Ecuador History

Various Amerindian tribes such as Quitus and Valdivia had settled in the region for many centuries, and were agricultural economies cultivating corn and other plants.  By the 11th century, the tribes living around Quito coalesced into a community ruled by a king.

In the mid-15th century, the Incas arrived and conquered the region, but soon afterwards, in 1526, the Spanish landed on the Pacific coast of Ecuador.  They named the region Esmeraldas because they thought that the region was abundant in emeralds as the natives were seen wearing them.  The Spanish began to establish a colony in Esmeraldas in 1531 which was later expanded to cover the southern part of present-day Ecuador.  Subsequently they defeated the Inca armies and killed their king and in 1534 and established the city of Quito.

The Spanish also brought with them diseases which decimated the indigenous population; for those who survived, they were pressed into forced labour working for the Spanish by the encomienda system.  Meanwhile, in 1563, Spain established an administrative region based in Quito to govern the colony.

When Spanish South America was engulfed in nationalist movements after the Napoleonic War during which the Spain fell to France, Ecuador also clamoured for independence.   In 1822, it defeated the royalists and joined the new Republic of Gran Colombia under Simon Bolivar (who led Bolivia to independence) but left to become a separate republic in 1830.  Since then, the country saw constant struggles between the conservative groups supported by the Catholic Church and the liberals who came mainly from the coastal area.  There were periods of democratic rule interrupted by a liberal revolution in 1895 and military dictatorships in the 1970s.