Juan Pío de Montúfar y Larrea (

Quito Quito (; ), officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city, capital and second-largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its metropolitan area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha Province, P ...

,29 May 1758 - Alcalá de Guadaira, Spain, 3 October 1818), II Marquis de Selva Alegre, was a statesman and political figure during the struggle for independence from Spain in Latin America.

Biography

He was the son of Spaniard Juan Pío de Montúfar y Frasso, first Marquis of Selva Alegre and President of the

Royal Audiencia of Quito The of Quito (sometimes referred to as or ) was an administrative unit in the Spanish Empire which had political, military, and religious jurisdiction over territories that today include Ecuador, parts of northern Peru, parts of southern Colo ...

from 1753 to 1761. He married Teresa Larrea y Villavicencio and had 6 children including Carlos Montúfar and Rosa de Montúfar.
He became inspired by the ideas of

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

and a friend of Eugenio Espejo,

Antonio Nariño Antonio Amador José de Nariño y Álvarez del Casal (April 9, 1765 – December 13, 1823),Hector, M., and A. Ardila. Hombres y mujeres en las letras de Colombia. 2. Bogota: Magisterio, 2008. 25. Print. was a Colombian ideological wiktionary:p ...

Francisco José de Caldas Francisco José de Caldas (October 4, 1768 – October 28, 1816) was a Neogranadine lawyer, military engineer, self-taught naturalist, mathematician, geographer and inventor (he created the first hypsometer), who was executed by orders of Gene ...

, and Manuela Cañizares. On 10 August 1809, a group of

Criollo Criollo or criolla (Spanish for creole) may refer to: People * Criollo people, a social class in the Spanish colonial system. Animals * Criollo duck, a species of duck native to Central and South America. * Criollo cattle, a group of cattle bre ...

Revolutionary intellectuals in the city of Quito deposed the Spanish ruler

Manuel Ruiz Urriés de Castilla Manuel Ruiz Urriés de Castilla, I Count of Ruiz de Castilla ( Ortilla (Spain), 23 November 1734 – Quito (Ecuador), June 1812), was a brigadier of the Royal Army of Spain and a public official of the Spain crown in South America. He held the p ...

, and formed a provisional Junta, of which he became president. This event is known in Ecuador and other countries in the region as the ''First Cry of Hispanic American Independence'', because it constituted the beginning of the emancipation process of Latin America. Lack of support from the masses, disagreements among members of the Junta itself, as well as opposition from the governors of a number of departments led to the curtailment of the movement. Montúfar informed José Fernando de Abascal y Sousa, Viceroy of Peru of his willingness to work for the restoration of the legitimate Government. He escaped the imprisonment and execution of the other conspirators. His son Carlos Montúfar, who had arrived in Quito with the position of Royal Commissioner, formed a second Junta of which he was named vice president. But, like the first, this second Junta also had a very short duration. Three years later, by order of General Toribio Montes, Montúfar was taken prisoner and sent to Loja, chained and in irons. His assets, estates and properties were confiscated, and at the beginning of 1818 he was exiled to

Cádiz Cádiz ( , , ) is a city in Spain and the capital of the Province of Cádiz in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. It is located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula off the Atlantic Ocean separated fr ...

, Spain. There he spent his last days in prison and died on 15 October of that same year 1818.

Sources

Real Academia de la Historia

Enciclopedia del Ecuador
{{DEFAULTSORT:Montúfar, Juan Pío 1758 births 1818 deaths 19th-century Spanish nobility Ecuadorian independence activists People from Quito