Carrión, Jerónimo (1801–1873)

Jerónimo Carrión (b. 6 July 1801; d. 5 May 1873), president of Ecuador (1865–1867). Carrión served as governor of Azuay province (1845–1847), deputy (1845, 1852) and senator (1847–1849) from Loja province, and vice president of Ecuador in 1859 during the administration of Francisco Robles (1856–1859). In 1865 he accepted the invitation of archconservative dictator Gabriel García Moreno (1861–1865, 1869–1875) to succeed him. The retiring president arranged a landslide electoral victory for Carrión, who, to García Moreno's dismay, proved unwilling to be a puppet ruler. He chose his own cabinet, naming several liberals, and dispatched García Moreno on a diplomatic mission to Chile.

Yet on policy matters Carrión did not diverge significantly from the García Moreno agenda, save for his unwillingness to savage political opponents with violent repression. Under Carrión freedom of expression returned, bringing the reemergence of a lively—if often reckless and irresponsible—opposition press. In 1867 his leading minister, Manuel Bustamante, angered powerful Liberal elements then ascendant in Congress. In the ensuing political showdown with Senate president Pedro Carbo y Noboa, Congress censured Carrión. He was overthrown and replaced by Pedro José Arteta in 1867. Lacking support, Carrión agreed. Contemporaries generally regarded him as honest if not especially bright or energetic.

See alsoEspinosa y Espinosa, (Juan) Javier .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

On nineteenth-century Ecuadorian politics, see Osvaldo Hurtado's interpretive Political Power in Ecuador, translated by Nick D. Mills, Jr. (1985); Frank MacDonald Spindler's descriptive Nineteenth Century Ecuador: An Historical Introduction (1987). For a brief analysis of Ecuadorian political economy in the nineteenth century, consult David W. Schodt, Ecuador: An Andean Enigma (1987).

Additional Bibliography

Hurtado, Osvaldo. El poder político en el Ecuador. Quito: Planeta, 2003.

                                        Ronn F. Pineo