A Brief History Of Ecuador

The Pre-Columbian Age

An air of mystery surrounds Ecuador's first colonizers, with many theories and little archeological evidence. However, sites dating back to 10,000 BC have been uncovered in mainland Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands. These sites likely belonged to scattered groups rather than any formal society.

More complex societies would eventually form, ushering in a rich cultural history that we know too little about today. One of Ecuador's oldest societies is also one of its most notable.

The Valdivia people settled along Ecuador's coast around 3,500 BC. They would flourish for 1,700 years before mysteriously disappearing. They are famous for producing some of the earliest evidence of ceramics in the Americas, their agricultural prowess, and their reverence for animals and the natural world.

Around 1,000 BC, high in the Andes around modern-day Quito, another society known as the Chorrera flourished. The Chorrera endured for 700 years before fading away. In that time, they provided evidence of growing crops, fishing, and, most notably, impressive metalwork — their intricate workings of gold, silver, and other precious metals are highly coveted today.

In the following centuries, several other cultures, including the Machalilla, the Bahia, and the Jama-Coaque, rose and faded away before being replaced by one of the world's most famous ancient empires, the Inca.

The Time of the Inca

The origins of the Incan Empire, one of Latin America's four great civilizations, come from 13th-century Peru. Legend has it that the first Incan ruler, Manco Capac, rose from Lake Titicaca, alongside his sister and wife Mama Occlo, having been sent by the sun god Inti to reside over a new civilization in the Andes.

From the shores of Lake Titicaca, the pair traveled to the Cusco Valley, where they established a base for their new civilization. Manco Capac and Mama Occlo taught locals in the Cusco Valley how to farm, build, and govern themselves before establishing a line of succession in the form of the Sapa Inca.

Legend states that once their work was done, the gods turned the pair into stone, becoming guardians of their people as their spirits ascended to live with the gods.

In the centuries that followed, the Sapa Inca was considered a divine figure and responsible for the welfare of the empire. The Inca expanded through conquest and diplomacy, creating a complex hierarchy of government, religion, taxation, and social structures. In its heyday, the empire covered present-day Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and parts of Argentina, Colombia, and the Brazilian Amazon. The Inca were famous for creating a complex road system, enormous cities, aqueducts, irrigation, stonework, textiles, and for their cultivation of crops. This is especially impressive, considering the Inca had no known written language.

Eventually, the empire entered a civil war in the early 16th century, ultimately proving its undoing. Civil war erupted between two half-brothers, Atahualpa and Huascar, following the death of their father, Sapa Inca Huayna Capac, in 1525. The line of succession stated Huascar, based in Cusco, was to be named the new Sapa Inca. However, Atahualpa had gained wide support for expanding the empire in the north, leading many to believe he would be a more worthy Sapa Inca.

Battles for the throne raged across modern-day Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile, decimating the empire. Atahualpa emerged victorious, capturing and executing Huascar in 1532. However, his victory would prove short-lived.

Conquest: Arrival of the Spanish

In the latter parts of the Incan civil war, Atahualpa learned of the arrival of a small group from faraway lands. This group of fewer than 200 men was led by the infamous conquistador Francisco Pizarro.

On November 16th, 1532, Atahualpa met with Pizarro and his Spanish contingent in the fortress of Cajamarca, where the Spanish had laid a trap. Atahualpa left most of his 80,000-strong host and arrived at Cajamarca with 7,000 Incan warriors. Once there, the Spanish demanded that the Inca renounce their gods, convert to Christianity, and accept the rule of the Spanish emperor. Atahualpa refused, the trap was sprung, and the massacre of Cajamarca ensued. Atahualpa was captured, and the 7,000 Incas he'd traveled with were slaughtered. The small Spanish contingent didn't sustain a single fatality.

Hearing of Atahualpa's capture and the massacre at Cajamarca, the remainder of Atahualpa's army fled. Captured and imprisoned, Atahualpa noted Pizarro's lust for gold. He offered to give the Spanish enough gold to fill the room where he was being held and twice that in silver in exchange for his release. The Spanish agreed, and Incan treasures began to flood into Cajamarca.

While gold and silver poured into Cajamarca, distrust of Atahualpa and the Incans festered into paranoia. Pizarro feared that the Incan general Rumiñahui and an Incan army were en route to Cajamarca. In reality, Rumiñahui was en route to deliver a final, and legend has it the largest, shipment of gold. Regardless, Atahualpa was executed by Garrote on July 26th, 1533.

Upon hearing of Atahualpa's execution, Rumiñahui and his men fled with the gold, hiding it in the depths of Ecuador's Llanganates National Park, where the vast treasure remains lost — despite several recorded attempts of the Spanish trying to recover it.

Several months after the execution of Atahualpa, Pizarro marched on Cusco. Meanwhile, a second force marched north to capture Quito.

To the south, Cusco fell after a short battle on November 15th, 1933; the city was plundered, and Pizarro installed a puppet ruler on the Incan throne. To the north, Incan general Rumiñahui heard of the Spaniards' impending arrival and ordered that the city's treasure be removed and hidden in the Llanganates mountain range before burning the city to the ground.

The Spanish arrived at the smoldering ruins of Quito and swiftly rebuilt the city. Two years after the fall of Cusco, an army of 100,000 Incan rebels tried to reclaim the city in an ultimately futile ten-month siege. After forty years of conquest, bloodshed, and rebellions, the mighty Incan Empire succumbed to Spanish rule after the final Incan stronghold at Vilcabamba fell in 1572.

With the Spanish conquest complete, indigenous peoples were demoted to second-class citizens — or at least those that remained. Before the Spanish's arrival, the Incan Empire numbered some 16 million subjects; through bloodshed and the arrival of new diseases from Europe, 90% of the population was wiped out.

Independence

After nearly 300 years of Spanish rule, events in Europe triggered a wave of sentiment for independence across the Americas as Napoleon anointed his brother as the new king of Spain in 1808. Refusing to recognize the legitimacy of this new ruler, revolutionaries moved for more autonomy from the Spanish Empire.

The Spanish quelled early calls for autonomy with extreme prejudice. Ten years would pass before the Latin American Wars of Independence reached modern-day Ecuador. In 1819, Simon Bolivar conquered the Spanish vice-royalty of New Granada — modern-day Colombia — to the north. To the south, Argentine general José de San Martin secured the coasts of the Spanish vice-royalty of Peru following conquests across Argentina and Chile. San Martin swiftly conquered the now-Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil, which declared independence from Spanish rule.

News of Guayaquil's independence spread like wildfire through the rest of Ecuador. One by one, others declared their independence. Soon enough, Ecuador's Andean highlands and the lands surrounding the former Incan capital of Cusco in Peru became the final bastions of Spanish power in the Americas.

Over the coming years, pro-independence forces would make steady progress toward Quito. On May 24th, 1822, the decisive battle for Ecuador's independence arrived. The battle overlooked Quito, 3,500 meters above sea level on the slopes of Volcan Pichincha, as the outnumbered Spanish attempted to fight off Simon Bolivar's conquerors of New Granada, members of the British Legion, recruits from Guayaquil, and members of José de San Martin's expeditionary force; the Spanish didn't stand a chance.

After capturing Quito, momentum shifted in favor of the pro-independence forces. In July 1822, Simon Bolivar and José de San Martin met to chart their future. It was decided that Guayaquil and the other territories of modern-day Ecuador would be absorbed into the newly formed Republic of Gran Colombia and that Bolivar would continue his March south to conquer modern-day Peru and Bolivia; meanwhile, San Martin would retire from the Latin American Wars of Independence and return to Chile.

Three years passed before the final remnants of Spanish power in the Americas had been destroyed, and Ecuador – now part of a state that included Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela – was free.

New Beginnings and Turmoil

Following the outbreak of several small civil wars, Simon Bolivar's dream of a united Gran Colombia was shattered. In 1830, the same year as Bolivar's death, Ecuador's union with the Republic of Gran Colombia was dissolved, and a constitution for the state of Ecuador was formed.

Ecuador's first leader was Juan José Flores, a military man who fought alongside Bolivar through the Latin American Wars of Independence. Flores would remain in power for 15 years, bleeding the state treasury dry with further conquests before being sent into exile in 1845.

Ecuador's next 15 years were marked by turmoil, coup d'états, insurrections, declarations of regional autonomy, and the ceding of territory to an occupying Peruvian army. Order was reestablished by a returning Flores in his final military campaign alongside soon-to-be president Garcia Moreno.

1860 to 1895 marked 35 years of conservative rule in Ecuador, marked by improving stability and huge increases in natural exports. However, social inequality and poverty issues persisted.

In 1895, power changed hands to a liberal government lasting 30 years. This liberal era would be remembered for uncoupling the church and the state, improving public education, new civil rights such as freedom of speech, territorial expansion, and legalizing civil marriages and divorce.

In 1925, the liberal government fell to a coup, paving the way for the rule of José María Velasco Ibarra. In 1941, with the world at war, Ecuador invaded Peru, an endeavor the country was ill-equipped for. With Argentina, Chile, and the USA acting as security guarantors, Brazil brokered peace between Ecuador and Peru; the resulting treaty became known as the Rio Protocol.

In 1948, a new liberal government came to power, spearheading the country's famous 'banana boom,' increasing economic stability, and steadfastly maintaining the principles of democracy.

Eventually, this liberal government gave way to a military one, with a US-backed coup détat overthrowing the 'communist sympathizer' president in 1963. The new military government would endure for 20 years until a new constitution was passed in 1978.

1979 saw the return of democratically elected rulers, only to be met with another crisis. This time, economic instability was fueled by the end of the country's petroleum boom and foreign debt incurred by the previous military regime. By 1983, inflation had risen to 52.5%. Economic instability would continue unabated until the end of the millennium.

In August 1998, a new constitution was enacted, while the latest government faced a grim economic reality. The Sucre, Ecuador's local currency, had devalued by 15%, electricity prices had risen fivefold, more than half of the population were unemployed, 60% lived below the extreme poverty line, and public servants hadn't been paid in months. For then-president Jamil Mahuad, the solution was to retire the Sucre and replace it with the US Dollar.

Dollarization, Upturns, and Unrest: Ecuador Today

The dollarization of Ecuador proved deeply unpopular. The lower and working class struggled to convert their obsolete Sucres into dollars, losing any wealth they had managed to accumulate. Meanwhile, the upper classes, who already had their wealth invested in dollars, grew richer, widening an already substantial class divide.

Unrest from the move to the US Dollar culminated in the 2000 Ecuadorian coup d'état. On January 21st, 2000, leaders from indigenous groups entered Ecuador's National Assembly building unopposed by military and police, declaring that a three-person junta would take charge of the country. With military personnel throwing their support behind the junta, president Mahuad fled the country.

Two years later, Lucio Gutiérrez, a military junta member, was elected president. Gutiérrez would unconstitutionally dissolve Ecuador's supreme court and survive impeachment before being ousted in April 2005. Two years after Gutiérrez was deposed, social democrat Rafael Correa was elected president, and Ecuador's fortunes would improve.

Correa would remain in office for ten years. His tenure was characterized by implementing a new constitution with many leftist reforms. The Correa regime oversaw decreased poverty — from 36.7% to 22.5%, inequality, and environmental degradation. However, Correa's era was not without controversy; many rebuked his government for its authoritarian leadership style and suppression of the freedom of the press. In 2015, Correa decided not to run for a fourth term as president and would be replaced by his former vice president, Lenín Moreno.

Moreno quickly distanced himself from Correa's policies with a neoliberalist government. Moreno's term was plagued with instability, losing broad support from his party and being issued with an arrest warrant on 29 charges of corruption. Moreno would also introduce sweeping austerity measures owing to the significant debt racked up by the Correa administration, withdrew Ecuador from several regional blocs, and cut diplomatic ties with Nicolás Maduro's regime in Venezuela — a long-standing ally of Correa's. Although the austerity measures were eventually scrapped, they sparked violent nationwide protests and soured ties with indigenous communities. In 2021, Moreno was replaced by Guillermo Lasso, ending 14 years of liberal rule in Ecuador.

Lasso's rule has been tumultuous; shortly after taking office, he declared a 60-day state emergency to combat crime and violence while drawing a series of protests against his economic policies from indigenous groups, students, and workers, which Lasso labeled as an attempted coup d'état. Since then, voters have rejected constitutional changes to the government's power in tackling organized crime, and Lasso's government has been accused of corruption.

The situation in Ecuador today is volatile, continuing a trend seen throughout the 21st century. The country has faced political instability, economic uncertainty, and environmental degradation. However, significant progress has been made along the way. Despite the volatility, and a need to remain vigilant, Ecuador remains a stunning country. One with amazing biodiversity and an embarrassment of natural riches — from the avenue of volcanoes to the Galápagos islands and beyond. The Andean culture in Ecuador is truly unique. The beaches of the country's west coast are pristine and relatively undiscovered. Discovering cities such as Quito, Cuenca, and Guayaquil remains an adventure in itself.