Hesitancy and Experimentation in Enlightenment Spain and Spanish America by Ann L Mackenzie Jeremy Robbins

Author:Ann L Mackenzie, Jeremy Robbins [Ann L Mackenzie, Jeremy Robbins]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317982814
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2013-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

The Roots of Revolt in Late Viceregal Quito: Eugenio de Espejo between Adam Smith and St Rose

RUTH HILL

University of Virginia

Francisco Javier Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo (1747–95) was the son of a quechua surgeon and a Spanish woman from Riobamba. Known as Eugenio de Espejo, he practised law and medicine and enjoyed the life of a middle-income criollo in the Spanish Kingdom of Quito.1 Scholars have discussed how Espejo’s dual emphasis on education and politics defined his literary production, and his life: he was imprisoned several times for his satires of political and religious figures.2 He suffered his first imprisonment in 1785, after an aristocratic criolla sued him for defamation of character.3 He was arrested again in 1795 for plotting to overthrow the Crown, and died from mistreatment in December of that same year. While literary historians have concentrated almost exclusively on Espejo’s satires, discounting his treatises and sermons,4 historian Martin Minchom’s analysis of revolutionary activity in late viceregal Quito focuses our attention on the priest Juan Pablo Espejo, Eugenio’s brother, and his rather fluffy ideology.5 Minchom overlooks the decades-long continental reach of Eugenio’s economic and political thought by ignoring his writings altogether. In what follows I focus on two panegyrical sermons on St Rose of Lima penned by Eugenio and delivered by Juan Pablo in 1793–94. The stated proposition of Espejo’s sermons is the exemplary life of St Rose of Lima. However, Rose of Lima becomes equal parts wise virgin and model paisana as Espejo develops through his headings the unstated proposition of Spanish-American unity and revolt against the Spanish Crown and Church. I approach these sermons as logical extensions of Espejo’s treatises from the 1780s, which balance a fiery condemnation of moral and political corruption with a sophisticated economic analysis of the Kingdom of Quito.

Until the establishment of the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1719, Quito was a kingdom whose high court (real audiencia) deferred to the high court in Lima and whose bishropic was a suffragate of the archdiocese of Lima. After the dissolution of the Viceroyalty of New Granada in November 1723, Quito again fell under the civil and religious jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of Peru. This situation continued until the Viceroyalty of New Granada was reestablished in August 1739 and the new Viceroy assumed his duties in April 1740.6 Trade through Guayaquil in the Kingdom of Quito linked the Viceroyalties of Peru (including Chile and the Riverplate), New Granada (including Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica) and New Spain (including Guatemala).7 Religious jurisdiction over Quito was held by the Archbishop of Lima, even after Quito was placed under the civil jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. With Lima, Quito shared church leaders, artists and patron saints. Retables of Saint Rose were built in the cathedral of Quito, and the spiritual daughter of the Jesuits, the ascetic and mystic Mariana de Jesús, imitated her.8 Ties between the Viceroyalties of Peru and New Granada were also tightened by the rotation of Church officials from North to South and by the rotation of Crown officials between Spain and Spanish America.

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