José de Cuero y Caicedo was a bishop and politician who served as

President of Ecuador The president of Ecuador (), officially called the constitutional president of the Republic of Ecuador (), serves as the head of state and head of government of Ecuador. It is the highest political office in the country as the head of the exec ...

, Vice President of Sovereign Board of Quito, Bishop of

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quito The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Quito is the Catholic archdiocese in the capital city of Ecuador, Quito. It was established as the Diocese of Quito on 8 January 1545, before being elevated to archdiocese level on January 13, 1848 b ...

, and

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cuenca The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cuenca () is an archdiocese located in the city of Cuenca in Ecuador. Erected as the Diocese of Cuenca from territory of the Diocese of Quito on 1 July 1786, it was elevated to archdiocese status on 9 April 19 ...

Personal life

He was born on 11 September 1735 in

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,280,522 residents estimate by National Administrative Department of Statistics, DANE in 2023. The city span ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

to Fernando Cuero y Pérez and Bernabela Caicedo y Jiménez. He received a Doctorate of Philosophy in 1762 and title of Lawyer on 20 June 1768.

Political activities

Already as a Bishop he belonged to the famous

Escuela de la Concordia The (Spanish for the "School of Concord" or "Agreement"), also known as the Patriotic Society of the Friends of the Country of Quito () was an influential society in Spanish South America during the 1790s. It was centered in Quito, the capital of ...

Society, formed with the secret purpose of propagating progressive political ideas. Despite not having participated in the

Revolution of 10 August 1809 In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of element ...

, he was named Vice President of the First Sovereign Government Board (Junta). When the Revolution was crushed by the Spanish 2 months later, he escaped the imprisonment and execution of the other conspirators. When a new revolt under command of

Carlos de Montúfar Carlos de Montúfar y Larrea-Zurbano (Quito, November 2, 1780 - Buga, July 31, 1816) was a Creole peoples, Creole nobleman and soldier considered one of the Liberators' civil war, liberators of current Ecuador. He fought alongside Simón Bolívar ...

led to a Second Junta and the independent

State of Quito State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

in 1812, the Bishop became its President. Again, the Spanish army defeated the Republicans and retook Quito on 1 December 1812. The Spanish authorities ordered his exile along with that of several Quito Patriots involved in the independence movement. He lived his last years in poverty in

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

, where he died on 10 December 1815.
On 12 September 2016, his remains were reburied in Quito with high military honors.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuero y Caicedo, José de 1735 births 1815 deaths 18th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Ecuador Roman Catholic bishops of Quito Roman Catholic bishops of Cuenca History of Quito