(A series brought to you by Feminist Global Resistance)

The Series:

Patriarchy ensures that male (almost exclusively white colonizer) history is remembered though a few women shine through or are given a twisted footnote.

More often, women are relegated to lost tomes and forgotten lore. Some shine through in song and tales while others, more recently, are beginning to have their stories told (progress?)

Throughout history, women around the world have stood to fight patriarchy, some winning, some losing, but they often brought revolution and change, their lives given for the just causes of freedom, liberty and justice.

This series will focus on the stories of some of those women who have stood up to patriarchy fighting oppression and colonization; confronting violence and abuse; And sacrificing everything in a fight for freedom, justice, and human rights.  There have been many.  I have chosen just a few of those who inspire me by their bravery and resolve.

Learn their names, learn from them, let them inspire you to do great things.

 

Part 12: “Mama Warrior”, Dolores Cacuango

 

Dolores Cacuango (María Dolores Cacuango Quilo), or “Mama Dolores” or “Mama Warrior” (October 26, 1881, Pesillo, Cayambe, Ecuador – April  23 1971):

Founder of Federation de Indios Ecuatorianos (Ecuadorian Federation of Indians, FEI)

 

 

Colonizers of Ecuador

 

PRE-COLUMBIAN ECUADOR:

The archeological evidence, uncovered to date, indicates that Ecuador was inhabited for at least 4,500 years before the Inca arrived, but many archeologists and anthropologists believe that the area was populated much earlier, possibly as far back as 10,000 B.C.

Numerous indigenous cultures thrived in Ecuador for thousands of years before the arrival of the Inca. The Valdivia culture in the Pacific coast region is the earliest known Ecuadorian culture but many other cultures rose in Ecuador during the Pre-Columbian period.  Large sections of Ecuador, including almost all of the “Oriente” (a region of eastern Ecuador, comprising the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes and the lowland areas of rainforest in the Amazon basin), remain untouched by archeological research.

By 600 BC, the societies that rose had developed into more stratified with castes of shamans as well as merchants that began to develop established trade routes throughout the area. Trading expanded to societies in Peru, Brazil, the Amazon and as far away as the Mayans in Mexico. Along with that trade, they became more aesthetic and more technological.

By 500 BC, large cities began to develop along the coast- metalwork, pottery and other arts began to flourish.

There were skirmishes between the tribes throughout the period but nothing like they faced in the 15^th century.

Then came the Inca…

 

INCA COLONIZATION:

According to written records, in 1463 the ruler of the Inca empire (Tahuantinsuyo or Tawantinsuyu: Quechua for the “Realm of the Four Parts”), Pachacuti, and his son, Túpac Yupanqui, began conquering Ecuador but it took until 1525 before the Inca succeeded in taking Ecuador. It was Yupanqui’s son, Huayna Capac, successor of Yupanqui, who, ultimately, subjugated the indigenous tribes of Ecuador.

By 1525, the Inca had merged the land and its peoples into the Inca Empire. The peoples of Ecuador were allowed to manage most of their own affairs but were forced to adopt a new language. The language of the empire, Quechua, remains widely spoken in Ecuador today.

Upon Huayana Capac’s death, the empire to two of his sons – Atahualpa, who had Caranqui lineage and grew up in the Quito region; and Huáscar, who grew up in Incan capital Cuzco.  Unfortunately, this divided the Inca empire and a civil war broke out.  Atahualpa eventually prevailed but the conflict left the Inca battle-weary and embittered.  The empire was ripe for conquest.

Then came the Spanish…

 

SPANISH CONQUEST – FRANCISCO PIZARRO:

Pizarro had been running reconnaissance along the coasts of South America since 1524.  He heard stories of “great wealth” in the interior of the country and ran back to Spain with the news.

In 1532, he returned with ships filled with conquistadors, horses and munitions in order to take that “great wealth” by force. Advancing quickly towards the capitol of the Inca Empire (now modern-day Cusco), he set a meeting with the ruler of the Incas.  Instead of a meeting, Pizarro ambushed the Incas as they travelled towards the meeting place, killing the Inca guards and capturing Atahualpa, the Inca ruler, holding him for ransom.  The Incas agreed to pay that ransom but Pizarro assassinated the ruler anyway.

These actions were the catalyst for 2 years of war between the white invaders and the indigenous peoples of the empire led by Incaa war-general Rumiñahui.  By 1535, Rumiñahui was captured and executed bringing the end to the empire.

In 1534, Spanish conquistadores, founded the city of San Francisco de Quito, in honor of Francisco Pizarro, built atop the ruins of the secondary Inca capital – now part of modern day Quito.

In 1542, the Viceroyalty of Peru was created and the territory of Ecuador was governed from its capital in Lima and administered through the Real Audiencia of Quito.

In 1572, the final nail was hammered in the coffin of the “Realm of the Four Parts”. Túpac Amaru, the last successor to Atahualpa, was captured and executed by the Spanish invaders.

In 1717, the Viceroyalty of New Granada was created with its capital in Bogotá and Ecuador was governed under the new viceroyalty.

 

COLONIZATION, CATHOLICISM, AND OPPRESSION:

The colonial era in Ecuador was relatively peaceful for the colonizing Spanish. The Spanish developed the economy as they cultivated exports such as cattle and bananas; introduced Catholicism as they built churches and monasteries atop the ruins of desecrated indigenous sites; and made certain that the indigenous Ecuadorian’s fared much worse under their rule than they did under the rule of the Inca.

In a single century, the indigenous Ecuadorians experienced two conquests by foreign colonizers and a civil war; Were now plagued with heretofore unknown and deadly diseases brought by the white invaders (i.e., plagues of smallpox, influenza, and other viruses); Had their language stripped from them by the first invading force, the Inca, then used against them by the second invading (Catholic priests and missionaries used Quichua as a means of indoctrinating- “evangelization” – the people)  colonizer; Were forced to give up their religious centers and temples (destroyed by the Catholic Church who built their monasteries and cathedrals atop the ruins); Were stripped of all wealth and power; And were forced into servitude and slavery via systems of “the encomienda” (a thinly veiled system of slavery that was particularly abusive in Ecuador’s early colonial years, when the natives were forced to work in mercury mines and travel long distances to deliver the quotas of tribute) and “the mita” (requiring natives to spend a year working toward “Spain’s interests” in another form of forced labor that essentially indebted the natives to Spaniards).

In 1553, the first enslaved Africans reached Ecuador in Quito when a slave ship heading to Peru was stranded off the Ecuadorian coast, further cementing the institutions used to oppress the indigenous Ecuadorians

 

LIBERATION?

In 1808, Juan Pío Montúfor of Quito (Juan Pío de Montúfar y Larrea-Zurbano, II Marquis of Selva Alegre and knight of the Order of Carlos III) – son of a Spanish noble from Granada and  “Criollo” (a person of white Spanish descent born in the colonies)  noble from Ecuador – decided it was time to release South America from the grip of Spain. In 1809, along with other nobles and ”intellectuals”, Montúfor deposed the president of the Audiencia of Quito (the highest court of the Spanish crown in the territories of the Province or Quito Presidency, inside the Viceroyalty of Peru, which later became part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada.), and formed a Board of Governors that stood for 24 days before falling to Spain’s royalist troops.

Venezuelan, Simón Bolívar (Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios), had better luck with liberating South America (and Ecuador) from the grip of Spain. Like Montúfor, he was born into a wealthy, upper class Criollo family.  He was educated in Spain before returning to Venezuela in 1807.

Like Montúfor, Bolívar also began his campaign for independence in 1808. After liberating Venezuela, he continued his military campaign and continued to liberate Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. The liberation of Quito ultimately came about on May 24^th, 1822, after the battle of Pichincha. While the battle for Ecuadorian province was not a major clash, it was significant since it allowed the province to become part of the Republic of Columbia (Gran Colombia). By 1830, Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca seceded from Colombia and became the Republic of Ecuador.

While Ecuador achieved independence from Spain for the upper and middle classes, the “peasant” class achieved nothing. In fact, their situation worsened under the new Criollo ruling class of the Republic. At least Spain attempted some control over abuses inflicted on the peasant classes but, without those minimal controls, the Criollo land and estate holders now had complete control and autonomy to do as they wanted.

The middle and upper classes became citizens of the Republic, a recognition not given to the indigenous peoples of the nation, and, even  when “slavery” was abolished in 1851, those former slaves were not recognized either. Instead, there was a purposeful consolidation of the ethnic paradigm, originally imposed by Spanish colonizers based on the exploitation and exclusion of both the Indigenous population and the descendants of enslaved Africans, now made an integral part of the new Republic.

Venezuelan-born military general, Juan Jose Flores (Juan José Flores y Aramburu), was appointed the first President of Ecuador. He served from 1831 to 1835 and from 1839 to 1845. With Flores as president, it didn’t take long for discontent to grow. His presidency was marked by ruthlessness and oppression. Rivalries, as well as ideological differences, developed between the Sierra (focusing on Quito, the Capitol of Ecuador) and the Costa (focusing on Guayaquil, an important port city and center of Ecuador’s industry and trade).

Quito was home to the “landed aristocracy” of Ecuador whose positions of power were based on the large, long established semifeudal estates that were worked entirely by indigenous labor. Quito was also an extremely conservative clerical city; Base of the Church and resistant to any changes in the status quo.

Guayaquil, had become a busy port city and was controlled by a few wealthy merchants who were influenced by 19th-century liberalism. They favored free enterprise and expanding markets and some of these merchants were anticlerical.

The bourgeois attitudes of Guayaquil conflicted with aristocratic attitudes of the Quito.

By 1845, those rivalries exploded into revolt

 

BOURGEOIS VS ARISTOCRAT; LIBERAL VS CONSERVATIVE:

On March 6, 1845, the people of Guayaquil revolted against the government – The “marcistas”, as the revolutionaries were known, forced Juan Jose Flores to surrender at his plantation, La Elvira, near Babahoyo. Flores accepted the terms negotiated for his surrender: Flores was to leave power; He would make a declaration nullifying any act under his government; And he would accept 20,000 pesos for all of his property and immediately leave the country for Spain.

The country was then governed by the triumvirate composed of José Joaquín de Olmedo, Vicente Ramón Roca and Diego Noboa thus ending all foreign domination of Ecuador.

The next fifteen years were turbulent for the new Republic – The “marcistas” fought among themselves almost ceaselessly and also had to combat Flores, now in exile, who repeatedly tried to overthrow the government.

The most significant figure of the era was General José María Urbina (José María Mariano Segundo de Urvina y Viteri,born and raised in Ecuador and educated in the Navy School in Guayaquil rising to the rank of General of the Republic), who first came to power in 1851 through a coup d’état, and remained in the presidency until 1856, but continued to dominate the political scene until 1860.

For the next two decades, Urbina (a Liberal) and his rival, García Moreno (Gabriel Gregorio Fernando José María García Moreno y Morán de Butrón, descended from Spanish and Criollo aristocracy, devout Catholic and studied Theology at the University in Quito), came to define the rivalry between liberals from Guayaquil and conservatives from Quito that remained the major sphere of political struggle in Ecuador.

Urbina exemplified the anticlerical, ethnic, Liberalism of Guayaquil.  In 1852 he accused a group of Jesuit priests of political meddling and expelled them. Urbina freed the nation’s slaves exactly one week after his coup of 1851, and six years later, his successor and lifelong friend, General Francisco Robles, finally put an end to three centuries of annual payments of tribute by the native peoples. Henceforth, liberalism associated itself with bettering the position of Ecuador’s non-white population. Urbina and Robles also favored Guayaquil businessmen over Quito landowners.

In 1861, authoritarian and ultraconservative García Moreno was elected president. He came to office at a time when the Treasury was empty and the nation was under an enormous debt. He placed the government under a austere economy and slashed jobs, specifically those corrupt positions found siphoning tax money. He was able to turn the economy around and attract foreign investors.

Moreno reinstituted a tax on working class and the indigenous people, the “trabajo subsidario” tax (requiring every citizen to give four days of unpaid work to the State annually or pay the monetary equivalent) to promote the nation’s public works projects. Ecuador’s indigenous people were unable to pay to avoid labor. Like the “miti” tax abolished under Robles, this tax hurt the indigenous peoples the most. Many, as Estate-bound peons, were able to find some protection from these laws through the help of paternal landlords.

In 1862, Moreno demanded control of the revenues of the “trabajo subsidario” tax in order to direct funds towards his major infrastructural reform (Henderson, Peter V. N. Gabriel Garcia Moreno and Conservative State Formation in the Andes. University of Texas Press, 2008, pgs84-85)^. This move created a great deal of local animosity since it meant the diversion of funds from locally based public works projects. Using these funds, García Moreno began his famous highway system project, contracting workers (mostly indigenous) from the trabajo subsidario requirement to build these roads.

Reports of discriminatory and abusive treatment of the indigenous laborers began to spread. From Four years among the Ecuadorians, by Friedrich Hassaurek (Hassaurek, F. 1831-1885., and C. Harvey Gardiner. Four Years Among the Ecuadorians. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967):

“[The Indian] does not work voluntarily, not even when paid for his labor, but is pressed into the service of the government for a length of time, at the expiration of which he is discharged and another forced into his place. He works unwillingly, is kept to his task by the whip of the overseer. It is evident that but little progress could be made under these circumstances.”

Moreno instituted Roman Catholicism as the religion of the land giving vast power to the church, unifying the tie between church and state. All education and welfare, along with the direction of much government policy, were turned over to clerics. Practice of any other religion (including indigenous beliefs) were harshly discouraged. All opposition was ruthlessly suppressed, and some leading liberals spent many years in exile.

Moreno also instituted a “Secret Police” used to crack down on any opposition, specifically leftist dissent.

Shortly after his 2^nd re-election in 1875, Moreno was hacked to death with a machete on the steps of the presidential palace.

It took another 20 years and 5 different presidents/dictators for the Liberals to consolidate power but even their control over the government offered very little for Native Ecuadorians.

HER Story:

 

 

On October 26, 1881, 59 years after the “liberation” by Simon Bolivar and 51 years since the Republic of Ecuador was established. María Dolores Cacuango Quilo was born in the San Pablo Urco on the Pesillo Hacienda (owned by the Mercedarian friars) near Cayambe, Ecuador (located in the northern Ecuadorian highlands). Her indigenous parents, Andrea Quilo and Juan Cacuango, were “peones concierto” or “concierto Indians” (those at the bottom of the economic scale working for haciendas in exchange for a small piece of land known as ‘huasipungo.’) working at that estate.

As a child raised in poverty, Dolores did not have any opportunities for education. Instead, she worked alongside her parents at the Hacienda.

Dolores Cacuango was born in turbulent times – in the middle of the struggle between conservatives of Quito vs the Liberals of Guayaquil.  The indigenous peoples saw little, if any, relief under either group.

 

In 1881, dictator Ignacio de Veintemilla had been in power for 5 years after staging a coup against the elected president Antonio Borrero. Veintemilla evolved into a populist military dictator and chose not to become a politician affiliated with any party or ideology. Though a dictator, he became extremely popular with his troops and able to gain the support of the people offering employment on public works programs and staging large-scale public festivals and dances during holiday periods.

 

When Dolores was 2 years old, Veintemilla was replaced by another Conservative, José María Plácido Caamaño who served until a member of the newly created Progressive Party was elected.  During these presidencies and the following presidency, the animosity between the Liberals and Conservatives continued to grow.

In 1895, when Dolores was 14, several rebellions broke out between Conservatives and Liberals in Ecuador.

 

By June, 1895, the Liberals seized Guayaquil and paved the way for the return of General José Eloy Alfaro Delgado (Head of the Ecuadorian Radical Liberal Party,aka, Partido Liberal Radical Ecuatoriano, or PLRE), who had been exiled for over a decade by the government of Veintemilla. Within 3 months, Alfaro marched triumphantly into Quito thus ending Ecuador’s brief experiment with progressivism at the hands of the Progressive Party and Ecuador’s beginning of 3 decades of rule by the PLRE.

As a part of that revolution, Alfaro promised to give back the land, seized by the Church and large landowners, the indigenous peoples. But the people soon realized that laws alone weren’t enough. Landowners retained the same old practices and many campesinos were still landless.

 

The Radicalization of Dolores

At the age of 15, 1896, and before her family could force her into an arranged marriage, Dolores escaped to Quito. There, she found a job as a maid in the quarters of a military officer.

While working in Quito, she taught herself how to speak, read, and write in Spanish, which deepened her awareness of the plight of indigenous peoples, especially the campesinos (Indian farmers or laborers) in, both, urban and rural environments. After experiencing the discrimination and poverty at her home, her life in Quito exposed her to the rampant discrimination toward Native Ecuadorians there.

Dolores’ political awakening came through an indigenous activist named Juan Albamocho. Albamocho was an indigenous man who would dress up as a begger and ask for money outside of a lawyer’s office in Quito. While pretending to ask for money, he would ease drop on the conversations of the lawyers and gathered important information that would benefit the indigenous people.  He took that information and would inform the indigenous communities so they could defend themselves against the church and landowners.

Dolores soon returned home with a deeper understanding of the universal discrimination and abuse of the Native Ecuadorians, and an understanding that there were some, if only a few, rights they had to defend themselves. She returned to fight for the rights of the working class.

 

Dolores married Luis Catacuamba in 1905 The couple lived on Yanahuayco, near Cayambe. Dolores had 9 children but only one survived childhood.

 

The dawn of the 20^th Century in Ecuador was met with a continuation of the struggle for control between Liberal and Conservative elites. Coup after coup; Bloodshed and assassination; Back and forth, with the Native Ecuadorians caught in the middle. What few rights they obtained under “Liberals” were removed under “Conservatives” – and even the rights they had were extremely limited. Discontent was growing into anger; Anger into action

During the period, both Colombia and Peru tried to conquer the country but the Republic stood against those attempts though it sustained heavy losses.  The internal strife and bloodshed continued.

 

The Rise of Dolores Cacuango: Activist and Indigenous Leader

 

From the early 1920’s through the 1930’s, various leftist leaders, to include Socialists and then Communists, came from Quito to inspire the indigenous peoples to rise up and demand their rights against the haciendas and the landowners. The Native Ecuadorians began to radicalize and organize.

 

In May, 1920, revolts against taxes in Chimborazo left fifty Indigenous people dead.

On September 13, 1923, Indigenous workers at the hacienda “Leito” (a hacienda formerly owned by Jesuits then handed to an aristocratic family) rebelled against the landowners due to forced work increases and the rise of legal hours at work. The owner called in the government to quell the uprising. Up to 100 Native Ecuadorians were massacred by government troops.

Things worsened for the indigenous peoples with the Juliana Revolution of 1925, contributing to the polarization caused by the current economic conditions that led to the Cayambe uprising. After a campaign by Conservative politicians and publicists, calling for the military to overthrow the government, a military Coup led to the appointment of Isidro Ayora as president returning the country to rule under Conservatives and more oppression of the Native Ecuadorians.  

In January, 1926, Jesús Gualavisí formed the Peasant Workers Syndicate of Juan Montalvo (Sindicato de Trabajadores Campesinos de Juan Montalvo), the first peasant-Indigenous organization in Ecuador. Jesús Gualavisí represented the Syndicate at the founding of the Socialist Party.

He subsequently led uprisings at Changalá hacienda in Cayambe in response to land conflicts with hacienda owners. Changalá had a history of abuses against its Indigenous workforce. The Indigenous peoples and other inhabitants of Cayambe presented legal claims that the hacienda had taken over lands for which they had historic title. Gualavisí led an occupation of the disputed land. García Alcázar called on the government to protect his property from “communist and bolshevik attacks” (From: “El dueño de Changalá acude a la junta de gobierno,” El Comercio, February 25, 1926). The struggle exploded into a violent conflict in February of 1926 when army battalions from Quito and Ibarra arrived to repress these land demands. The repression did not end the struggle, and the following November a newspaper reported that a group attacked the police at Changalá shouting “long live socialism”.

 

Dolores Cacuango became an integral part of the organizing of the workers at the haciendas in Cayambe.

Working with Jesús Gualavisí, in 1926, Dolores played a key role in that rebellion at the Changalá hacienda and became known for her fierce speeches, both in Kichwa (aka,Kichwa shimi, Runashimi, also Spanish Quichua, a Quechuan language that includes all Quechua varieties of Ecuador and Colombia, as well as extensions into Peru) and Spanish, and included calls for fair education in their mother language and respect for women and their work.

She was well aware of the difficult situation of indigenous women in the Haciendas, often being raped, beaten and forced to work without any remuneration, but appealed to the whole of society with her words:

“We want the indigenous to know who they are giving birth to, so they are never again raped by their devil boss, so no more children are born without a father and be despised children”

In 1930, Cacuango was a leader in the workers’ strike against the Pesillo hacienda, which was a pivotal event for indigenous and peasant rights. This strike was so influential that it was a subject in the novel Huasipungo (Ecuador’s most famous indigenista novel) by Jorge Icaza years later [Indigenous Communists and Urban Intellectuals in Cayambe, Ecuador (1926–1944), Marc Becker]

Dolores organized protest after protest against the landowners who underestimated the strength of Ecuador’s indigenous people. She inspired Native Ecuadorians to stand up for their human rights and against the oppression of white landowner and government. She was passionate about creating change in the government and the society of Ecuador, and she quickly became a prominent figure in the Communist Party of Ecuador. Cacuango worked hard to achieve rights for her people even at the risk of her own life.

This was the case during the “Glorious May Revolution” of 1944, when she led an assault on a military base in Cayambe. Her rebellious actions resulted in her imprisonment several times, yet she continued to advocate for the Native Ecuadorians.

In 1944, Cacuango worked with two fellow activists, Transito Amaguaña and Jesus Gualavisi, to form the Indigenous Ecuadorian Federation (FEI,), part of the Confederation of Ecuadorian Workers (CTE) – The CTE is now the largest union federation in Ecuador today

As stated in Marc Becker’s, “Communists, indigenists and indigenous people in the formation of the Ecuadorian Federation of Indians” (Iconos Ecuadorian Indigenous Institute. Journal of Social Sciences, no. 27, January, 2007, p. 135-144):

“…the FEI was born as a collaborative
project that cultivated the active participation
of indigenous militants. A misinterpretation of
the history of the FEI grows partly from the
assumption that the Communist Party, like
other political parties of that time, was uniquely
a phenomenon of urban elites. The indigenous,
however, had a small but significant presence
in the party. They succeeded in opening the
eyes of urban leftists to the important ethnic
aspects of indigenous struggles…

… Delegates to the FEI congress wrote
statutes for the new federation that defined
a popular program of social reform. The
Federation sought:
a. Carry out the economic emancipation of
the Ecuadorian Indians;

Raise their cultural and moral level, conserving the good
of their customs and institutions;

Contribute to the realization of the National
Unity; and

Establish bonds of solidarity
with all American Indians

 (FEI 1945: 3).”

 

Cacuango was adamant about education for indigenous people. In 1945, she founded the first autonomous indigenous school in Ecuador in Yanahuayco. The clandestine school was never recognized by Ecuador’s education ministry (the government saw in it a “breeding ground” for communists) but, with the financial help given by the Partido Comunista del Ecuador (OCE) and local communities, the school was extended to other locations (i.e.,  Chimba, Pesillo, and Moyurco—all of which had a strong presence of the indigenous movement).

In the 1940’s, after education for the peasants became the law of the land, the haciendas refused to allow schools on their lands for their workers.  The landowner’s felt education was equivalent to loss of income since the children were worth more working than sitting in a classroom.

Even those Native Ecuadorian children who could access the approved schools failed to achieve and often left school.

Dolores believed that the government approved “assimilation” model for education was wrong for the indigenous children and this proved to be true throughout the nation. The “assimilation” model forced all children into an educational system in which only Spanish could be taught and used.  No child was allowed to speak in any other language nor “learn” in any other language.  Indigenous culture and history was “scrubbed” from education. This left indigenous children without the ability to achieve; Left them isolated; and caused many to leave school and give up on education entirely.

Dolores’ concept was “revolutionary”- She believed in using Kichwa in her school and, by using the native languages to teach Spanish to the children, the indigenous people could learn and excel in their education.  She also included teaching of indigenous history and culture along with other subjects (defying the government systems). In her schools, she found the children more eager to learn.

Dolores’ son, Luis Catucuamba Cacuango, joined her at the Yanahuayco Indigenous school and taught there from 1945 until they were forced to close. By 1963, the dictatorship of General Ramon Castro Jijon closed down the schools (due to their fear of the Communist movement), raided Cacuango’s home, and forced her to go into hiding. The government prohibited Kichwa from becoming a teachable language.

Dolores never stopped her activism – instead she worked under the cover of night, often in disguise, to advance the movement even as the government continued their search for her.

After strong pressure from the indigenous community, in 1946, the Jijon regime finally offered to implement agrarian reform in Ecuador.

After a year underground, Dolores returned and marched with more than 10,000 indigenous people from Cayambe all the way to Quito, to show the strength of the indigenous movement at the time and gave a historical speech at the University Theater. Her speech, in Kichwa, included the line:

“We are like straw, more than the wind moves us from one place to another, it will not be able to rip us off. We are like straw from the hill that is uprooted and returned to grow and with straw from the hill we will cover the world”

 

Dolores Cacuango died on April 23, 1971, surrounded by her husband, son, daughter-in-law, and best friend, María Luisa. The last few years of her life were difficult; she lost strength, weight, and became paraplegic. These conditions limited her from continuing her common visits to communities and organizations.

Dolores gave her life for that of others and died in the deepest poverty, in 1971, without any recognition and  seemingly forgotten. Only one note in a newspaper spoke of her death at that time.

Over a decade passed after her death, before Dolores achieved any formal recognition for her service and sacrifice. Her name arose once again as a result of the bilingual intercultural education proposal raised by indigenous organizations. Her legacy was one of breaking down barriers of oppression in Ecuadorian culture and began the long discussion for the rights of its indigenous people.

By 1988, the Ministry of Education in Ecuador recognized the necessity of bettering the education of indigenous people. The National Direction of Bilingual Intercultural Education was created in the image of Dolores and her schools began to be reborn.

There are new acknowledgements of “Mama Dolores” in Ecuador; The city of Quito is reminded of Dolores Cacuango’s efforts by a simple three-block street named in her honor; A wooden statue stands in Olmedo, Ecuador; Ecuador’s famous painter Oswaldo Guayasimin included her portrait in his mural, Image of a Homeland, in Ecuador’s National Assembly, in her honor; Cacuango Park in Cayambe has a small memorial statue in her honor; and In 1997, Chuma co-founded the Dolores Cacuango Training School for Women Leaders, just one of many ways Ecuador’s Indigenous organizations have tried to keep Mama Dolores’s memory alive and empower women.

To the Native Ecuadorians she served; The indigenous peoples for whom she fought, her name lives on. Cacuango’s name is chanted in marches, to enliven and encourage people to go on: “Dolores Cacuango! Mamá Guerrera! Por tu camino, compañera!” Dolores Cacuango! Mama Warrior! In your footsteps, friend!

 

 

Dolores’ warrior spirit lives in the hearts of those who follow in her footsteps; She will be remembered for her strength, her vision and her achievements by the Naïve Ecuadorians and, hopefully., their children for centuries to come.

Author’s Note:

There is another honor that has been bestowed on Dolores Cacuango that this writer believes may be the most symbolic of all:

In 2022, Scientists identified a tiny new species of dwarf boa living in the Ecuadorian Amazon, in the eastern foothills of the Andes that was named “Tropidophis cacuangoae”.

The scientists believe that it is endemic to the area but had never been seen by the scientific community before its recent discovery

I imagine Dolores is laughing with glee somewhere in the cosmos.