History of Ecuador (1860–1895)
Republic of Ecuador República del Ecuador (Spanish) | |||||||||
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| 1859–1895 | |||||||||
| Motto: | |||||||||
| Anthem: Salve, Oh Patria (Spanish) (English: "Hail, Oh Fatherland") | |||||||||
Ecuador in 1860 | |||||||||
| Capital | Quito | ||||||||
| Government | Presidential republic under a military dictatorship | ||||||||
| President | |||||||||
• 1859–1865 | Gabriel García Moreno | ||||||||
• 1865–1867 | Jerónimo Carrión | ||||||||
• 1868–1869 | Javier Espinosa | ||||||||
• 1869–1875 | Gabriel García Moreno | ||||||||
• 1875–1876 | Antonio Borrero | ||||||||
• 1876–1883 | Ignacio de Veintemilla | ||||||||
• 1883–1888 | José Plácido Caamaño | ||||||||
• 1888–1892 | Antonio Flores Jijón | ||||||||
• 1892–1895 | Luis Cordero Crespo | ||||||||
| Vice President | |||||||||
• See list | See list (from Mariano Cueva to Vicente Lucio Salazar) | ||||||||
| Legislature | National Congress | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 4 September 1859 | ||||||||
| 22 September 1860 | |||||||||
| 1 July 1869 | |||||||||
| 5 June 1895 | |||||||||
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| Today part of | Ecuador Peru Colombia Brazil | ||||||||
| History of Ecuador |
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| Ecuador portal |
In the history of Ecuador, the period from 1860 to 1895, the period in which the Conservative party of Ecuador was most prominent in Ecuadorian politics. Gabriel García Moreno has been considered as "The father of Ecuadorian conservatism." and has also been considered as a 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.
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!".
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 19th 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.