Ecuador

Ecuador‘s earliest permanent settlements began around 6000 years ago. Ecuador’s earliest cultures included the Valdivia who were famous for their pottery, and the Chorrea and Machalilla who practised skull deformation. By around 600 BC society began to become more ordered and stratified with long-distance trade and ruling shaman/merchant classes. This pattern continued, with cultures integrating into larger, hierarchical societies. By the time the Incas arrived in the 15th century, the main groups were the Caras (also called the Quitu-Caras or Shyris), Puruhá and the Cañari.

The Inca Empire began expanding from their origin in the Cuzco valley in Peru in the early 15th century. When they reached Ecuador they were met with fierce resistance from the local people. When the Incas finally conquered, they massacred thousands of Caras throwing their bodies into a lake near Otavalo which was later named Laguna Yaguarcocha – lake of blood. The Incas consolidated their control of the area through marriage and children with local princesses but there were many uprisings. This was not helped by the divisions within the Inca Empire itself. When Inca ruler Huayna Capa left the empire to his two sons, Atahualpa (who was raised in Quito) and Huáscar (based in La Paz), the rivalry between them led to civil war.

Atahualpa eventually defeated his brother but the empire was much weaker than it had previously been and when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1532 it took a mere handful of men to wrest control of the area and bring the empire under colonial rule. The Spaniards, led by Francisco Pizarro, captured Atahualpa at a meeting intended for negotiations and proceeded to ransom him for extortionate amounts of gold and silver before conducting a sham trial and executing him.

Ecuador was under colonial control from 1535 ruled by the viceroyalty of Lima and was a peaceful colony where agriculture and arts flourished. It was transferred to the viceroyalty of Colombia in 1739 which at the time was known as Nueva Grenada. By the mid-18th century treatment of indigenous people and mestizos was terrible in a system that encouraged force labour and there were several indigenous uprisings. The first attempt at independence was in 1809 but it wasn’t until Venezuelan liberator Simon Bolivar arrived in 1820 that independence began to become a reality. Two years later in the Battle of Pichincha, the royalists were finally defeated. Bolivar combined Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador in one united nation called Gran Colombia, but this only lasted until 1830 at which point Ecuador became fully independent.

Ecuador‘s political development was volatile, although it never had the violent military coups experienced in other South American countries. Governments were chopped and changed and presidents rarely had the opportunity to complete their term in office. Between 1930 and 1940, 17 presidents tried to lead the country and not one ruled for a full term. Oil was discovered in 1967 and became a key export. Ecuador started to borrow money in the belief that the profits from oil would allow it to repay its debts. Slumping oil prices in 1986 along with an earthquake in 1987 that took out 40% of the pipeline damaged the economy. In 1997-8 another oil price slump and devastating diseases that took out 80% of shrimp exports led to massive inflation which topped out at 60%. To stabilise its spiralling economy, Ecuador took the US dollar as its official currency (previously the sucre) and adopted austerity measures in order to obtain financial aid from the IMF. In 2006, US-educated economist and previous finance minister Rafael Correa was voted into power whose focus is social welfare, improving life for Ecuador‘s poor and reforming the economy.