Caamaño y Gómez Cornejo, José María Plácido (1838–1901)

José María Plácido Caamaño y Gómez Cornejo (b. 5 October 1838; d. 31 December 1901), president of Ecuador (1884–1888). Caamaño, a wealthy coastal cacao grower from Guayaquil, was selected to follow President Gabriel García Moreno (1861–1865, 1869–1875) in office in 1865. However, he refused. He also opposed the dictatorship of Ignacio de Veintimilla (1876–1883), which led to his arrest and exile in Peru. In 1883 he returned and helped organize the overthrow of Veintimilla. Caamaño joined the provisional government; the subsequent National Convention elected him president. The first of three Progresista (1883–1895) presidents, Caamaño sought to remain independent of both Liberals and Conservatives; his family ties in both the sierra and the coast afforded a further measure of neutrality.

Caamaño had hoped to implement a program of public works but instead spent his term fighting efforts to throw him out of office, employing particular brutality in quelling the revolts of coastal guerrillas (montoneras). After his presidency he served as governor of Guayas province (1888–1895). Critics saw Caamaño as leader of a corrupt clique, "the ring" (la argolla), thought to be a conspiracy of coastal financial interests who secretly controlled the nation. Caamaño was implicated in the Esmeraldas affair (1894–1895), a scandal that involved the use of the Ecuadorian flag to cover the sale of a Chilean warship to Japan. Accused of taking a bribe (a charge he denied), the former president fled Ecuador when angry citizens laid siege to his home. Caamaño traveled to Spain, where he spent the rest of his life in poverty. He died in Seville.

See alsoGarcía Moreno, Gabriel .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

On nineteenth-century Ecuadorian politics, see Osvaldo Hurtado's interpretive Political Power in Ecuador, translated by Nick D. Mills, Jr. (1985); Frank MacDonald Spindler's descriptive Nineteenth Century Ecuador: An Historical Introduction (1987). For a brief analysis of Ecuadorian political economy in the nineteenth century, consult David. W. Schodt, Ecuador: An Andean Enigma (1987).

                                         Ronn F. Pineo