Capitalist Republicanism: Vicente Rocafuerte and the Colombian System

Vicente Rocafuerte (Guayaquil 1783-Lima 1847), an enlightened member of the Ecuadorian creole elite, made a substantial contribution to the ideological cause of Latin American independence. He started his long and fruitful political career as a member of the first modern Spanish Parliament, the Cortes of Cádiz (1810-1814). He then became mayor of Guayaquil and would become the second President of Ecuador. During his life he met the most influential political leaders of the time both in Europe and the Americas. Moreover, he carried out a long and sustained effort to popularize the ideas of the US republican fathers, the French philosophes but, above all, the views and proposals of Thomas Paine, whose works he also translated into Spanish. He published extensively on the most pressing political problems of his homeland and Mexico alike, as he served as a high diplomat for the Mexican embassy in London. There he also met the Spanish liberal exiles, supported some of their cultural and political enterprises, and commissioned the translation into Spanish of William Paley’s Natural Theology to the Liberal Spanish exiled priest, parliamentary deputy and writer Joaquín Lorenzo Villanueva. Rocafuerte synthesized his political ideas in his book Ensayo Político: El Sistema colombiano, popular, elective y representative (A Political Essay: The Colombian System, popular, elective and representative) first published in New York in 1823.  In this paper some introductory biographical remarks will precede an exploration of Rocafuerte’s thought and political action. In order to engage with ongoing Mexican scholarly debates and shed light on the figure and legacy of the Ecuadorian, the paper will then examine the impact of his ideas and presidential conduct. In its last section, the paper will explores the quintessentially Atlantic nature of Rocafuerte’s life experience and works.