The Quito Revolution (1809-1812) (Spanish : Proceso revolucionario de Quito (1809-1812)) was a series of events that took place between 1809 and 1812 in the Real Audiencia de Quito, which led to the establishment of a short-lived State of Quito, and which can be considered as the seed of the independence movements that ended up forming the current Republic of Ecuador.
In 1809, the city of Quito was the capital of the Real Audiencia of Quito, with as president Manuel Ruiz Urriés de Castilla. The city had been the scene of several political revolts and uprisings against the Spanish during their colonial domination. In 1592, the people of Quito rose up in the so-called Alcabala Revolution, caused by high customs taxes. Another riot took place in 1765 for similar reasons. For its part, the indigenous population also staged several mutinies against the Crown over the centuries.
The Napoleonic invasion of Spain and the consequent abdication of Ferdinand VII in 1808, created chaos and confusion in Spain and its colonies. In the power vacuum, several Juntas were formed throughout Spain, popular local governments that claimed to defend their country and their King.
This conjuncture of events in Spain, the influence of the French Revolution, the independence of the United States and Haiti, and the ideas of the Enlightenment taught in Quito by Eugenio Espejo (1747-1795) through the School of Concordia, inspired Quito's Criollo upper class to also form a Junta (Sovereign Board). [1]
On 10 August 1809 in the city of Quito, the Spanish ruler Manuel Ruiz Urriés de Castilla, I count of Ruiz de Castilla, was deposed by a group of rebels who formed a provisional Junta. This revolution was led by local intellectuals; doctors, marquises and Criollos residing in the city of Quito, without the involvement of any peninsular Spaniard. Members of the Patriot group were Juan Pío Montúfar, Juan de Salinas y Zenitagoya, Juan José Guerrero y Matheu, Juan de Dios Morales, Manuela Cañizares, José de Cuero y Caicedo, amongst others. [2]
This event is known in Ecuador and other countries in the region as the First Cry of Hispanic American Independence, because it constituted the beginning of the emancipation process of Latin America. 10 August is also Ecuador's National day.
Juan Pío Montúfar, Marquis of Selva Alegre, was installed as President of the Junta, who still recognized King Ferdinand VII as the only legitimate authority, but not the local Spanish colonial authorities.
The Junta organized an army of 2,000 men to defend the city of Quito. They requested help from the territories of Cuenca, Guayaquil and Popayán, but these refused when they learned that the viceroy of Peru, José Fernando de Abascal, had embarked on a campaign against Quito. [3]
The Quiteños ended up surrounded by Royalist troops, both to the north and the south, and experienced serious difficulties in feeding themselves. They were easily defeated by an army of 5,000 Royalists from Lima and New Granada who advanced with the support of Pasto, Guayaquil and Cuenca. [4]
Many plotters and members of the Junta were arrested on 24 October 1809, and imprisoned.
Juan Pío Montúfar demonstrated his willingness to work for the restoration of the legitimate Government and by doing so, escaped imprisonment.
On 2 August 1810, a group of Patriots attacked the Royal Barracks of Lima (in Quito) with the intention of freeing the 32 heroes who had participated the previous year in the First Autonomous Government Board (Junta) of Quito. They had been accused of crimes of lese majeste, for which the prosecutor requested the death penalty. [1]
The Patriots attacked two barracks and a prison, but before the prisoners could be liberated, they were butchered by their guards. The fighting then spread to the city streets. Between 200 and 300 people were killed by Spanish soldiers, and looting produced losses valued between 200 and 500 thousand pesos at the time. [1]
The massacre, ordered by the Royalist governor, Manuel Ruiz Urriés de Castilla had wide repercussions throughout Hispanic America, as was seen an act of barbarism and justification of the "War to the Death" , later decreed by the liberator Simón Bolívar. [5]
On 9 September 1810, after a four-month journey from Spain, Colonel Carlos de Montúfar, who had been sent by the Supreme Central Junta in Seville as Royal Commissioner, entered Quito and was received with honors by Ruiz Urriés de Castilla. But he was looked upon with suspicion by the rest of the Spanish authorities, who were dissatisfied with the fact that Carlos de Montúfar was the son of Juan Pío Montúfar, who had presided over the First Government Junta in 1809 and was seen as an Independentist.
Indeed, as soon as he arrived, the young Montúfar decided to convene a new Government Junta, and that would be formed as a triumvirate composed by Ruiz Urriés de Castilla, José de Cuero y Caicedo, Bishop of Quito and former vice-president of the First Junta, and Carlos Montúfar himself. Representatives were immediately elected taking into account the three classes, as in France: the clergy, the nobility and the common people, the latter chosen by the method of electors. Ruiz Urriés de Castilla was appointed president of the board. [6]
On 22 September, the elected representatives appointed Juan Pío Montúfar, II Marquis of Selva Alegre and father of the Royal Commissioner, as vice president of the Junta. This was not seen well by the Spanish authorities and by some nobles, who disliked how the Montúfar family achieved increasing power.
The authorities of Guayaquil and Cuenca refused to recognize the Junta. [6]
On 9 October 1811, the Second Government Junta declared that it wouldn't obey the viceroy of New Granada any more, and adhere to the values of 10 August 1809. Just two days later, Quito proclaimed its total independence from Spain. Ruiz Urriés de Castilla was forced to resign from the presidency of the Junta, being replaced by Bishop José de Cuero y Caicedo.
On 15 February 1812, the first Ecuadorian Constitution was promulgated - the Constitution of the State of Quito - which established a Republic with division of powers. This was the first independent and sovereign State proclaimed on the territory of current Ecuador and exercised jurisdiction over the central and northern Sierra, as well as the Esmeraldas coastline. [7]
To defend the sovereignty of the new Republic, the people of Quito organized militias on different fronts, fighting a serie of battles against the Spanish troops even with the few resources they had on hand. Colonel Carlos de Montúfar prepared to face General Toribio Montes, who had been sent from Lima to destroy the State of Quito and become the new President of the restored Real Audiencia of Quito. After several defeats, the remains of the Patriot Army were finally destroyed in the Battle of Ibarra on 1 December 1812. [8]
The colonial Government was reestablished in the capital city and violently pacified by the Spanish under the rule of Toribio Montes and Melchior Aymerich for the next 10 years. Only after the Battle of Pichincha in May 1822, would Quito and the rest of Ecuador regain its independence.
The Ecuadorian War of Independence, part of the Spanish American wars of independence of the early 19th century, was fought from 1820 to 1822 between Spain and several South American armies over control of the Real Audiencia of Quito, a Spanish colonial jurisdiction which later became the modern Republic of Ecuador. The war ended with the defeat of the Spanish forces at the Battle of Pichincha on May 24, 1822, which brought about the independence of all the lands of the Real Audiencia of Quito.
The United Provinces of New Granada was a country in South America from 1810 to 1816, a period known in Colombian history as la Patria Boba. It was formed from areas of the New Kingdom of Granada, roughly corresponding to the territory of modern-day Colombia. The government was a federation with a parliamentary system, consisting of a weak executive and strong congress. The country was reconquered by Spain in 1816.
Juan José Francisco de Sámano y Uribarri de Rebollar y Mazorra, was a Spanish military officer and the last viceroy of New Granada from March 9, 1818 to August 9, 1819, during the Colombian War of Independence.
The Real Audiencia of Quito was an administrative unit in the Spanish Empire which had political, military, and religious jurisdiction over territories that today include Ecuador, parts of northern Peru, parts of southern Colombia and parts of northern Brazil. It was created by Royal Decree on 29 August 1563 by Philip II of Spain in the city of Guadalajara. It ended in 1822 with the incorporation of the area into the Republic of Gran Colombia.
Antonio Villavicencio y Verástegui was a statesman and soldier of New Granada, born in Quito, and educated in Spain. He served in the Battle of Trafalgar as an officer in the Spanish Navy with the rank of Second Lieutenant. He was sent as a representative of the Spanish Crown to New Granada, where his arrival was used as an excuse in Santafé de Bogotá to start a revolt; this was known as the Florero de Llorente, which culminated in the proclamation of independence from Spain. After this incident he resigned his office and joined the cause of independence. He was later captured and became the first martyr executed during the reign of terror of Pablo Morillo.
The Colombian Declaration of Independence occurred on July 20, 1810 when the Junta de Santa Fe was formed in Santa Fe de Bogota, the capital of the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of New Granada, to govern the territory autonomously from Spain. The event inspired similar independence movements across Latin America, and triggered an almost decade-long rebellion culminating in the founding of the Republic of Colombia, which spanned present-day Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela, along with parts of northern Peru and northwestern Brazil.
This is a timeline of events related to the Spanish American wars of independence. Numerous wars against Spanish rule in Spanish America took place during the early 19th century, from 1808 until 1829, directly related to the Napoleonic French invasion of Spain. The conflict started with short-lived governing juntas established in Chuquisaca and Quito opposing the composition of the Supreme Central Junta of Seville. When the Central Junta fell to the French, numerous new Juntas appeared all across the Americas, eventually resulting in a chain of newly independent countries stretching from Argentina and Chile in the south, to Mexico in the north. After the death of the king Ferdinand VII, in 1833, only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish rule, until the Spanish–American War in 1898.
Juan de Salinas was a Spanish officer in the latter days of the colonial period in what is now Ecuador. He played a key role in the independence movement as the first military leader of the patriotic militias.
The National Order of San Lorenzo was established as a military order medal by the President of the First Revolutionary Government of Quito, Juan Pío Montúfar, II Marquis de Selva Alegre, by a decree issued on August 17, 1809, in the Capitulate Hall of the Convent of San Agustín. All the members of the revolutionary Council were decorated with it. Once the Council disappeared and the power returned to Spanish hands, the Order also ceased for more than a century.
Rosa de Montúfar y Larrea-Zurbano was a noblewoman and aristocrat from Quito, the daughter of Juan Pío Montúfar and a prominent hero of the Ecuadorian War of Independence.
Rosa Zárate y Ontaneda, also known simply as Rosa Zárate, was an Ecuadorian feminist involved in the Ecuadorian independence movement during the 19th century.
The October 9 Revolution was a successful revolt against the Spanish Empire in Guayaquil on October 9, 1820. It was led by the General Antonio José de Sucre and directed by Simón Bolívar. The revolt established a revolutionary junta and created the Free Province of Guayaquil, an independent state. The independence of Guayaquil revived the war of independence of the Real Audiencia de Quito as part of the Spanish American wars of independence. Prominent events in the revolution include the uprising of the Spanish garrison in the city of Guayaquil and the control of the Pacific by the Liberating Expedition of Peru, under the command of José de San Martín.
José de Cuero y Caicedo was a bishop and politician who served as President of Ecuador, Vice President of Sovereign Board of Quito, Bishop of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quito, and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cuenca.
Carlos de Montúfar y Larrea-Zurbano was a Creole nobleman and soldier considered one of the liberators of current Ecuador. He fought alongside Simón Bolívar and was nicknamed El Caudillo.
Juan Pío de Montúfar y Larrea, II Marquis de Selva Alegre, was a statesman and political figure during the struggle for independence from Spain in Latin America.
Manuel Ruiz Urriés de Castilla, I Count of Ruiz de Castilla, was a brigadier of the Royal Army of Spain and a public official of the Spain crown in South America. He held the positions of Mayor of the Mines of Huancavelica, Governor General of Cuzco, and President of the Real Audiencia of Cusco (1793–1806) and of the Real Audiencia of Quito (1807–1812).
The First Battle of Ibarra occurred in the vicinity of the city of Ibarra, Ecuador, between 27 November and 1 December 1812. The event, which is part of the Spanish American Wars of Independence, pitted the troops of the State of Quito against those of the Spanish Empire. The battle was a decisive victory for the Spanish and resulted in the disappearance of the short-lived nation that had been born in the territory of the Royal Audiencia of Quito, after the Quito revolt of 10 August 1809, which had declared itself independent from Spain on 11 October 1811.
The Battle of Camino Real, was the first battle in the Ecuadorian War of Independence, that took place on 9 November 1820. The battle was fought between Royalist soldiers in support of the Spanish Empire, and the Patriot forces of the Free Province of Guayaquil, who won the battle.
The Pasto Campaign was a series of military operations carried out between 1822 and 1824 by Gran Colombia against the Royalist strongholds of San Juan de Pasto and Patía, Cauca in present-day Southern Colombia.
The Intendancy of Cuzco, also known informally as Cuzco Province, was one of the territorial divisions of the Viceroyalty of Peru, ruled from the city of Cuzco and under the jurisdiction of the Bishopric of Cuzco.
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