“LA REVOLUCION DE PERUCHO”: EL INICIO DE LA INSURRECCIÓN ANTIFLOREANA QUITEÑA

Abstract

General Juan José Flores, as the first president of the Republic of Ecuador, had important economic, political and military problems. This led to strong opposition led by the newspaper “El Quiteño Libre”, the official organ of a group of opposition intellectuals from Quito to the Flores government. To this was added a military uprising in Guayaquil which elected Vicente Rocafuerte as Supreme Chief. The crisis increases when the members of “El Quiteño Libre” are murdered, triggering an insurrectional process in the town of Perucho, located north of Quito, in the northern highlands of Ecuador, where landowners who lived alongside the anti-Loreano opposition lived. The insurrectional process, which is supported by the Quito society that seeks the departure of President Flores, allows the formation of a column of militias, “Los Tiradores de Perucho” commanded by Colonel Julián Andrade, which becomes the military nucleus of the “Battalion Bravo Restaurador of the Freedom”. It is led by the leader of the opposition and former collaborator of Flores, Dr. José Félix Valdivieso, who takes the city of Quito under the military command of General José María Guerrero, where they ratify Valdivieso, the leader of the Serrano anti-Loyola opposition, as Supreme Chief of Ecuador.