Vicente Rocafuerte

Vicente Rocafuerte

Vicente Rocafuerte Bejarano (born May 1, 1783 in Guayaquil , † May 16, 1847 in Lima ) was an Ecuadorian politician. He was the second President of Ecuador from September 10, 1834 to January 31, 1839.

Life

Rocafuerte came from a noble family from Guayaquil; his father was born in Morella , Spain, and his mother came from the local upper class. He was sent to Madrid to complete his studies there. In 1808 he returned to Ecuador and took an active part in the independence struggles against the Spaniards. He was elected as a representative of New Granada in the Cortes de Cádiz (1810-1814), a constituent assembly after the Napoleonic Wars in Spain. There he spoke out against subordination to King Ferdinand VII . After the founding of Greater Colombia (1816), he campaigned against that state and for the independence of what became Ecuador .

politics

After Ecuador achieved independence, Rocafuerte was elected to the National Assembly in 1830 as a liberal candidate for the Pichincha province . He made a name for himself as an opponent of President Juan José Flores and was banned by him. He settled in Peru but was able to return to Ecuador after his problems with Flores were resolved.

On September 20, 1833, he became governor of Guayas Province . A month later, on October 20, 1833, he initiated an uprising against Flores, which ended with his own capture in July 1834. He then made a pact with Flores which said that Rocafuerte would succeed Flores as president after his tenure ended on September 10, 1834, while Flores would retain control of the army.

During his tenure (1834–1839) Ecuador received a new, liberal constitution (1835), which gave the indigenous population more rights, but did not abolish slavery . The country's first systematic penal code was also passed. In 1839, Flores was re-elected president after Rocafuerte's tenure ended. Disputes between Flores and Rocafuerte were absent for much of Flores' renewed term. However, Flores issued a new constitution in 1842, replacing that of 1835. This became known as the "letter of slavery" and, among other things, had the consequence that Rocafuerte left the country for Peru. Rocafuerte has since become governor of Guayas again, where he went down in history, in particular for his personal commitment to fighting a yellow fever epidemic in the provincial capital of Guayaquil in 1842.

On March 6, 1845 Rocafuerte undertook an uprising together with Vicente Ramón Roca , which was followed by the so-called "March Revolution". On June 18, Flores fled to Peru. After a brief interim presidency from José Joaquín de Olmedo , Vicente Ramón Roca became president.

Rocafuerte served under Roca as a special envoy in various South American countries. He died on May 16, 1847 in the Peruvian capital Lima. His remains are in a representative mausoleum in the general cemetery of Guayaquil.

Web links

• Rudolfo Pérez Pimentel, Vicente Rocafuerte Bejarano , in: Diccionario Biográfico del Ecuador , Guayaquil 1987–, Volume 7, pp. 323f. (Spanish)

• Simón Espinosa Cordero, Vicente Rocafuerte. Un hombre para todas las estaciones and Vicente Rocafuerte (1783-1847) , on edufuturo.com , the educational portal of the prefecture of the Pichincha province (Spanish)
• Humberto Oña Villarreal, Dr. Vicente Rocafuerte Bejarano , on explored.com.ec , an online service of the Diario HOY newspaper, Quito (Spanish)
• Historia de los Presidentes - Vicente Rocafuerte on the homepage of the Ecuadorian President (Spanish)

predecessor	Office	successor
Juan José Flores	President of Ecuador 1834 - 1839	Juan José Flores