48 Facts About Eugenio Espejo

Eugenio Espejo is regarded as one of the most important figures in colonial Ecuador.

However, some historians, especially Carlos Freile Granizo, argue that contemporary documents imply that Eugenio Espejo's mother was white; for instance, his parents' marriage was recorded in the book for white marriages, and the birth certificates of Eugenio Espejo and his siblings were entered in the same book.

Eugenio Espejo had two younger siblings, Juan Pablo and Maria Manuela.

Eugenio Espejo instructed himself in medicine by working alongside his father at the Hospital de la Misericordia.

Between 1772 and 1779, Eugenio Espejo provoked the colonial authorities, who regarded him as responsible for several satirical and mocking posters.

Eugenio Espejo's pseudonym implied that he had white or European relatives in his mother's lineage.

Eugenio Espejo tried to decline the appointment, and after that failed, he tried unsuccessfully to flee.

Eugenio Espejo used the opportunity to write his most complete and best-written work, Reflexiones acerca de un metodo para preservar a los pueblos de las viruelas, denouncing the way the Audiencia handled sanitation.

Eugenio Espejo gladly accepted the task because he wanted to settle accounts with Barreto and other citizens of Riobamba, among them Jose Miguel Vallejo, who had turned him in to the authorities when he tried to flee Requena's expedition to the Maranon river.

Eugenio Espejo wrote Defensa de los curas de Riobamba, a detailed study of the way of life of the Indians from Riobamba and a powerful attack on Barreto's report.

Eugenio Espejo was accused of writing El Retrato de Golilla, a satire against King Charles III and the Marquis de la Sonora, colonial minister of the Indies.

Eugenio Espejo was taken to Quito, and from prison he sent three petitions to the Court in Madrid, which decreed, on Charles III's behalf, that the case was to be taken to the Viceroy of Bogota.

Eugenio Espejo had no choice but to work as a librarian in the National Library.

Eugenio Espejo was an autodidact, and he claimed with pride that he never left any book in his hands unread, and if he did, he would make up for it by observing nature.

Eugenio Espejo understood that reading was basic in the formation of the self, and his conscience drove him to critiques of the establishment, based on observation and in the application of the law of his time.

Eugenio Espejo embraced equality between Indians and criollos, an ideal that was ignored during the future processes of autonomy.

Eugenio Espejo favored women's rights but did not really develop these ideas.

Eugenio Espejo had an advanced understanding of science, considering the circumstances in which he lived.

Eugenio Espejo never traveled abroad but nonetheless understood the relation between microorganisms and the spreading of disease.

However, Eugenio Espejo was one of the few people at the time who distinguished between the actual deeds of the French Revolution and the irreligious spirit connected to it, while his contemporaries in Spain and the colonies erroneously identified the emancipation of the Americas with loss of the Catholic faith.

Eugenio Espejo never lost his faith in Catholicism throughout his lifetime.

Eugenio Espejo condemned the decadence of the clergy, but he never criticized the Church itself.

Eugenio Espejo had a restless desire for knowledge and was anxious to reform by his works a state that seemed to him, influenced as he was by the Enlightenment, to be barbarian in every way.

Eugenio Espejo argued that the people of Quito were accustomed to adulation and that they admired any preacher who could quote the Bible in a pompous and insubstantial way.

La ciencia blancardina, in which Eugenio Espejo claimed to be the author of the previous two works, condemned the results of the clergy's educational system: ignorance and affectation.

Eugenio Espejo resented the pseudointellectuals who misled the thought of the city of Quito, disregarding people who were actually knowledgeable.

Eugenio Espejo particularly criticized the Jesuits for, among other things, teaching ethics not as a science but as a guide to good manners and for their adoption of Probabilism as a moral guide.

Eugenio Espejo complained about the lax system for educating priests in Quito and said it instilled slothful habits in students.

In 1780, in his first discussion of purely religious matters, Eugenio Espejo wrote a theological letter, Carta al Padre la Grana sobre indulgencias.

Eugenio Espejo wrote a series of sermons, which were notable in their simplicity.

Eugenio Espejo realized that the charges against the clergy were so serious that he had to focus on destroying Barreto's credibility.

Villalengua, President of the Audiencia, gathered all of Quito's physicians to discuss the application of methods suggested by the Spanish scientist Francisco Gil, and Eugenio Espejo was asked to write his Reflexiones acerca de un metodo para preservar a los pueblos de las viruelas.

Eugenio Espejo tried to convince people of the dangers of smallpox.

Eugenio Espejo understood the current European medical theories about contagious diseases and warned against the incorrect belief that smallpox was transmitted by polluted air.

Eugenio Espejo disapproved of the custom of burying the dead inside churches; instead, he suggested burying the dead outside the city limits in a graveyard chosen by the Church and owned by the town council.

Eugenio Espejo said their methods were outdated and that they provided poor service.

The staff of the hospital reacted badly to this, and Eugenio Espejo lost the friendship of his mentor, Jose del Rosario.

Eugenio Espejo is considered the precursor of the independence movement in Quito.

Eugenio Espejo died in 1795, but his ideas had a powerful influence on three of his close friends: Juan Pio Montufar, Juan de Dios Morales and Juan de Salinas.

Eugenio Espejo published Quito's first newspaper, and therefore he is regarded as the founder of Ecuadorian journalism.

Eugenio Espejo is considered Ecuador's first literary critic; according to Spanish scholar Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo, Espejo's Nuevo Luciano is the oldest critical work written in South America.

Eugenio Espejo analyzed the reality of colonial Quito, the poverty of its people and their lack of good education, and he denounced the corruption of the colonial authorities.

Since 2000, Eugenio Espejo has been depicted on the obverse of Ecuador's 10 centavo coin.

Ecuadorian researcher Alberto Munoz Vernaza claimed that his real surname was Eugenio Espejo and that the name Chusig was a nickname Eugenio Espejo had in Cajamarca.

Aware of the prejudices of the society of his time, Eugenio Espejo requested a dossier that proved his Spanish lineage.

The dossier mentioned that Eugenio Espejo's mother was born from a noble Navarran family.

Eugenio Espejo was charged with treachery to the Crown.

The Inspector denounced the thesis, and in face of the protest of the Dominicans, entrusted Eugenio Espejo with replying to the Dominican thesis and rebutting their ideas.