Urvina Jado, Francisco (?–1926)

Francisco Urvina Jado, from 1902 to 1925 the director of the Banco Comercial y Agrícola, the leading financial institution of Guayaquil—the national commercial center and entrepôt for Ecuador's lucrative cacao bean export trade. Government spending relied heavily on funds borrowed from the Banco Comercial y Agrícola. Critics of this arrangement, such as the sierra (highland) businessman and politician Luis N. Dillon, claimed that the mounting debt gave the bank power to dictate terms to the government. Dillon and others believed that Director Urvina secretly ran Ecuador from behind the scenes. In 1922 Ecuador's monoculture export economy collapsed. The ensuing crisis led to public disclosure of the bank's unsound currency emissions, which had been largely necessitated by government borrowing. Urvina served as a convenient target for popular anger. Following a coup led by young military officers on 9 July 1925, the government seized the assets of the Banco Comercial y Agrícola, arrested Urvina, and sent him into exile. He died of a heart attack in Valparaiso on 20 January 1926.

See alsoAlfaro Delgado, José Eloy; Banco Comercial y Agrícola (Ecuador).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The best treatment of fiscal and monetary issues is Linda Alexander Rodríguez, The Search for Public Policy: Regional Politics and Government Finances in Ecuador, 1830–1940 (1985). For the broader political economic context, see Osvaldo Hurtado, Political Power in Ecuador, translated by Nick D. Mills, Jr. (1985). Detailed discussion of banking can be found in Julio Estrada Ycaza, Los bancos del siglo XIX (1976). The socioeconomic context is analyzed in the path-breaking study by Lois Crawford De Roberts, El Ecuador en la época cacaotera (1980).

Additional Bibliography

Albornoz Peralta, Osvaldo. Del crimen de El Ejido a la Revolución del 9 de Julio de 1925. Quito: Subsecretaria de Cultura, Sistema Nacional de Bibliotecas, 1996.

Paz y Miño Cepeda, Juan J. La Revolución Juliana: Nación, ejército y bancocracia. Quito: Abya-Yala, 2000.

Pérez Ramírez, Gustavo. Virgilio Guerrera: Protagonista de la Revolución Juliana, su praxis social. Quito: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 2003.

                                     Ronn F. Pineo