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Federico Gonzalez Suarez, Historian of Ecuador

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

George A. Brubaker
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Extract

Of the men who helped to shape the destiny of Ecuador in the nineteenth century, two are outstanding. Both are enigmatic, and both appear to be contradictions to the normal pattern of behavior for their time and place. Gabriel Garcia Moreno as holder of the highest civil office of Ecuador held sway over the life and politics of the nation for nearly two decades. Federico González Suárez, who toward the end of his career was to hold the highest office the Church could bestow in Ecuador, was to have a more subtle influence as an historian.

Garcia Moreno, as civilian dictator, developed the cult of the Church to the highest degree by means of a concordat with the Vatican, and by dedicating the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. For González Suárez, although a clergyman, the patria came first and religion second. If Garcia Moreno saw in the Church and Jesus Christ the only salvation for the nation, González Suárez was willing to point out the weaknesses, inadequacies, and scandalous acts of which the Church and monastic orders had been guilty.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1963 , pp. 235 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1963

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References

1 For an able and well-documented study of the life and times of Garcia Moreno see Pattee's, Ricardo Gabriel Garcia Moreno y el Ecuador de su tiempo, 2nd ed. (Mexico, 1944).Google Scholar

2 In 1904, González Suárez was designated by Pope Pius X to become Archbishop of Quito.

3 Pattee, pp. 265-266. For a brief but adequate treatment of Church and State in Ecuador for this period see Lloyd Mecham, J., Church and State in Latin America (Chapel Hill, 1934), pp. 171–192.Google Scholar

4 Ecuador, Ministerio de Educación Pública, Galería de valores ecuatoreanos (Quito, 1945), p. 100. See also Crespo, Luis Cordero, González Suárez (Cuenca, 1944), pp. 7, 100-101.Google Scholar

5 Pattee, pp. 575-584. Involved in the plot to assassinate Garcia Moreno was Roberto Andrade whose Historia del Ecuador was designed to continue the work of González Suárez.

6 Federico González Suárez, Defensa de mi criterio histórico (Quito, 1937), pp. 67–69, 79-80.Google Scholar

7 The Etudio histórico sobre los Cañaris was widely acclaimed as an outstanding contribution in the field of anthropology, and it served as a basis for González Suárez's stress on anthropology in his Historia general de la república del Ecuador.

8 Jiménez, Nicolás, Biografía del ilustrisimo Federico González Suárez (Quito, 1936), p. 100.Google Scholar

9 Jiménez, pp. 100-101.

10 Suárez, González, Nueva miscelánea ó colección de opúsculos publicados (Quito, 1910), pp. 113–122, 183-184, 185-186.Google Scholar An attack on the dictatorship of Veintemilla may be found on pp. 186-191.

11 González Suárez's major historical writings appeared between 1881 and 1912.

12 Suárez, González, Memorias íntimas in Obras escogidas (Quito, 1944), pp. 174–175.Google Scholar See also Nuevo miscelánea, passim.

13 Suárez, González, Historia General de la república del Ecuador (Quito, 1890-1903), VII, 146.Google Scholar

14 Suárez, González, Defensa de mi criterio, p. 5 Google Scholar; Barrera, Isaac J., La literatura del Ecuador (Buenos Aires, 1947), p. 97.Google Scholar

15 González Suárez, Obras escogidas, pp. iv-vi.

16 González Suárez, “Memorias íntimas” in Obras escogidas, p. 157.

17 See Nicolás Jiménez for a discussion of this in his Biografía del ilustrisimo Federico González Suárez, p. 5.

18 González Suárez, Obras escogidas, p. 158.

19 Ibid., p. 159.

20 Ibid., p. 161.

21 Ibid., p. 162.

22 González Suárez's wide range of. interests, especially in the natural sciences, may be seen in his “Memoria histórica sobre Mutis y la expedición botánica de Bogotá,” and in his “Un opúsculo inédito de don Francisco José de Caldas,” both to be found in Obras escogidas, pp. 307-395, and pp. 399-412, respectively.

23 González Suárez, Obras escogidas, p. 162.

24 Ibid., pp. 163-164.

25 Ibid., p. 164.

26 Ibid., p. 165.

27 Ibid., pp. 166-167.

28 It was during his stay in Europe and at Cuenca that González Suárez carried out his research and did much of his writing. His Historia general was completed in 1903, one year prior to his becoming Archbishop of Quito.

29 See his essay on “Hermosura de la naturaleza y sentimiento estético de ella,” in Obras escogidas, pp. 413-468.

30 González Suárez, Defensa de mi criterio histórico, pp. 39, 80. González Suárez saw history as a true science; he also equated the history of nations and people to the ages of man, i. e., youth, maturity and old age, much like some of the organismic thinkers of the nineteenth century.

31 González Suárez, p. 37.

32 Quoted in Cordero Crespo, González Suárez, p. 117.

33 See “Prologo” by J. Jijón y Caamafio in Obras escogidas, pp. iv-vi, xxxiii.

34 Jiménez, Biografía, p. 31; Barrera, La literatura ecuatoreana, pp. 152-153; Cordero Crespo, González Suárez, p. 118; González Suárez, Defensa de mi criterio histórico, p. 37.

35 González Suárez, Defensa de mi criterio histórico, pp. 67-69. 86 Ibid., p. 12.

36 Ibid., p. 8.

37 Ibid., p. 8.

38 Ibid.,?. 11.

39 González Suárez, Historia general de la república del Ecuador, I, 2; Defensa, p. 12.

40 González Suárez preached that many of Ecuador's troubles in the nineteenth century had roots which lay directly in the moral decadence of the colonial era.

41 González Suárez, Defensa de mi criterio histórico, p. 20.

42 Ibid., p. 23.

43 Ibid., p. 35.

44 González Suárez, Historia general de la república del Ecuador, I, 20-23.

45 González Suárez, Defensa, p. 39.

46 Barrera, Isaac J., Historio grafía del Ecuador (Mexico, 1956), pp. 43–47 Google Scholar; González Suárez, Historia general de la república del Ecuador, I, ü-iii.

47 Groot's work first appeared in Bogotá in 1869. A comparison of Groot's Historia eclesiástica y civil and González Suárez's Historia eclesiástica leaves little doubt that the latter was influenced by Groot's approach.

48 González Suárez, Historia general de la república del Ecuador, I, iü.

49 González Suárez, Historia general, I, ix-xüi.

50 Suárez, González, Historia eclesiástica del Ecuador (Quito, 1881), p. 403.Google Scholar

51 Ibid., pp. 98-193, 406-407.

52 Ibid., pp. 156 ff.

53 Ibid., pp. 70-71.

54 Ibid., pp. 52-53.

55 Ibid., pp. 37-38.

56 Ibid., pp. 220-222.

57 Ibid., pp. 360-361, 366-369.

58 Ibid., p. 402.

59 González Suárez, Historia general de la república del Ecuador, I, iv-v.

60 González Suárez had already published his Estudio histórico sobre los Cañaris.

61 González Suárez, Historia general de la república del Ecuador, I, i-ii.

62 Ibid., I, x-xi.

63 Ibid., I, 17-18.

64 Ibid., I, 18, 25-26. See also his Los aborígenes de Imbabura y del Carchi (Quito, 1908), pp. xi, 1, 13-16, 31, 61.

65 González Suárez, Historia general, I, 245-285.

66 Ibid., II, 17, 39-40, 63-64, 171, 206-208, 212.

67 Ibid., I, 3, 27-29; II, 92-97; V, 392, 450-454.

68 Ibid., II, 21-22. See also his “hermosura de la naturaleza y sentimiento estético de ella” in Obras escogidas.

69 González Suárez, Historia general, III, 38-45, 128-136.

70 Ibid., Ill, 88-92, 354-358; IV, 94-95.

71 Ibid., IV, 191-192.

72 Ibid., II, 101-105, 146, 262-268, 412-413.

73 Ibid., IV, 46-54, 117-118, 169, 196-208, 215.

74 Ibid., IV, 46.

75 Ibid., IV, 110.

76 Ibid., V, 167.

77 Ibid., Ill, 66-67.

78 Ibid., II, 123.

79 Ibid., V, 496.

80 Ibid., V, 431.

81 Ibid., IV, 294.

82 Ibid., VII, 146.

83 Ibid., VI, 80.