Ignacio de Veintemilla (31 July 1828-19 July 1908) was President of Ecuador from 18 December 1876 to 9 July 1883, succeeding Antonio Borrero and preceding José Plácido Caamaño.
Biography[]
Ignacio de Veintemilla was born in Quito, Gran Colombia in 1828. He served in the Ecuadorian Army before taking part in the uprising against Daniel Noboa and serving as the bodyguard of his uncle-in-law Gabriel Garcia Moreno. He fought at the Battle of Guayaquil in 1860, and he took command of the Lancers Regiment in 1863 and served as President Jeronimo Carrion's War and Navy Minister. In 1869, his brother Jose de Veintemilla launched a failed rebellion against Garcia Moreno, resulting in his death. Ignacio de Veintemilla was exiled as the result of his brother's uprising, but he returned in 1876. He conspired with young liberals to overthrow Antonio Borrero, who did not repeal Garcia's constitution, and he seized power in the "Revolution of Veintemilla." He proceeded to crush Manuel Santiago Yepes' uprising and poison Archbishop of Quito Jose Ignacio Checa y Barba, and he presided over an authoritarian regime that persecuted the clergy, oversaw public works projects, assassinated politician Vicente Piedrahita, and remained neutral during the War of the Pacific. In 1882, civil war broke out after Eloy Alfaro led a rebellion from Panama, and Quito fell on 10 January 1883. Veintemilla went onto exile in Peru and Chile, and he failed to return to power in 1895. In 1900, he was made a general in the Ecuadorian Army, and he died in Quito in 1908.