A Brief History of Ecuador

A small country by South American norms, Ecuador is one of the most environmentally diverse countries in the world, with large areas of rain forest, mountains, and fertile soil. What is now the Ecuadorian coast was the site of the first ceramic production and agricultural villages in the Americas (circa 4,500 B.C.). Present-day Ecuador was part of the Incan empire, which was at its height at the time of the Spanish conquest. The Spanish first arrived in Ecuador in 1526 but found it most useful as a stopping place on the way to the riches of neighboring Peru. Although the Spanish founded estates in the mountains of central Ecuador and ran them with forced indigenous labor, Ecuador was a neglected backwater region during the colonial period.

Simón Bolívar helped liberate Ecuador in 1822, the year of independence. From the beginning of this period a rivalry sprang up between the conservative aristocracy of the sierra, whose power came from vast semi-feudal estates worked by indigenous labor, and the more dynamic and modern liberals of the coastal region, centered in the port of Guayaquil.