This is an abridgement of Philip Louis Astuto, “Franscisco Javier Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo: A Man of the Enlightenment in Ecuador” (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1957). It suffers from the same defects as the original—reliance on published sources and lack of original research. This would be acceptable if the published versions of Espejo’s writings were faithful to the original manuscripts. But with the exception of the second edition of El nuevo Luciano de Quito, 1779, edited by Aurelio Espinosa Pólit, S.J. (“Clasicos ecuatorianos,” IV, Quito, 1943), there is reason to doubt their textual accuracy, particularly those presented by Federico González Suárez in the first two volumes of the Escritos del doctor Francisco Javier Eugenio Santa Cruz y Espejo (Quito, 1912). For example, González Suárez’ transcription of the Cartas riobambenses is a butchered rendition of Alberto Muñoz Vernaza’s distortion of these letters (Cuenca, 1888), the archbishop historian’s source for them. Muñoz Vernaza changed the names of the individuals mentioned therein; González Suárez deleted entire phrases and sentences.
Astuto’s first chapter, “Las Américas del siglo xviii,” is a litany of Black Legend generalizations and claptrap. The others reiterate Espejo’s critique of the society and economy of the Ecuadorian highlands on the eve of independence, and praise him as advanced and unique. If Quito had been as intellectually isolated and educationally backward as Espejo and his biographer would have us believe, how could this savant have emerged in the first place? Even an autodidact needs books and a critic an audience. Who imported the literature of the Enlightenment? Who else besides Espejo read it?
Astuto portrays Espejo as a man of the Enlightenment and a precursor of independence. What little is known about the mestizo medic suggests, however, that although he was abreast of much of the intellectual ferment of the times, he was not a modern pagan. Espejo may have been an innovator in education and medicine, but he was a conservative in religion and economics. He defended the Church and preached protectionism for the textile industry of the highlands, not free trade. And although Espejo may have advocated independence, there is no satisfactory evidence as to his political philosophy—certainly not the fifth-hand hearsay testimony of a conversation purportedly held between his younger brother and the latter’s mistress, or the accusations fifteen years after his death by a man who never set foot inside Quito, President-designate Toribio Molina.
I have but one message for Astuto. If you wish to “levantar el velo de confusión y de misterio que rodea a este polemista y médico ecuatoriano de la Ilustración en el Nuevo Mundo, determinando los hechos de su vida, obras y actividades” (p. 17), go to the archives. Anyone else interested in Espejo should read, not Astuto but Homero Viteri Lafronte, “Un libro autógrafo de Espejo,” Boletín de la Academia Nacional de Historia, IV, no. 19 (Quito, 1920), 335-448. Manuscript copies of Espejo’s writings are readily available. In Quito Carlos Manuel Larrea has “El nuevo Luciano.” In the library of Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño are the “sermones,” two of which have never been published. In Cuenca Dr. Miguel Díaz Cueva has an unknown second edition of “La ciencia blancardina.” Finally, in the Archivo Nacional de Historia: Sección del Azuay are a “Representación de los curas del distrito de Riobamba,” part of the 1795 trial proceedings against Espejo, and the only known copy of the “Cartas riobambenses.”
