Eloy Alfaro, proclaimed Supreme Chief of Ecuador's Liberal Revolution on 5 June 1895 and twice president, 1895 to 1901 and 1906 to 1911, pursued a sustained campaign against the Catholic Church's institutional power across both terms. His government seized church property, expelled religious orders, prohibited the establishment of any new monastery or convent, and legalized civil marriage and divorce over the open opposition of the Archbishop of Quito, Federico Gonzalez Suarez. The campaign proceeded through named dated acts: the 12 October 1904 Ley de Cultos regulating church and state relations, and, in his second term, the 1908 Ley de Manos Muertas, the Mortmain Law, nationalizing the real property religious orders had accumulated as the highlands' largest landowner, eighty six properties across eight highland provinces valued at more than ten million sucres. The 22 December 1906 constitution, which conservatives denounced as the atheist constitution, formally separated church and state.
Facts
The Event
When It HappenedSourced to the subject's own account5 June 1895, Alfaro proclaimed Supreme Chief, to 1911, the end of his second presidency; the Ley de Cultos dates to 12 October 1904, the separation-of-church-and-state constitution to 22 December 1906, and the Ley de Manos Muertas property nationalization to 1908. 1 PeriodSourced to the subject's own account Principal PartiesSourced to the subject's own accountEloy Alfaro, president and author of the campaign's statutes and constitutional reforms. Federico Gonzalez Suarez, Archbishop of Quito, who publicly opposed the secularizing measures throughout Alfaro's second term. 2 Victim GroupSourced to the subject's own accountThe Roman Catholic Church in Ecuador: its religious orders, stripped of eighty six landed properties across eight highland provinces under the 1908 Ley de Manos Muertas and barred from founding any new house, and the church hierarchy generally, whose civil authority over marriage and education was ended by statute and constitution. 2 Perpetrator RegimeSourced to the subject's own accountEcuador's Liberal Revolution government under President Eloy Alfaro across both his presidencies, 1895 to 1901 and 1906 to 1911. This is a bureaucratic-decree persecution: the perpetrator is the liberal Ecuadorian state, not a rival religious tradition, and no perpetrator-tradition edge is written. 2 Consequences
What It SettledSourced to the subject's own accountThe Catholic Church in Ecuador permanently lost the bulk of its highland landed property and its constitutional standing as the state religion. Alfaro himself did not survive to see the settlement endure unchallenged: after a failed attempt at political comeback he was imprisoned, and on 28 January 1912 a mob calling for the death of the man they denounced as an unbeliever broke into the prison, killed him and burned his corpse in Quito, a measure of how contested his anticlerical program remained even after his own presidency ended. 2 Displaced (Low Estimate)Sourced to the subject's own accountThe eighty six religious-order properties across eight highland provinces nationalized under the 1908 Ley de Manos Muertas, valued at more than ten million sucres, the campaign's one firm quantified figure. This is a property-seizure and expulsion campaign rather than a killing campaign, and no source consulted gives a death toll for the campaign itself, so none is recorded here. Displaced (High Estimate)Sourced to the subject's own accountThe same firm count of nationalized properties; not a range, a single reported number, and it excludes the individual clergy and religious displaced from those eighty six houses, for whom no source gives a headcount. Status
Official RecognitionSourced to the subject's own accountNot formally recognized by any body 2 Recognition BasisSourced to the subject's own accountNo Ecuadorian government has issued a formal apology or reparative determination for the Alfaro-era property seizures and expulsions; the campaign is documented through Ecuador's own legislative and constitutional record, the 1904 Ley de Cultos, the 1906 constitution and the 1908 Ley de Manos Muertas, rather than through any later legal process. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Ecuador, Countries The Ecuadorian liberal state carried out the campaign inside its own national territory.
The targeted tradition. This is an Associated With edge to the tradition that was persecuted, not a perpetrator-tradition edge; the perpetrator was the liberal Ecuadorian state.
Sources
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