Ecuador

ECUADOR. - I. GEOGRAPHY. - The smallest of the Andean states, so called because it is crossed by the Equator. Its area, after the long dispute with Peru, which concerned more than 400,000 sq km of territory, was settled by the treaty of 28 Jan. 1942, has been reduced to 256,074 sq km. It comprises a stretch of the Andes including a series of high basins, among these the plateau of Quito (about ½ of the country), a coastal zone (¼ of the country), in part low-lying and unhealthy, and a strip of the eastern plain, furrowed by great tributaries of the Amazon and covered with imposing forests. The Galápagos archipelago belongs to E.

The population amounted in 1948 to 3.4 million inhabitants (13 per sq km), made up in the majority of Indians (48%) and mestizos (30%). Europeans and Creoles represent barely 8%, and likewise the blacks; mulattoes 6%. Italians number about 2,000.

E. is potentially very rich, but still little developed. The main products are cocoa (of which the country is one of the world's largest exporters), coffee, sugar cane and cotton; among minerals the first place is held by petroleum, which is also exported.

Apart from a few pagan tribes living in the Amazonian lowland, the vast majority of the population is Catholic. The official language is Spanish.

E. is a unitary parliamentary republic (bicameral); administratively divided into 16 provinces and 1 territory (eastern region). Only two important cities: the capital Quito (260,000 inhabitants), which rises on the plateau at 2,850 m above sea level, and Guayaquil (216,000 inhabitants), which constitutes its outlet on the Pacific.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. EVANGELIZATION

Franciscans and Dominicans arrived in Quito with Sebastián de Belalcázar. The Indian tribes of the country had been part of the kingdom of the Incas since the 15th century. Under Spanish rule Quito formed, from 1563, an audiencia (province) of the viceroyalty of Peru and, from 1739, of the viceroyalty of New Granada. As early as 1545 the diocese of Quito was erected. The Franciscans and Dominicans established doctrinas among the Indians of the Sierra. In the 17th century missionary activity extended toward the east of the audiencia. The Jivaros of the southeast, who had destroyed the Spanish colonies of Zamora toward the end of the 16th century, remained refractory to the Christian religion. The Dominicans, however, succeeded in establishing themselves in Canelos, and the Franciscans, from 1632, undertook several missionary expeditions toward the east. The Jesuits, who had gone to Quito in 1586, from 1637 founded the mission of the Mainas along the Napo, Pastaza and Marañón rivers and gathered 14,236 Christian Indians into 35 reductions (year 1762). After their expulsion the Franciscans and Dominicans partly replaced them. Unfortunately the missions of eastern Quito began to decline toward the end of the 18th century, only to disappear almost completely during the wars of independence, with the exception of the mission of Canelos.

Once the Republic of Ecuador was constituted, the governments hindered the development of the Church. In 1848 Quito was elevated to an archdiocese with the suffragan sees of Cuenca, erected in 1786, and Guayaquil, erected in 1838. Under President García Moreno (1861-65, 1869-75) new dioceses were erected: in 1862 Ibarra, in 1863 Riobamba, in 1866 Loja, in 1871 Puerto Viejo. In 1863 a concordat was concluded with the Holy See. In 1869 the Jesuits were invited to resume their missionary activity in eastern Ecuador, and in 1871 the apostolic vicariate of Napo was erected. About 10,000 Indians were brought back to the Catholic faith. In 1886 the mission of Canelos was entrusted once again to the Dominicans, from which they had been driven out in 1867. Negotiations with the Holy See led in 1893 to the erection of the vicariates of Napo for the Jesuits, of Zamora for the Franciscans, of Mendez y Gualaquiza for the Salesians, and of the prefecture of Canelos y Macas for the Dominicans. But in 1896 the Jesuits and Franciscans were again expelled from their missions by the government of President

Alfaro. In 1904 the separation between Church and State was proclaimed, and from 1906 the Catholic religion is no longer recognized as the religion of the State. The Dominicans and Salesians were able to remain in their missions of Canelos and Mendez y Gualaquiza and founded several mission centers; the Franciscans, on the other hand, succeeded only in 1921 in resuming the mission of Zamora, and in the same year the apostolic vicariate of Napo was entrusted to the Pious Society of St. Joseph of Turin. In 1924 the northern part of Napo was erected into the apostolic prefecture of S. Miguel de Sucumbios and entrusted to the Discalced Carmelites; to them was also entrusted the apostolic prefecture of Esmeraldas, erected in 1945 along the Pacific Ocean. In 1948 the diocese of Amabato and the apostolic vicariate of Los Rios were erected, the latter entrusted to the Spanish institute of St. Francis Xavier for foreign missions.

Giovanni Rommerskirchen

III. MODERN HISTORY

The Indians of Quito, who had their seat in the vicinity of the present-day capital, were subjugated around the 10th century by a warrior people, whose chiefs bore the name of Seyris. These in turn had to recognize the sovereignty of the Incas. When the Empire was divided at the death of the Inca Huayna-Capac between his sons Atahualpa and Huascar, of whom the first obtained the kingdom of Quito and the second Cuzco and the southern empire, a conflict soon arose between the brothers, a conflict that broke out on the eve of the arrival of the Spaniards under Francisco Pizarro.

The fratricidal war greatly facilitated the Spanish conquest, and Quito fell into the hands of a lieutenant of Pizarro, the captain Belalcázar. In 1563, at the request of the municipal council, which lamented the weakness of royal government in that distant province and the abuses of justice to which this circumstance gave rise, the audiencia of Quito was created: from the administrative point of view it depended on the viceroy of Peru. The territorial extent of the audiencia was far greater than that of present-day E. In 1718 it was suppressed and annexed to the viceroyalty of New Granada, but, rebuilt four years later, it was again placed under the dependence of Lima, until in 1740 it returned under the jurisdiction of New Granada, and so it remained until the proclamation of independence.

IV. CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

Between New Granada and E. a war immediately broke out over territorial questions, which ended with the defeat of E. and the annexation to New Granada of the disputed territories. The first president of E. was General Flores. In 1835 Rocafuerte succeeded him. During the latter's four-year term, approaches were made to the Holy See for recognition of the new State. Although already in 1827, with the provision motu proprio to the episcopal sees of Quito and Cuenca, there had been a de facto recognition of the decline of Spanish sovereignty in those lands, an official recognition of Ecuadorian independence was nevertheless lacking; it was notified in Aug. 1838 by Card. Lambruschini, secretary of state of Gregory XVI, to the Ecuadorian minister of Foreign Affairs. In the republic's internal politics the radical and anti-Catholic current predominated until the presidency of García Moreno. When the latter came to power, the Catholic religion enjoyed a position of privilege. Schools, hospitals, and other charitable and educational works were founded, which were entrusted to the Jesuits, to the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, and to the Sisters of Charity. Subsequently the new president sent a plenipotentiary to Rome to negotiate the conclusion of a concordat, which was signed on 26 Sept. 1862. The Catholic religion was declared the religion of the State, instruction and teaching had to conform to Catholic doctrines, the bishops could freely communicate with Rome and were not to encounter any obstacle in the administration of their dioceses. In 1865 García Moreno had to leave the presidency, and his opponents took advantage of this to declare the concordat lapsed and to confiscate ecclesiastical property. When he returned to power 4 years later, the Catholic Church was restored to its position of privilege, and E., through the work of its president, was the only country that protested vigorously against the occupation of Rome in 1870, and against the illegitimate situation thus imposed on the Holy See. Not even after the assassination of García Moreno (1875) did the Church have to suffer too much, although anti-Catholic currents from time to time managed to gain the upper hand.

On May 2, 1881, under the presidency of General Veintemilla, a new concordat was signed in Quito by the apostolic delegate Mocenni and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Vernaza, on the whole almost identical to that of 1862, except for modifications introduced to the article concerning the ecclesiastical forum regarding the transfer to civil courts of non-canonical cases. On Nov. 8, 1890, a treaty was concluded on the replacement of tithes. At the beginning of the new century the radical currents obtained in 1904 the denunciation of the concordat and the separation of Church and State. The Catholic religion is no longer considered the religion of the State, and is simply recognized and tolerated on a par with any other cult. In 1927 certain decrees were issued prohibiting any foreign ecclesiastic from residing in the republic. In 1942, after a controversy lasting more than a century, E. settled its borders with Peru.

Silvio Furlani

V. SCHOOL SYSTEM OF ECUADOR

From 1914 onward, the school authorities began attempts to give the school system of E. the character of a modern education along the lines of foreign examples. From 1914 to 1919 and from 1921 to 1924 German instruction was followed and escaletas del trabajo were formed, though French influence was also felt, mingling with Spanish traditions.

The founding of the Higher Institute of Pedagogy and Letters in Guayaquil opened the doors to the pedagogical doctrines of Dewey, Kilpatrick, Washburn and Kandel, which contributed to the reform of education of 1947, whose aim is a cultural, moral and social renewal of the country's ethnic groups and especially of the Indians. Of particular importance in the reform, as in the

In the life of the country, the Colegio Bolívar in Tulcán, the Instituto Mejía in Quito and the Escuela de Artes y Oficios in Quito take on particular importance. The school system comprises kindergartens, 3,114 primary schools, of which 302 are private schools, and 35 secondary schools divided into Escuela de Enseñanza media and Colegios de Segunda Enseñanza. Secondary studies are divided into classical humanities, educational sciences and modern humanistic studies. Higher education is provided at the Universidad Central in Quito, the Universidad del Azuay (Cuenca) and the Universidad de Guayas (Guayaquil). There are 30 catechism and prayer schools, 26 primary schools and 7 vocational schools that depend on the Catholic missions. The education of the Catholic clergy is provided in 3 minor seminaries, 2 college-seminaries and 3 major seminaries. - See plate III.

Mirolav Stumpf