Montúfar y Larrea, Juan Pío de (1759–1816)

Juan Pío de Montúfar y Larrea (b. 20 June 1759; d. 31 July 1816), leader of an uprising against Spanish authority in Quito. Montúfar, son of the marquis of Selva Alegre, who was president of the Audiencia of Quito (1753–1761), was born in Quito. He served in 1809 as the leader of a small group of antiroyalist conspirators who organized a Sovereign Junta of Quito on 10 August with Montúfar as president. The junta opposed French rule over Spain, declaring its loyalty to jailed Spanish monarch Ferdinand VII. Few in Quito or elsewhere in the audiencia supported these actions. The rebellion ended in October 1809 when Spanish troops arrived from Lima. Royal authorities executed all involved except for the noblemen on the Sovereign Junta of Quito.

Montú far left for exile in Cádiz, Spain, where he died. The tenth of August is celebrated as Ecuadorian independence day, the uprising remembered as the "first cry of independence." However, most historians now depict the movement as one for greater autonomy from Spain, not complete independence.

See alsoQuito Revolt of 1809 .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Roger Paul Davis, "Ecuador Under Gran Colombia, 1820–1830: Regionalism, Localism, and Legitimacy in the Emergence of an Andean Republic" (Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, 1983).

Martin Minchom, The People of Quito, 1690–1810 (1994).

Additional Bibliography

Mena V., Claudio. El Quito rebelde (1809–1812). Quito, Ecudor: Abya-Ayala, Letranueva, 1997.

                                         Ronn F. Pineo