1 ECUADORIANIZING the ORIENTE: STATE FORMATION and NATIONALISM in ECUADOR's AMAZON, 1900-1969 by WILLIAM THOMPSON FISCHER

ECUADORIANIZING THE ORIENTE: STATE FORMATION AND NATIONALISM IN ECUADOR’S AMAZON, 1900-1969 By WILLIAM THOMPSON FISCHER A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2015 1 © 2015 William Thompson Fischer 2 To my parents 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my adviser, Dr. Mark Thurner, for his support and advice throughout the process of writing this dissertation and in my entire graduate school career. The other members of my committee, Dr. Ida Altman, Dr. Carmen Diana Deere, Dr. Philip Williams, and Dr. Mitchell Hart, all provided valuable support and were influential in helping to shape the scope of my research and scholarly interests. Dr. Steve Noll was an important source of support and advice throughout graduate school, as was Dr. Jeffrey Needell. Dr. Teodoro Bustamante, Dr. Robert Wasserstrom, and Maria Eugenia Tamariz were valuable colleagues in research while I was in Ecuador, and their suggestions helped make my research period productive. The Fulbright Commission of Ecuador and Susana Cabeza de Vaca supported me logistically during my research period. The Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida also provided research funding critical to shaping my dissertation prospectus. My fellow students in Latin American History, particularly Roberto Chauca, Rob Taber, Erin Zavitz, Chris Woolley and Andrea Ferreira were excellent friends and colleagues. Dr. Jessica Clawson provided valuable feedback and encouragement. My parents, Harold and Billie Fischer, were unflinchingly supportive and patient during this long odyssey. My sister, Katie Fischer Ziegler, brother-in-law, Nicholas Ziegler, and nephew Roland provided needed support and distraction, as did my friends, particularly Peter Zimmerman, Matthew Mariner, Josh Tolkan, Andrew Tolan, and Annaka Larson. Finally, I must thank Emily Larson, who has been my strongest supporter and fiercest advocate in every facet of life for the last year. Without your joy and love, this dissertation would not be finished. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................. 7 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: ECUADOR’S ORIENTE AS NATIONAL OBJECT OF DESIRE AND SET OF ANCILLARY PROVINCES ................................................. 10 2 CONSTRUCTING THE NATIONAL OBJECT OF THE ORIENTE, 1900-1948 ....... 56 Giving the Oriente an Ecuadorian Past and Future ................................................ 58 Intensified Construction of the National Object in the 1920s and 1930s ................. 64 Celebrating a National Object of Desire: The Día del Oriente ................................. 92 Struggling with Loss: Discussing the Oriente after 1941 ....................................... 112 3 “JÍVAROS” AND “YUMBOS”: REPRESENTATIONS OF AMAZONIAN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN ECUADORIAN SOCIETY, 1900-1960 .................... 132 Jívaros .................................................................................................................. 139 Yumbos ................................................................................................................. 166 Proposals for Incorporating New Compatriots ...................................................... 194 4 “SPECIAL LAWS” FOR A SPECIAL REGION: GOVERNING THE ORIENTE, 1900-1948 ............................................................................................................. 205 The Oriente Subject to Liberal Agenda ................................................................. 206 New Reforms, New Governments, and Persistent Problems in the 1920s and 1930s ................................................................................................................. 231 Oriente Administration and Territorial Crisis into the 1940s .................................. 262 5 ADMINISTERING ANCILLARY PROVINCES: COLONISTS AND STATE OFFICIALS IN THE ORIENTE, 1940-1960 ........................................................... 280 Sentinels of the Homeland: Oriente Colonists and their Grievances .................... 288 The Oriente’s Appointed Functionaries ................................................................. 301 The Oriente’s Incipient Local Government ............................................................ 320 Political Factions and Administrative Disruption ................................................... 337 6 TAKING POSSESSION OF THE ORIENTE: LAND TITLING AND CONFLICT AMONG COLONISTS, LATIFUNDISTAS, AND INDIANS, 1940-1960 ................. 357 5 Colonists, Alleged “Latifundistas,” and the Competition for Land .......................... 359 The Oriente’s Indians Stake Their Claims ............................................................. 386 7 INDISPENSABLE NON-CITIZENS: THE ORIENTE’S INDIANS IN ANCILLARY PROVINCES, 1940-1960 ...................................................................................... 426 Yumbos and Patrones in the Northern Oriente ..................................................... 429 Jívaros and Whites in the Southern Oriente ......................................................... 472 8 STILL ANCILLARY: NAPO PROVINCE, 1960-1969 ............................................ 502 Administrative Efforts for an Ancillary Province .................................................... 503 Competition for Land in the 1960s and Agrarian Reform ...................................... 515 Patrones, State Officials, and Indian Workers ...................................................... 543 Concluding Remarks............................................................................................. 581 LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 585 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................... 597 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AGN Archivo de la Gobernación del Napo, Tena AMG Archivo del Ministerio de Gobierno, Quito 7 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy ECUADORIANIZING THE ORIENTE: STATE FORMATION AND NATIONALISM IN ECUADOR’S AMAZON, 1900-1969 By William Thompson Fischer May 2015 Chair: Mark W. Thurner Cochair: Ida Altman Major: History This dissertation traces the political, economic, and cultural means by which Ecuador’s Amazonian region became over the course of the twentieth century a vital component of the national state. The “Ecuadorianization” of the region had two fundamental components: first, the region was constructed as a national object of desire via the press, popular publications and civic manifestations; secondly, the region came to be administered in patrimonial fashion by the state as underfunded and isolated ancillary provinces. Though they were of strategic importance, these provinces were perpetually a secondary concern to the Ecuadorian government, leading to inconstant attention that could not bring about the desired integration of the region. Nevertheless, prior notions about the region as a national object endured, and these concepts influenced legislative initiatives for the region and the ways different social groups in the Oriente tended to interact with the state. In contrast to previous studies of state formation in the frontiers of the Andean region, this dissertation suggests that the national imagining of the territory preceded 8 the territorialization of the state. This imagining, which took place in the “paper space” of the Republic’s major cities, was consequential for the administration of the region in the “stage space” of colonization and state expansion because it provided rhetoric for colonists, state officials, and indigenous people that was used to establish a modus vivendi and to debate how authority was legitimated. This close association between how the region was imagined and how its integration into the state proceeded signals the importance of cultural production in the national “metropolis” for other cases of frontier state formation. Furthermore, this dissertation contributes to the theory of postcolonial nationalism by problematizing the role of the state in a frontier region. This work demonstrates how state formation in such areas may be characterized by improvisation and influential public-private constellations of power that lead to a situation of internal colonialism over indigenous peoples. As this dissertation describes, the ideas derived from the cultural construction of the Amazon region as an object of desire significantly influenced the way this colonial dynamic was both imposed and contested. 9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: ECUADOR’S ORIENTE AS NATIONAL OBJECT OF DESIRE AND SET OF ANCILLARY PROVINCES The Amazonian region to the east of Ecuador’s Andean cordillera is known to Ecuadorians as the Oriente, which can be literally translated as “the Orient” but which more simply and correctly means “the East.” Despite being a region that received little attention from the Ecuadorian government during the first century of the Republic’s independence, the Oriente is today a critical

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