religious education had a profound impact on
the future president. In the words of historian Frederick B. Pike:
His personal experiences seem to have influenced his
attitudes toward governing his country. In his own case,
liberalism and religious indifference had gone hand-in-
hand with personal debauchery and lack of self-control,
while religious fervor had been intertwined with a life
of rigorous self-control and spartan discipline. After
coming to the presidency, García Moreno set out to
rekindle religious fervor among Ecuadorians in the
expectation that the entire country could be made to
undergo a transformation paralleling his own.
President García Moreno saw Roman Catholicism as the ingredient of
Ecuadorian culture that, through its emphasis on order, hierarchy,
and discipline, could unite the nation and save it from the
multiple crises and disorder of the 1850s. Catholicism thus held a
prominent position in each of the two new constitutions that he
introduced: the charter of 1861 named Catholicism as the exclusive
religion, and its replacement in 1869, in addition to providing for
a six-year presidential term and unlimited reelection, made
citizenship dependent on one's adherence to the Roman Catholic
religion. In 1863 García Moreno promulgated Ecuador's first
concordat with the Vatican, bestowing vast powers on the Ecuadorian
Roman Catholic Church, especially with respect to education. A
decade later, the dictator's puppet congress dedicated the republic
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Despite such proclerical measures that have led many historians
to dub his regime a theocracy, the local clergy believed García
Moreno to be fanatical and criticized him for it. The president, in
turn, replaced many local clergymen with foreign priests in an
effort to revitalize the Roman Catholic Church in Ecuador, which he
considered degenerate and dissolute.
The highly anticlerical Liberals were, of course, livid. Urbina
organized an invasion in 1864, which was defeated with the help,
once again, of General Flores. García Moreno was ruthless in his
repression of the captured rebels, as he was commonly with less
formidable opponents as well. Nor did he hesitate to manipulate the
presidential succession. Finding his hand-picked successor
deficient after two years in office, in 1867 García Moreno presided
over the installation of a second puppet, whom he also overthrew in
1869, when it appeared that the Liberals might win scheduled
elections. In 1869 García Moreno also formally established the
Conservative Party (Partido Conservador--PC).
Shortly after the onset of his third presidential term in 1875,
García Moreno was hacked to death with a machete on the steps of
the presidential palace. The exact motives of the assassin, a
Colombian, remain unknown, but the dictator's most outstanding
critic, the liberal journalist Juan Montalvo, exclaimed, "My pen
killed him!"
Although maligned for his highly proclerical and dictatorial
ways, García Moreno made a number of vital contributions to the
development of the nation. Perhaps the most important advances were
in education. The generation of many new schools at all levels,
from primary to the polytechnical training school in Quito,
elicited universal praise, despite the fact that the Jesuits were
largely responsible for these accomplishments. Transportation links
with Quito were also vastly improved with the building of roads to
Esmeraldas and to Babahoyo, near Guayaquil, as well as the first
portion of the railroad linking Quito with Riobamba and Guayaquil.
These public works not only promoted national unity but also helped
Quito begin a long-delayed effort to overcome the geographic
barriers that had historically caused its isolation, an isolation
that had hindered the nation's integration into the world economy.
Between 1852 and 1890, Ecuador's exports grew in value from
slightly more than US$1 million to nearly US$10 million. Production
of cacao, the most important export product in the late nineteenth
century, grew from 6.5 million kilograms to 18 million kilograms
during the same period. The agricultural export interests, centered
in the coastal region near Guayaquil, became closely associated
with the Liberals, whose political power also grew steadily during
the interval. After the death of García Moreno, it took the
Liberals twenty years to consolidate their strength sufficiently to
assume control of the government in Quito.
Five different presidents governed during the two decades of
transition between Conservative and Liberal rule. The first,
Antonio Borrero, tried valiantly to return the nation to the rule
of law, but, after only ten months in office, he was overthrown by
the only military dictator of the period, Ignacio de Veintemilla.
Although he came to power with the help of the old Liberal General
Urbina, Veintemilla later evolved into a populist military dictator
rather than a politician with any party or ideological affiliation.
He was extremely popular with his troops and able to woo the masses
with employment on public works programs and large-scale public
festivals and dances during holiday periods. In office until 1883,
Veintemilla enjoyed a period of relative prosperity resulting
primarily from increased maritime activity while Peru, Bolivia, and
Chile were mired in the War of the Pacific.
José María Plácido Caamaño, a Conservative, then served as
president until 1888, and he remained a powerful figure during the
administrations of the duly elected Progressive Party (Partido
Progresista) presidents who followed him, Antonio Flores Jijón and
Luis Cordero Crespo. Flores, who was the son of President Juan José
Flores, intended progressivism to represent a compromise position
between liberalism and conservatism. The Progressive program called
for support for the Roman Catholic Church, rule by law, and an end
to dictatorship and military rule. Although neither Caamaño,
Flores, nor Cordero was able to curtail the growing animosity
between Conservatives and Liberals, their periods in office were,
for the most part, characterized by relative political stability
and prosperity. The latter resulted more from favorable
international circumstances for cacao exports than from astute
government policy making.
In 1895, midway through his term in office, Cordero fell victim
to scandal and charges of "selling the flag" over an agreement made
with Chile. Cordero allowed the warship Esmeralda, which
Chile was selling to Japan, to fly the Ecuadorian flag briefly in
order to protect Chile's neutrality in the conflict between Japan
and China. Bribes were apparently involved and, tremendously
weakened by the scandal and also challenged by the outbreak of
several military rebellions, the president resigned in April. In
June the Liberals seized power in Guayaquil in the name of their
most popular caudillo, General José Eloy Alfaro Delgado. Three
months later, "the old battler" (a name Alfaro had earned during
his armed struggle against García Moreno) returned after a decade
of exile in Central America and marched triumphantly into Quito. It
was the end of Ecuador's brief experiment with progressivism and
the beginning of three stormy decades of rule by the Radical
Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Radical--PLR), commonly referred to
as the Liberal Party (Partido Liberal).
Data as of 1989
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