Gabriel García Moreno

Gabriel García Moreno

Gabriel Gregorio Fernando José María García y Moreno y Morán de Buitrón (born December 24, 1821 in Guayaquil , † August 6, 1875 in Quito ) was an Ecuadorian politician who was president of his country twice (1859-1865 and 1869-1875). He was a distinctly conservative - Catholic or clericalist politician who maintained an authoritarian and repressive style of government, but in particular reformed or modernized the education system and the public infrastructure of the country. He is therefore one of the outstanding, but also one of the most controversial figures of theEcuadorian history . García Moreno's main support was the Catholic clergy (especially the Jesuits ), the large landowners in the northern Andean region and, in general, the mass of pious believers.

Life

Origin and education

Gabriel García Moreno was the eighth son of a businessman from Soria in Old Castile , who had previously lived in Callao and was the municipal agent (procurador síndico) of the city of Guayaquil when Gabriel was born . His mother was the daughter of a family from the colonial, landed upper class of Guayaquil; her father was a permanent councilor (regidor perpetuo) of the city. When García Moreno was around ten years old, his father died. The boy received primary education from his mother. He then went to the Colegio San Fernando in Quito under the care of the Mercedarian Father José Betancourt . Then he attended the Central University in Quito. He was determined to become a priest for a while and even received minor ordinations . Finally, he received his doctorate in law in 1844 .

Early Years (1846-1858)

García Moreno quickly found his way into politics and became a member of Quito City Council. He also drew attention to himself as a satirical commentator in his newspaper El Zurriago ( Eng . The Whip ). In 1845 he was involved in the uprising that deposed Juan José Flores and made Vicente Ramón Roca president.

In 1846 he married Rosa de Ascásubi, 13 years his senior, a daughter of wealthy northern Danish landowners. In 1848 García Moreno was admitted to the bar. When the Roca government, which he supported, fell in 1849, he went into exile for the first time. After a few months, which he mainly spent in Europe, he was able to return to Ecuador.

When returning García Moreno brought from Panama , a group of New Granada ( Colombia ) displaced Jesuits to Ecuador, where he compared the efforts of neugranadinischen envoy through personal commitment when incumbent president Diego Noboa y Arteta secured a right of residence in his home country. As a result, García Moreno found himself repeatedly exposed to hostility from opponents of the Jesuits, especially from neighboring New Granada. The Jesuits were driven out again under Noboa's successor Urbina after the Ecuadorian Congress had determined that Charles III's expulsion order . from 1767 is still valid and the Jesuits have earned their expulsion through "rebellious activity" against the government.

After his return, García Moreno resumed his practice as a lawyer and was also politically active. In 1853 he founded the newspaper La Nación , which mainly criticized the policies of the government of President José María Urbina and attacked the prevailing corruption . García Moreno was expelled from the country's government and deported to Colombia. Shortly thereafter, he secretly returned to Guayaquil, where he was elected senator. However, when he tried to take his seat in the Ecuadorian Congress, he was again expelled from the country because he had entered the country without valid papers. He traveled to Europe again via Peru, where he met Manuela Sáenz in Paita .

In Paris he studied politics , mathematics and science . As an insatiable reader he developed the conviction that it is essential for the progress of his country that the general population receive a minimum of education and clarification . In addition, he eagerly read books on church history , especially the Histoire universelle de L'Eglise Catholique by René-François Rohrbacher in 29 volumes, which reinforced his strong religious influence.

At the end of 1856 he was able to return to his home country as part of a general amnesty decreed by the new President Francisco Robles . He was soon appointed rector of the Central University in Quito, where he also lectured on physics . In 1858 he was elected to the Ecuadorian Congress as senator for the province of Pichincha . Here, on the one hand, he advocated a comprehensive reform of the Ecuadorian education system and, on the other hand, fought against the liberal, “ Masonic ” government. His newspaper La Unión Nacional, founded in 1858, also worked in this direction and criticized the government and the corruption prevailing in the power elites. García Moreno also campaigned for the interests of the Catholic population, especially the poorer classes, with which he obtained support outside the ruling elite.

“National crisis” of 1859/1860

At the end of 1858 an insignificant border dispute led to war with neighboring Peru . Since the incumbent President Robles rejected the Peruvian demands, a Peruvian naval squadron blocked Guayaquil , the most important Ecuadorian port city , in November 1858 . Robles then moved the capital and seat of government to the port city in order to be able to devote himself to the defense, with which he entrusted his predecessor, General Urbina. In April in Guayaquil, while the conflict with Peru continued, Urbina and Robles were captured by the local artillery commander and freed by General Guillermo Franco .

In May, conservative forces from the Andean region rose against Robles in Quito and formed a four-member Provisional Government, in which García Moreno played a leading role. García Moreno took over the command of the troops that were supposed to defend the Provisional Government against the advancing forces of General Urbina, but were defeated in battle. He then fled to Peru, where he received support and weapons for the fight against Urbina. He returned to Guayaquil and sought a conversation with General Franco to propose that, ignoring the constitutional President Robles, hold elections to form a new national government. President Robles then moved the capital to Riobamba in August , from where he and Urbina intended to take action against Franco.

At the same time, Rafael Carvajal , one of the members of the defeated Provisional Government of Quito, invaded northern Ecuador with troops from Colombia. He finally succeeded in moving to Quito and re-establishing the Provisional Government. On September 13, Robles and Urbina fled Ecuador, four days later Franco proclaimed himself head (jefe supremo) of Guayaquil. As early as August 21, Franco had signed the Treaty of Mapasingue with the Peruvian besiegers to avert supply shortages in Guayaquil , which soon turned out to be the territorial concessions originally requested by Peru, which led to a loss of support for Franco.

On September 18, another parallel government under Manuel Carrión Pinzano was proclaimed in Loja , which saw itself as part of a federal structure that had yet to be installed.

The various governments, Franco, García Moreno and Carrión Pinzano, now tried to negotiate with Peru, but repeatedly fell out with each other and with the Peruvian government because it was also negotiating with the other heads of state. In November it was finally agreed that Franco should negotiate with Peru, but was not empowered to make territorial concessions.

García Moreno made a name for himself in December when he turned to the French envoy in Ecuador - apparently out of fear of losing territorial independence - and suggested that Ecuador become a protectorate of France. However, the proposal had no practical effects.

Meanwhile, Franco signed a contract with the Peruvian President Ramón Castilla , which also never came into force. García Moreno's renewed attempts to jointly exercise power with Franco or to resign together in order to convene a national assembly failed. García Moreno then allied himself with an old political enemy, ex-President Juan José Flores , who lived in exile in Lima.

The joint military expedition of García Morenos and Flores against the Franco government, supported by supporters of Robles and Urbina, began on May 27, 1860 from Guaranda . It was directed against Babahoyo and Guayaquil , where Franco's troops were concentrated. In August 1860 Franco's troops were defeated at Babahoyo. On September 24, 1860, the troops of García Moreno and Flores finally took Guayaquil. Franco fled to Peru.

A month later, García Moreno called a national assembly in Quito for January 1861. This passed a new constitution and elected García Moreno, the previous Jefe Supremo of the Provisional Government, almost unanimously as official President. His opponent Pedro Carbo received only one vote. Flores was appointed governor of Guayaquil.

First Presidency (1861–1865)

García Moreno officially took office as President-Elect on April 2, 1861. He restituted and initially strengthened the rights of the Catholic Church in Ecuador. He also reached a compromise with Peru after relations suffered during the Peruvian invasion and internal fighting, as the overthrown Urbina acted against García Moreno from Peru and General Franco signed a treaty annexing the province of Guayaquil to Peru should to gain support.

With the other neighboring country, New Granada, however, there were repeated diplomatic and military conflicts, which took up a significant part of García Moreno's first presidency:

In 1862 Ecuador was drawn into the Colombian civil war in which the Conservatives under General Julio Arboleda fought against the liberal government of General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera and for their own proclaimed President Mariano Ospina Rodríguez . In June 1862, while pursuing conservative opponents, liberal troops had crossed the border with Ecuador and attacked a commander of the Ecuadorian border troops who wanted to prevent this. García Moreno then declared war on Colombia and took command of the troops himself. In Tulcán there was fighting with liberal Colombian troops, in the course of which the Ecuadorian army was defeated and García Moreno was captured. He was released soon after the Colombian insurgents were assured of material and financial support in their fight against their president. However, this was never paid because García Moreno soon distanced himself from it.

García Moreno had recognized the conservative Arboleda as head of state of Colombia and thus made the liberal Mosquera his opponent. In 1863 the war broke out again, this time with the regular government of Mosquera. The background was apparently Mosquera's contacts with the Peruvian President Ramón Castilla and plans to incorporate parts of Ecuador into both countries and thus to make the idea of Greater Colombia a reality again on the Colombian side . Mosquera had asked García Moreno to approve the merger of Ecuador and New Granada, which García Moreno clearly rejected. Although a diplomatic mission under the later President Antonio Flores Jijón initially settled the crisis, García Moreno declared war on Colombia again in December 1863. After several skirmishes in the province of Carchi , peace was finally concluded in the Treaty of Pinsaqui.

In 1862 the García Moreno government signed and ratified a new Concordat with Pope Pius IX. , in which, among other things, the Catholic Church was again granted the freedom to choose and appoint its bishops itself. On the other hand, García Moreno achieved a reform of the clergy, which on the one hand he was able to bind more closely to himself and on the other hand was freed from secular jurisdiction and placed under special spiritual courts.

Internally, he endeavored to fight crime, reform state finances and promote education. Particularly when it came to securing public order in a restrictive manner, he repeatedly came into conflict with the new constitution passed in 1861, which was quite liberal and, among other things, abolished the death penalty for political crimes. had limited and strengthened the position of Congress.

During his first presidency, García Moreno had to fight almost annually with conspiracies and attempted invasions, almost always with the aim of killing García Moreno or removing him from office under the leadership of the exiled ex-president Urbina. He had such political uprisings and uprisings suppressed with great severity, which earned him sharp criticism. He repeatedly had political opponents executed, which was incompatible with the constitution. He himself saw the constitution as secondary and placed the need for political order above it. His repressive, personal commitment to law and order is said to have gone so far that he himself, disguised as a traveler, participated in the pursuit of muggers.

On August 27, 1865, García Moreno's first constitutional presidency ended. He managed to get his favorite candidate Jerónimo Carrión through in the presidential elections , who thus became his successor. García Moreno was appointed governor of Guayaquil to succeed General Flores, who died in 1864.

Second Presidency (1869-1875)

In 1866 García Moreno was sent to Lima by his successor Carrión as an agent to mediate in a dispute between Peru and Spain over the Chincha Islands (see Spanish-South American War ). There an assassination attempt on García Moreno was carried out, which ended with the death of the assassin. García Moreno went on a diplomatic mission to Chile , where he stayed for a long time after being expelled from Ecuador in September 1867. In Ecuador, President Carrión was forced to resign by conservative forces in December 1867, among other things to forestall a coup d'état by forces loyal to Urbina. His successor Javier Espinosa was unable to bring the politically torn country to rest.

When García Moreno returned from Chile in January 1869, he quickly regained power. On January 17, 1869 he was reappointed (interim) president, since after Carrión Espinosa had also been disempowered and deposed. In May 1869, García Moreno was re-elected constitutional president by a national assembly. However, his term of office did not begin until August 10, until then his brother-in-law Manuel de Ascázubi served as interim president.

At the same time the Constituent Assembly, which García Moreno had occupied him faithful members, a new constitution was drafted, which was much more justice to the wishes of the new President as the Constitution of 1861. The new constitution, by critics as Carta Negra dt (. Black Charter ), gave the President extensive rights to appoint judges, extended the term of office to six years and allowed direct re-election. The death penalty for political crimes was reintroduced, the Roman Catholic denomination was practically declared the state religion, and the public and private practice of all other cults was prohibited. After the constitution had been adopted in a (limited) referendum, García Moreno was able to fully implement his reform project.

Due to the established power and the constitution more closely related to his ideas, tough repression measures were less necessary in the second term of office. In particular, the freedom of the press was severely restricted. The leading critical journalist, Juan Montalvo , demonstratively left the country before García Moreno was sworn in.

As political uprisings decreased, Indian uprisings related to the general, unequal economic system of the country, not directly related to García Moreno's policies, increased. However , García Moreno had a great and symbolic uprising of the Indians of the hills Cacha and Amulá in the province of Chimborazo suppressed with all his might. The leader, Fernando Daquilema , who surrendered to prevent a massacre, was shot and is still a symbol of the Indian movement today.

In foreign policy, Gabriel García Moreno was the only ruler in the world who responded to the call of Pope Pius IX. for a boycott of the Italian state , of the Papal States had dissolved, obeyed and diplomatic relations with Italy broke. That is why Gabriel García Moreno was revered as one of the benefactors of the Catholic Church.

Re-election and Assassination (1875)

Corpse of the President

In the elections in May 1875, García Moreno was re-elected president. Already at the end of 1874 Juan Montalvo, from his Colombian exile, had called for the tyrannicide of García Moreno through a newspaper in Panama . This idea now gained traction within the radical political opposition, a group of conspirators was formed, in which close confidants of Montalvo were also involved.

On August 6, 1875, on which he wanted to take up his third term in office, a group of four conspirators García Moreno lurked on the short way in front of the cathedral to the presidential palace. Their leader, a naturalized Colombian, hit García Moreno with a machete while the others shot him from revolvers or kept his bodyguard at bay. García Moreno died on the outside stairs of the presidential palace.

Thereupon the Liberals rose up in Guayaquil and brought about the election of Antonio Borrero as president. However, since this prevailed moderately and spared García Moreno's followers and the clergy, the leader of the radical liberals, General Veintimilla , rose again in Guayaquil in 1876 , defeated the government troops and was proclaimed the new interim president in Quito in December 1876 and by one in 1877 elected new constituent assembly. While the political climate in Ecuador became significantly more liberal in the following years, the following governments did not continue García Moreno's modernization program.

Political program

The overall goal of García Moreno's political activity was the pacification and unification of Ecuador. Pacification should be achieved primarily through hard-handed combat against insurrection and vicious crime. At the same time, through a stronger central state and the infrastructural and intellectual unification of the country, the particular interests of the various parts of the country, which have repeatedly clashed politically and violently since the state was founded, should be united. To unify and modernize the country, García Moreno primarily focused on strengthening Christian-Catholic values ​​and improving the educational system at all levels, in which technical, commercial and agricultural training as well as religious instruction were given priority. In addition to the desired psychological unification of the population, the President also relied on extensive infrastructure measures for the physical connection and connection of the various parts of the country. In addition, he took measures to consolidate and manage the state and public finances more efficiently.

The basis for all of this should be the strengthening of Christian morality, which included an understanding of government and administration as a service to God and the fatherland. In this context, the Catholic Church and especially religious orders were increasingly involved in sovereign tasks of the state, especially the education system.

Especially during his second reign, García Moreno founded numerous educational institutions at all levels of education, the operation of which he entrusted mainly church institutions, including both high schools for the training of teachers and numerous rural village schools. He called foreign orders to serve at all levels of education, including: Jesuits , Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus , Salesians , Lazarists , school brothers and Sisters of Providence , to Ecuador. Among them were German Jesuits, especially natural scientists and mathematicians. From 1867 to 1875, the number of registered students in Ecuador tripled to 39,000.

In the field of higher education, García Moreno founded the Escuela Politécnica Nacional , the first technical university in Ecuador, in 1869 . It also includes the first scientific observatory in South America, which has been in operation in Alameda Park in Quito since 1873. García Moreno also set up banks, vocational schools, factories and a conservatory (under the direction of Antonio Neumane ). He campaigned for the improvement of cultivation methods and the improvement of equipment in agriculture.

A second important point in his reform program was the not only political-administrative, but also economic-infrastructural unification of the Andean and coastal regions. In his second presidency he therefore built several roads from Quito to the coast. In addition, the first kilometers of railway line from Guayaquil or today's Durán from the direction of Quito were built.

The third part of his reform program consisted of reorganizing and restructuring the state budget. With the increased export and import tariff income due to the cocoa boom and an improved accounting and control system in the financial administration, he was able to significantly improve the financial situation of the state and renegotiate the foreign debts.

evaluation

The evaluation of García Moreno's politics is controversial to this day because of these two pillars of his politics, his clerical-authoritarian style of government and his extensive modernization program.

On the one hand, he significantly strengthened central power and state unity in Ecuador and initiated a modernization process that advanced Ecuador's economy. In conservative circles he is sometimes even seen as a martyr for national unity.

On the other hand, there is the image of an authoritarian, theocratic dictator who wanted to transform Ecuador into a religious state . It is often said that García Moreno consecrated the Ecuadorian state to the Heart of Jesus in 1874 according to a law passed by the Congress in 1873 . The ceremony took place in the Cathedral of Quito as an ecclesiastical and state celebration, at which the Archbishop of Quito, José Ignacio Checa , and García Moreno made appropriate promises of consecration. He was also the only head of state who, after the occupation of Rome by Italian troops under King Victor Emmanuel II in September 1870, raised an official protest against the "looting of the Holy See " and the annexation of the Papal States.

García Moreno is known as a thrifty politician with personal integrity. He is attested to have neither ruled lavishly nor to have been corrupt, which made him a special case in the political life of his time. On the other hand, he is described as a very ambitious personality incapable of compromises and concessions.

Afterlife

As part of his efforts to reform the judiciary, García Moreno had a new, model prison built in Quito in 1871, which is still in use today and bears García Moreno's name. Various public figures, including former and future presidents, were held there for a time in the late 19th and 20th centuries, mostly for political reasons, including Eloy Alfaro (who was murdered there in 1912), Mariano Suárez Veintimilla (who was released from this prison in 1947 was appointed to the presidency), Jaime Roldós , Osvaldo Hurtado and Lucio Gutiérrez .

Basílica del Voto Nacional

García Moreno's remains have been in the new crypt of the Basílica del Voto Nacional in Quito since 1990 , the construction of which began in 1892 as a reminder of the country's consecration ceremony in honor of the Heart of Jesus . His heart is in the Sacred Heart Chapel of the basilica.

García Moreno and the era shaped by his government also left clear traces in Ecuadorian literature. Juan Montalvo declared himself to be the intellectual author of the assassination with the sentence “Mi pluma lo mató” (My pen killed him) . The great writers Benjamin Carrión and Alicia Yánez Cossío wrote literary works on the life of García Moreno. Yánez Cossío's very garcíamoreno-critical novel Sé que vienen a matarme (I know they come to kill me) was made into a television film for Ecuavisa in 2007, directed by Carl West .

literature

in order of appearance

• Philipp Laicus : Cross and Trowel. Novel from the recent past . Benziger Verlag, Einsiedeln 1880; New edition 1932 (historical novel about the life of Garcia Moreno).
• Adolf von Berlichingen : Gabriel Garcia Moreno, President of the Republic of Ecuador. A life in the service of the kingship of Jesus Christ . Benziger, Einsiedeln 1884; New edition: Sanctus Verlag, Dettelbach 2007, ISBN 978-3-89754-907-4 .
• Amara George-Kaufmann (= Mathilde Kaufmann): Don Gabriel Garcia Moreno, President of the Republic of Ecuador. An image of life based on historical sources . Herder, Freiburg 1891.

(not in German)

• Augustin Berthe: Garcia Moreno, président de l'Équateur, vengeur et martyr du droit chrétien (1821–1875) . 2 volumes. Retaux-Bray, Paris 1888.
• Benjamin Carrión : García Moreno. El Santo del Patíbulo . Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE), Mexico City 1959 (novel).
• Pilar Ponce: Gabriel Garcia Moreno ( Protagonistas de America series ). Editorial Historia 16, Madrid 1987, ISBN 84-7679-072-4 .
• Julián B. Ruiz Rivera: García Moreno. Dictador ilustrado del Ecuador (= Biblioteca Iberoamericana, vol. 26). Anaya, Madrid 1988, ISBN 84-207-3089-0 .
• Roberto Andrade: Quién mato a García Moreno? Autobiografia de un perseguido . 2 volumes. Ediciones Abya-Yala / Sociedad Amigos de la Genealogia, Quito 1994 (vol. 1) and 1995 (vol. 2)
• Alicia Yánez Cossío : Sé que vienen a matarme . Paradiso Editores, Quito 2001, ISBN 9978-42-018-5 (novel).

Web links

The following texts reflect García Moreno's ambivalent assessment that still exists today.

• Gabriel García Moreno in the Catholic Encyclopedia (English, clearly positive evaluation)
• Portrait of García Morenos by Humberto Oña Villarreal at Ecuador Online (Spanish, rather positive)
• Biography García Morenos by Simón Espinosa Cordero at edufuturo.com, focusing on the first presidency (Spanish, partly critical evaluation)
• Gabriel García Moreno, vencedor del liberalismo en el Ecuador, part of Hechos de los apóstoles en América by José María Iraburu (Spanish, very positive)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Benjamin Carrión: García Moreno. El Santo del Patíbulo . Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE), Mexico City 1959.
2. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: lahora.com
3. ↑ 'Sé que vienen a matarme' ( Memento of December 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), El Universo , August 8, 2007 (Spanish)

predecessor	government office	successor
Guillermo Franco Commander in Chief	President of Ecuador 1859–1865	Rafael Carvajal provisionally
Francisco Javier Espinosa	President of Ecuador January – May 1869	Manuel de Ascásubi on an interim basis
Manuel de Ascásubi on an interim basis	President of Ecuador 1869–1875	Francisco Javier León provisionally as Interior Minister