Gabriel Gregorio Fernando José María García Moreno y Morán de Butrón (24 December 1821 – 6 August 1875), was an Ecuadorian politician and aristocrat who twice served as President of Ecuador (1861–65 and 1869–75) and was assassinated during his second term after being elected to a third.

This rearing instilled in the young Garcia Moreno a devout sense of Christian piety which would influence his later political activity as well as his private life.

Personally pious (he attended Mass daily, as well as visiting the Blessed Sacrament; he received Holy Communion every Sunday—a rare practice before Pope Pius X—and was active in a sodality), he made it one of the first duties of his government to promote and support Christianity.

Christianity was the official religion of Ecuador, but by the terms of a new Concordat, the State's power over appointment of bishops inherited from Spain was eliminated at García Moreno's insistence.

He was the only ruler in the world to protest the Pope's loss of the Papal States, and two years later had the legislature consecrate Ecuador to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

His father, Gabriel García y Gómez de Tama was a Spaniard from Soria, descended from the house of the Dukes of Osuna, and an officer of the Spanish Royal Navy.

[7] Like its mita precursor, the trabajo subsidario obligation fell most heavily on Ecuador's indigenous populations since these groups were unable to pay to avoid labor.

In 1862, in a somewhat contentious move, García Moreno demanded control of these revenues of this tax in order to direct funds towards his ambitions for major infrastructural reform.

Using these funds, García Moreno began his famous highway system project, contracting workers from the trabajo subsidario requirement to build these roads.

Although the ultimate results of the project are often praised, García Moreno has been criticized for his use of forced labor to build these highways and the overall discriminatory and abusive treatment of indigenous workers during the process of construction.

Hassurek writes, "[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.

Liberals typically disapproved of García Moreno due to the authoritarian and ultraconservative nature of his rule and his utilization of secret police to silence leftist dissent.

This opposition from the left compelled Juan Montalvo to write the pamphlet La dictadura perpetua (The Perpetual Dictatorship), which inspired the movement to assassinate Garcia Moreno.

[9]: 297–298 On 6 August 1875, García Moreno was assassinated on the steps of the National Palace in Quito,[10] struck down with knives and revolvers, later re-tellings of the event by his admirers attributing to him the following last words: "¡Dios no muere!"

[12][11] In 1974, Cardinal Pablo Vega replied to Hamish Fraser about the state of García Moreno's process, telling him that, "Unfortunately, there is neither the religious nor political environment.