Roberto Andrade Rodríguez (October 26, 1850 – October 27, 1938) was a politician, historian, author and polemicist. He was a participant in the assassination plot against President Gabriel Garcia Moreno. On August 6, 1875, Garcia Moreno was beaten with a machete while three or four others shot revolvers at him. Andrade landed a deadly shot to Moreno’s forehead. Throughout his life Andrade was persecuted for his polemicist essays and political ideology. “Pacho Villamar,” his semi-autobiographical work from 1910, is widely considered Ecuador’s first political novel.
Birth
Rafael Andrade and Alegra Rodríguez gave birth to Roberto Andrade Rodríguez on October 26, 1850, at Gualchán, an hacienda near Puntal, presently Bolívar canton in the Carchi Province.
Education
- Primary: San Diego School, Ibarra.
- Secondary: Jesuit school, Quito.
- Law School: Faculty of Jurisprudence at the Central University, Quito
Participation in Gabriel Garcia Moreno’s Assassination
Due to the authoritarian and ultraconservative nature of Gabriel Garcia Moreno’s rule, as well as the fact that he frequently used secret police to silence leftist dissent, he was hated by the Liberals. Roberto Andrade Rodríguez was among those who wanted Garcia Moreno dead. He participated first hand in the assassination by firing his revolver on the forehead of Garcia Moreno. After the assassination he escaped and remained a fugitive for many years.
In 1882 he fought from underground against the dictatorship of Gral. Ignacio de Veintemilla, conspiring against him until his defeat in Guayaquil on July 9, 1883; In spite of everything, he had to remain hidden during the “Progressive” governments of Caamano, Flores and Cordero, until in 1894 he was discovered aboard a ship that was leaving for Panama. He was then taken prisoner and sent to Quito to be locked up in the Panopticon, where he remained for eleven months until the triumph of the Liberal Revolution of 1895.
In 1912, after the Assassination of the Liberal Heroes, he had to return to exile in Peru, where he remained for five years.
Writer and polemicist of avant-garde ideas, he published important works such as: “Lessons in the History of Ecuador”, “Youth”, “Lessons in Geography of Ecuador”, “Historical Studies”, “Olmedo, a Criticized Critic”, “Life and Death of Eloy Alfaro ”; “Montalvo y García Moreno”, “August 6, that is, Death of García Moreno”, “Luis Vargas Torres”, “Blood: Who Spilled it?”, Etc. In addition, his novel “Pancho Villamar” is notable, published for the first time in Guayaquil in 1900, which can be considered as autobiographical and with which he became the first political novelist in Ecuador.
For his writings and political ideology he suffered constant persecution that lasted for almost his entire life, until the day of his death, which occurred in Guayaquil on October 27, 1938.
Works
- La juventud (1883)
- Contemplaciones (1886)
- Exposición jurídica que a los poderes públicos de la nación peruana eleva (1891)
- Seis de Agosto o sea muerte de García Moreno (1896)
- Pacho Villamar (1900)
- Olmedo : Un crítico criticado (1900)
- Tulcán y Cuaspud (1907)
- Moscas (1907)
- Campaña de 20 días (estudios históricos) (1908)
- ¿Quién mató a García Moreno?: autobiografía de un perseguido
- Historia del Ecuador
- Espía del Perú (1910)
- Defensa (1911)
- íSangre! ¿Quién la derramó? (Historia de los últimos crímenes cometidos en la Nación del Ecuador) (1912)
- Lecciones de geografía de la República del Ecuador (1910)
- Vida y muerte de Eloy Alfaro: memorias
- Miguel Valverde
- Caín? (1903)
- Montalvo y García Moreno: ensayos históricos y biográficos
- La mujer y la guerra (1926)
- Juan Montalvo: Conferencia en el Lyceum de la Habana el día 6 de agosto de 1932 (1933)
- Las dos Américas