A libertine friar in the colonial America: Juan Antonio de Olavarrieta and the Urbina’s circle at Guayaquil

Abstract

The failure of different literary initiatives and therefore the economic difficul­ties give a reasonnable explication of why Juan Antonio de Olavarrieta, a «seculari­zed» franciscan who was accused of libertinism, embarked at Cádiz in October 1796 to Guayaquil, together with Jacinto Bejarano, who was a Guayaquilean Colonel and a wealthy land-owner. Once in Guayaquil, where he relied on the governor’s protec­tion Juan de Mata Urbina, the priest Olavarrieta would undertake in order to subsist a range of economic activities and he would leave behind —inside Urbina’s circle— unequivocal traces oh his materialist philosophy as well as his revolutionary convic­tions within a desordered behaviour background. Olavarrieta started to write his treatise El Hombre y el Bruto during his stay in the city and he dedicated it to his «friend and protector». At the end of 1799 he was obliged to leave the city because of his failure to adapt to the climatic conditions and his financial problems. Thanks to Urbina’s good connections he got the Parish of Axuchitlán (Nueva España) as well as the secularization bulls.