Baquerizo Moreno, Alfredo (1859–1951)

Alfredo Baquerizo Moreno was president of Ecuador from 1916 to 1920. Born September 28, 1859, in Guayaquil, Baquerizo Moreno earned distinction as a writer of prose and poetry before embarking on a career in politics. He held various government posts, including mayor of Guayaquil, secretary to the minister of the Superior Court in Guayaquil, minister of foreign relations, senator for Guayas Province, president of the Senate, vice president, and acting president (in August 1912). Serious fraud allegations marred his 1916 election as the hand-picked successor to Leónidas Plaza Gutiérrez. In office Baquerizo Moreno continued Ecuador's "liberal era" (1895–1925) reforms, signing legislation in 1918 that legally ended debtors' prisons and concertaje (forced labor), even if the laws were not always enforced. His administration helped the Rockefeller Foundation carry out a successful anti-yellow fever campaign in Guayaquil in 1919. A former professor at the University of Guayaquil, he sought to advance public education in Ecuador. His administration's efforts were undermined by a weakened economy, as sales of Ecuador's leading export, cacao, declined sharply. In foreign policy Baquerizo Moreno resolved Ecuador's lingering boundary dispute with Colombia with the Muñoz Vernaza-Suarez Treaty of 1916. At age seventy-two, Baquerizo Moreno briefly served as interim president, from September 1931 to August 1932. He died in New York City on March 20, 1951.

See alsoCacao Industry; Ecuador: Since 1830; Plaza Gutiérrez, Leonidas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pike, Fredrick B. The United States and the Andean Republics: Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.

Rodriguez, Linda Alexander. The Search for Public Policy: Regional Politics and Government Finances in Ecuador, 1830–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.

                                           Ronn Pineo