History of José Antonio Pontón, independence fighter, is collected in Gabriel Fandiño’s book

When we hear the word independence we associate it with the great liberating deeds of the 19th century, the images of Bolívar, Sucre, San Martín and more names of prominent leaders of the military campaigns come to our mind, we imagine the great battles that led to defeat to the Spanish empire, one of the most powerful of those years, but we cannot imagine the heroes that are not written with letters in high relief, or the small combats that were carried out by the irregular forces or simply the guerrillas.

In this interview with the Guayaquil historian Gabriel Fandiño we approach some characters who stood out as leaders of this type of war and that history does not reflect them in their true dimension. Fandiño presents this Wednesday, at 11:00, in the auditorium of the Mayor’s Office of Alausí his book Colonel José Antonio Pontón, Commander of Guerrillas in Independence. The history of the Alausí insurgent and the Sucre guerrillas in the Quito Liberation Campaign (1821-1822).

1. José Antonio Pontón, the central character in your book, is one of those forgotten characters. What were the steps you followed to get it out of oblivion?

I came across his story by chance, when I was investigating in the documents of Marshal Sucre about another somewhat forgotten character of our independence such as Colonel Cayetano Cestari. I was struck by the type of direct communication that Pontón maintained with Sucre, objective and frank, talking about military affairs, incursions or espionage during the Ecuadorian campaign of 1821-1822. So I decided to study her figure more thoroughly.

2. The guerrilla struggle promoted by Pontón is a little-known facet of the wars of independence, especially in Ecuador. But in countries like Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and Mexico it has been studied a lot. What is the reason for the little study of this subject in Ecuadorian history?

The military aspect of the Quito liberation campaign in 1821-1822 it has always been subject to the story of the great heroes (Sucre, Bolívar, etc.), to the information provided by the “campaign bulletins” or to the bombastic narrative of the great battles. However, it is outside of those bulletins, and between battles, that these insurgent groups left their mark. In recent years the fascinating life of these guerrillas, characters located on the margins of the historiography of independence, has begun to attract the attention of a growing number of enthusiasts of military history.

3. Did you have any difficulties looking into the files about the character, was there enough information?

For the study of José Antonio Pontón, and in general about the guerrillas of Ecuadorian independence, it is necessary to apply the “Microhistory”, that is, to adjust the search objective from the macro to the margins of history. It is not information contained in books: it is necessary to go back to the archives, collect scattered data in original sources and structure them from there. I have dedicated the last ten years to this research, using archival documents from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Italy. For 80 years there has been in Venezuela, in its General Archive of the Nation, an important documentary repository with relevant information about Ecuadorian independence, the guerrillas and about the Pontón itself. I do not know why that data source has been ignored by our historiography.

4. Do you think that these guerrillas played an important role in the liberation campaigns?

They were important, and hence my surprise when I wanted to investigate further and discover that there was almost no work in the country that dealt with the subject in a broad way. So I undertook this research on my own, with the sole desire to learn, but at the end I felt that I had a relevant story that all Ecuadorians should know. Among other things, as a result of my research, I learned that these guerrillas carried the brunt of the fighting in the Sierra during the organization of the liberation army on the Coast. Also that they provided the espionage necessary for the operations, and that they were responsible for igniting popular enthusiasm in the areas where the liberating troops were to march.

The leaders of these guerrillas (one of them José Antonio Pontón) were experts in unconventional warfare tactics: military disinformation, sabotage, psychological warfare, espionage, etc. In short, the most interesting aspects of the art of war dominated, aspects in which weapons are not imposed so much but cunning, deception and strategy.

5. What characteristics did these guerrillas have in our territory?

These insurgent groups found in the irregular Andean geography the ideal place for their guerrilla warfare. While the large armies needed large and relatively regular battlefields to fight, the guerrillas adapted to any geographical accident (narrow gorges, the dense mountains, etc.) to stalk in small groups and attack the royalist convoys by surprise. , isolated enemy garrisons or to intercept their supplies and mail. The largest guerrillas (those of Angamarca and those of Alausí) had the support of the common people, and acquired a heroic aura that pushed farmers, slaves and even priests to join them. A guerrilla priest, Manuel José de Ortiz from Cuenca, was the most notable recruiter of combatants for the guerrillas.

6. The character of José Antonio Pontón stands out in your work for having remained active in his fight against the Spanish troops despite the military defeat of the Quito forces in 1812. How could this soldier keep the resistance alive for almost 13 years?

Pontón’s guerrilla participation in the Quito revolution and in the battles of the State of Quito was passionate. His hand did not tremble when he signed controversial death sentences against those who betrayed the revolution. After the defeat of 1812, he led his insurgent war to the Emerald jungle, being one of the first whites to mutiny black slaves and organize them into guerrillas against the crown.

But when the royalists regained control of the Audiencia, Pontoon was captured and taken to court. Before the judges, the Alauseño displayed the art of dissimulation and persuasion, and convinced them that he was not as dangerous as they painted him (the fact that he was the son of a wealthy lineage family, one of the most notable in the Sierra, also weighed heavily). In an almost romantic turn of his situation, he managed to avoid the death penalty, and waited patiently for years, in the dark, until 1820, when the independence flag was waved again in Guayaquil. At that time Pontón was one of the very few combatants from the first hour of the Quito revolution who returned to operational service, organizing the largest guerilla in the Austro in 1821.

7. In your book, the guerrilla war is made visible as part of Sucre’s military strategy in these lands, but there are other sectors of society at the time that are invisible, such as the case of women and their participation in wars. independence, could you discover something about that participation?

These guerrillas in Ecuadorian territory exchanged letters with Sucre in which they speak of women who carry out espionage work. These spies entered enemy territory of the Sierra, possibly disguised as merchants, and returned to the republican base of Babahoyo, bringing data on the number of troops, enemy movements, etc. Unfortunately their names are not mentioned in these documents, surely to protect their identity and not compromise them in the event of an enemy confiscation of the correspondence.

8. When do you expect to release your book on José Antonio Pontón and the one by Cayetano Cestari that you wrote with Necker Franco?

Both books are 100% ready for publication. The Pontón is sponsored by the Alausí Historical Research Institute, promoted by its director Galo García Idrovo, and will be launched in November of the current year (this month). Cestari’s will be at the end of this or early 2022, we are looking for sponsors. Although they are physically separate books, they actually form a unit in their content, and they complement each other, so we have considered the future option of offering them to the public within a container box. The publication of both works before the bicentennial of the Battle of Pichincha is necessary so that they can enter the historiographical debate on this important commemoration in time. (I)