History of Ecuador (1830–1860)

The Marcist Revolution[edit]

Discontent had become nationwide by 1845, when an insurrection in Guayaquil forced Flores from the country. Because their movement triumphed in March (marzo), the anti-Flores coalition members became known as marcistas. They were an extremely diverse lot that included liberal intellectuals, conservative clergymen, and representatives from Guayaquil's successful business community.


On March 6, 1845, the people of Guayaquil revolted against the government of General Flores under the leadership of General António Elizalde and Lieutenant Colonel Fernándo Ayarza. The people took over the artillery barracks of Guayaquil along with other military and civilian supporters, including the guard on duty. Flores surrendered on his plantation, La Elvira, near Babahoyo and agreed to terms that included his leaving power and rendering all his decrees, laws, and acts void and null, ending fifteen years of foreign domination of Ecuador. Flores received 20,000 pesos for his property and immediately left the country for Spain. The country was then governed by the triumvirate composed of José Joaquín de Olmedo, Vicente Ramón Roca and Diego Noboa.


In 1846 the child Agustín Muñoz de Borbón, the half-brother of queen Isabella II of Spain, became a candidate for the throne of Ecuador.^[1][2] The proposal was made by Flores, former President of Ecuador, and consisted of two parts: the first one was declare Agustín as King of Ecuador, with his mother and Flores as Regents, and then as Restorer of the monarchy in Perú and Bolivia, converting him in the monarch of the tentative United Kingdom of Ecuador, Perú and Bolivia.^[3][4] While at first the proposal received some support from the Spanish and British governments, it collapsed.


The next fifteen years constituted one of the most turbulent periods in Ecuador's century and a half as a nation. The marcistas fought among themselves almost ceaselessly and also had to combat Flores' repeated attempts from exile to overthrow the government. The first marcista president was businessman Vicente Ramón Roca, who served a full four-year term. The most significant figure of the era, however, was General José María Urbina, who first came to power in 1851 through a coup d'état, remained in the presidency until 1856, and then continued to dominate the political scene until 1860. During this decade and the one that followed, Urbina and his archrival, García Moreno, would define the rivalry between liberals from Guayaquil and conservatives from Quito that remained the major sphere of political struggle in Ecuador into the 1980s.


Liberalism under Urbina took on anticlerical, ethnic, and regional dimensions. In 1852 he accused a group of Jesuit priests—admitted by his predecessor, Diego Noboa, only a year earlier—of political meddling and expelled them. Urbina freed the nation's slaves exactly one week after his coup of 1851, and six years later, his successor and lifelong friend, General Francisco Robles, finally put an end to three centuries of annual payments of tribute by the native peoples. Henceforth, liberalism associated itself with bettering the position of Ecuador's non-white population. Urbina and Robles also favored Guayaquil businessmen over Quito landowners.