History

Pre-Columbian Era

Numerous indigenous cultures thrived in Ecuador for thousands of years before the Inca conquered the area. The Valdivia Culture in the Pacific coast region is the earliest known Ecuadorian culture, with ancient Valdivian artefacts from as early as 3500 BC found along the coast north of the Guayas Province in the modern city of Santa Elena.

Several other cultures, including the Quituscaras and the Cañaris, emerged in other parts of Ecuador after the Valdivians. There are other major archaeological sites in the coastal provinces of Manabí and Esmeraldas and in the middle Andean highland provinces of Tungurahua and Chimborazo. With the archaeological evidence uncovered to date, it is thought that Ecuador was inhabited for at least 4,500 years before the Inca arrived; however, many believe that the area was populated even earlier, possibly as far back as 10000 BC.

Great tracts of Ecuador, including almost all of the Oriente (Amazon rainforest), remain unknown to archaeologists; a fact that adds credence to the possibility the country was populated before 3500 BC. There has been increased attention to the Amazon region recently but the forest is so remote and dense that it takes years for research teams to survey even a small area.

1463-1532: Ecuador under Incan Rule

The history of Ecuador is better known from the point of the Inca expansion than during the Pre-Columbian era. In AD 1463, the Inca warrior Pachacuti and his son Tupac Yupanqui began the incorporation of Ecuador into Inca rule. By the end of 15th century, despite fierce resistance by several Ecuadorian native tribes, Huayna Capac, Tupac Yupanqui's son, conquered all of Ecuador.

The Inca ruled the Ecuadorian kingdoms until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in 1532. During the period of Inca control, the Ecuadorian tribesmen adopted agricultural practices and the social organisation of their Inca rulers, but maintained their traditional religious beliefs and many customs.

1532: Arrival of the Spanish

The Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizarro set out on his third expedition during the final months of 1531 from Panama. The expedition would end in the defeat of the Inca Empire and the Spanish colonisation and conquest of Ecuador. He began the campaign with less than two hundred men while his partner, Diego de Almagro, remained in Panama to gather more troops. After landing, Pizarro was forced to spend several months on the Ecuadorian coast and in northern Peru building a base of operations and collecting jewels and gold to finance reinforcements.

When Pizarro's expedition finally arrived in the recently founded Inca capital of Cajamarca, the new Inca king, Atahualpa, was resting at nearby thermal baths after prevailing in a bitter civil war with his brother, Huáscar. Atahualpa reluctantly returned to Cajamarca with thousands of his best troops to greet Pizarro. However, upon arrival, instead of Pizarro he found a friar, Vicente de Valverde, waiting for him. As soon as Atahualpa refused to submit to the Catholicism and the Spanish king, Spanish soldiers and mercenaries in hiding slaughtered thousands of the Inca defenders and took Atahualpa prisoner. Within a year of his capture, Atahualpa was executed.

1532-1822: Colonial Ecuador

According to Spanish law, Ecuador and the rest of Spain's colonies were the personal property of the Spanish king. Thus, every law and deed in the colonies was carried out in the name of the king. In Spain, on the king's behalf, the Council of the Indies conceived all the laws that regulated life in the colonies and the House of Trade governed all trade and commerce between Spain and the colonies. In the colonies, the viceroyalty, audiencias and municipal councils administered law and trade.

Ecuador was part of the Viceroyalty of Peru ruled from Lima from 1544 until 1720, when it joined the newly created Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada ruled from Bogotá. In 1563, however, Quito became a Royal Audience of Spain, the Quito Audiencia, thus permitting it to deal directly with Madrid on certain matters instead of going through the Viceroyalty in Lima. The name Quito Audencia is misleading as it gives one the idea that the territory under the jurisdiction of Quito was comparable to the limits of the city of Quito today. In truth, the territory of the Quito Audencia greatly exceeded that of present-day Ecuador, encompassing the north of present-day Peru, the city of Cali in the south of present-day Colombia, and much of the Amazon River Basin east of present-day Ecuador. Quito also served as the most important municipal council within the area comprising modern-day Ecuador and as such was responsible for, among other things, the maintenance of public order.

Struggle for Independence

At the same time that the Spanish colonial economy began to fail, messages of the Enlightenment being wrought in Europe penetrated Quito's cultural isolation and began to be disseminated throughout the country via missionaries. Enlightenment ideals embodied notions of nationalism and individualism and the concepts of equality and freedom. The failing economy and flagging administrative authority of the Quito Audencia, combined with the introduction of Enlightenment ideals, set the stage for Ecuador's independence.

Civil disturbances plagued the Quito Audencia, particularly in the mountainous area, from the mid-eighteenth century until the end of the colonial era. However, it was not until the criollos (persons of pure Spanish descent born in the New World) entered the revolutionary picture that independence really began to take form. The criollos resented the privileges afforded to the peninsulares (persons from Spain) and, as a result, sought independence from the crown.

The struggle for independence in the Royal Audience of Quito was part of a movement throughout Spanish America led by the criollos. The criollos' resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the peninsulares was the fuel of revolution against colonial rule. The spark was Napoleon's invasion of Spain, after which he deposed King Ferdinand VII and, in July 1808, placed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne.

Shortly afterward, Spanish citizens, unhappy at the usurpation of the throne by the French, began organising local juntas loyal to Ferdinand. A group of Quito's leading citizens followed suit, and on August 10, 1809, after nearly 300 years of Spanish colonisation, they set up a Junta and seized power from the local representatives of Joseph Bonaparte in the name of Ferdinand. Thus, this early revolt against colonial rule (one of the first in Spanish America) was, paradoxically, an expression of loyalty to the Spanish king.

However, the members of the Junta found little support, either in other cities of the Royal Audience of Quito, or even among the lower classes in Quito, and were soon arrested by colonial troops sent from Lima.

It quickly became apparent that Quito's Creole rebels lacked the anticipated popular support for their cause. As loyalist troops approached Quito, therefore, they peacefully turned power back to the crown authorities. Despite assurances against reprisals, the returning Spanish authorities (Bonaparte's men) proved to be merciless with the rebels and, in the process of ferreting out participants in the Quito revolt, jailed and abused many innocent citizens. Their actions, in turn, bred popular resentment among Quiteños. After several days of street fighting in August 1810, Quiteños won an agreement to be governed by a junta to be dominated by Creoles, although with the president of the Audiencia of Quito acting as its figurehead leader.

In spite of widespread opposition within the rest of the Audience of Quito, the junta called for a congress in December 1811 in which it declared the entire area of the Audience independent. Two months later, the junta approved a constitution for the state of Quito that provided for democratic governing institutions but also granted recognition to the authority of Ferdinand, should he return to the Spanish throne. Shortly thereafter, the junta elected to launch a military offensive against the Spanish, but the poorly trained and badly equipped troops were no match for those of the viceroy of Peru, which finally crushed the Quiteño rebellion in December 1812.

The second chapter in Ecuador's struggle for emancipation from Spanish colonial rule began in Guayaquil, where independence was proclaimed in October 1820 by a local patriotic junta under the leadership of the poet José Joaquín de Olmedo. By this time, the forces of independence had grown continental in scope and were organised into two principal armies, one under the Venezuelan Simón Bolívar Palacios in the north and the other under the Argentine José de San Martín in the south. Unlike the hapless Quito junta, the Guayaquil patriots were able to appeal to foreign allies, Argentina and Venezuela, each of whom soon responded by sending sizable contingents to Ecuador. Antonio José de Sucre Alcalá, the brilliant young lieutenant of Bolívar who arrived in Guayaquil in May 1821, was to become the key figure in the ensuing military struggle against the royalist forces.

After a number of initial successes, Sucre's army was defeated at Ambato in the central Sierra and he appealed for assistance from San Martín, whose army was by now in Peru. With the arrival from the south of 1,400 fresh soldiers under the command of Andrés de Santa Cruz Calahumana, the fortunes of the patriotic army were again reversed.

A string of victories culminated in the decisive Battle of Pichincha, on the slopes of the volcano of that name on the western outskirts of Quito, on May 24, 1822. A few hours after the victory by the patriots, the last president of the Audience of Quito signed a formal capitulation of his forces before Marshal Sucre. The provinces of the former Audience of Quito joined Simon Bolivar's Republic of Great Colombia. The province of Guayaquil, which had attained independence on October 9, 1820, remained adamant to the prospect of relinquishing its status of Free Province, and had to be annexed by Bolívar in July 1822.

1822-1830: Ecuador under Gran Colombia

Between 1822 and 1830, Ecuador was formally part of the Great Colombia. For most of these years, warfare dominated the affairs of Ecuador. First, the country found itself on the front lines of Bolívar's war to liberate Peru from Spanish rule between 1822 and 1825; afterward, in 1828 and 1829, Ecuador was in the middle of an armed struggle between Peru and the Great Colombia over the location of their common border. After a campaign that included the near destruction of Guayaquil, the forces of Great Colombia, under the leadership of Sucre and Venezuelan General Juan José Flores, proved victorious. The Treaty of 1829 fixed the border on the line that had divided the Quito audiencia and the Viceroyalty of Peru before independence.

The population of Ecuador was divided during these years among three segments: those favouring the status quo, those supporting union with Peru, and those advocating autonomous independence for the former audiencia. The latter group was to prevail following Venezuela's withdrawal from the confederation during an 1830 constitutional congress that had been called in Bogotá in a futile effort to combat growing separatist tendencies throughout Gran Colombia. In May of that year, a group of Quito notables met to dissolve the union with Gran Colombia, and in August, a constituent assembly drew up a constitution for the State of Ecuador, so named for its geographic proximity to the equator, and placed General Flores in charge of political and military affairs. He remained the dominant political figure during Ecuador's first fifteen years of independence.

1895-1925: Liberal Rule in Ecuador

The nineteenth century was marked by instability, with a rapid succession of rulers. The conservative Gabriel Garcia Moreno (president of Ecuador 1859-1865 and 1869-1875) unified the country in the 1860s with the support of the Roman Catholic Church. Moreno arguably gave the Roman Catholic Church more power in Ecuador during the nineteenth century than it had in any other country in the world.

This would all change with the rise of Eloy Alfaro and his Radical Liberal Party (PLR) in 1895. However, the Roman Catholic Church and its conservative allies did not give up their power gracefully. Ecuador suffered a bloody civil war in which Catholic Church regularly urged its faithful masses to rise in rebellion against the Liberals. A prolonged war was avoided largely because of the efforts of Catholic Archbishop Federico González Suárez, who urged the Church stay out of politics.

Religious paintings adorned all public buildings during Moreno's rule, but were largely replaced with secular art after Alfaro took power. Ecuador's political situation remained tumultuous even after the defeat of the conservatives, as a result of political infighting within the PLR. Alfaro shared control of the PLR with General Leónidas Plaza Gutiérrez, and the two vied for the party's leadership until Alfaro's death at the hands of a Plaza-instigated mob.

After Alfaro's murder, Plaza served a second presidential term, however, by this point the coastal agricultural and banking interests, popularly known as la Argolla ('the Ring'), controlled the PLR more than Plaza did. Although la Argolla publicly advocated the Liberal cause, in practice it did little more than use the PLR and the Government to line its own pockets. La Argolla's abuse of power combined with the decline in world demand for Ecuadorian products pitched the country into a severe economic depression. Ecuador's worsening economic situation and the popular unrest it manifested set the stage for a bloodless coup d'état in July 1925 that officially marked the end of Liberal rule.

Effects on the Catholic Church

After the Liberal Revolution and thirty years of Liberal rule, the Catholic Church lost much of its hold on Ecuador. For example, Roman Catholicism was no longer the constitutionally mandated state religion, education was secularised, and civil marriage and divorce were legalised. In addition to tethering the Catholic Church, the era of Liberal rule sparked the development of Ecuador's infrastructure and economy.

1948-1972: Post War Period

After World War II, a recovery in the market for agricultural commodities and the growth of the banana industry helped to restore prosperity and political peace. From 1948-60, three presidents - beginning with Galo Plaza Lasso - were freely elected and completed their terms.

Recession and popular unrest led to a return to populist politics and domestic military interventions in the 1960s. The discovery of oil in the 1970s led to a number of foreign companies developing oil resources in the Ecuadorean Amazon. In 1972, a nationalist military regime overthrew José María Velasco Ibarra for the last time and used the new oil wealth and foreign borrowing to pay for a program of industrialisation, land reform and subsidies for urban consumers.

Ecuador in the Late 20th and Early 21st Century

1979-1981: Jaime Roldós Aguilera

With the oil boom fading, Ecuador returned to democracy in 1979, under the first Ecuadorean president of the 1979 constitution, Jaime Roldós Aguilera who, with his Popular Forces' Concentration (CFP) party, won a decisive victory against Sixto Durán Ballén of the Social Christian Party (PSC). After a leadership disagreement with Assad Bucaram, the then leader of the CFP, Roldós left the above-mentioned party to found his own along with his wife. This Roldós-founded party, called People, Change and Democracy(PCD), would become an unimportant third-runner in Ecuadorean politics when Abdalá Bucaram Ortiz's Guayaquil-based Ecuadorean Roldosísta Party (PRE) was founded in 1982.

In January 1981, the country went through yet another episode in its long-standing border dispute with Peru, which saw Peruvian troops expelling Ecuadorian soldiers from three outposts located in the disputed and undemarcated Paquisha zone.

1981-1984: Osvaldo Hurtado Larrea

By the end of the year 1981, Vice President Osvaldo Hurtado Larrea, member of the Popular Democracy Party, (DP) succeeded Roldós after the President died in a plane crash. Due to the economic pressure of war and over-reliance in commodity (particularly oil) exporting for its economic needs, the government of Osvaldo Hurtado faced a chronic economic crisis in 1982, including inflation, budget deficits, a falling currency, mounting debt service, and uncompetitive industries.

1984-1988: León Febres Cordero Rivadeneira

The 1984 presidential elections were narrowly won by León Febres Cordero Rivadeneira, of the Social Christian Party (PSC). During the first years of his administration, Febres-Cordero introduced free-market economic policies, took a strong stand against drug trafficking and terrorism, and pursued close relations with the United States. His tenure was marred by bitter wrangling with other branches of Government and his own brief kidnapping by elements of the military. A devastating earthquake in March 1987 interrupted oil exports and worsened the country's economic problems.

1988-1992: Rodrigo Borja Cevallos

Rodrigo Borja Cevallos of the Democratic Left (ID) party won the presidency in 1988, running in the runoff election against Abdalá Bucaram of the PRE. His government was committed to improving human rights protection and carried out some reforms, notably an opening of Ecuador to foreign trade. The Borja government concluded an accord leading to the disbanding of the small terrorist group, Alfaro Vive, Carajo! (roughly translated 'Alfaro Lives, Dammit!' and named after Eloy Alfaro). However, continuing economic problems undermined the popularity of the ID, and opposition parties gained control of Congress in 1990.

1992-1996: Sixto Durán Ballén

In 1992, Sixto Durán Ballén won the presidency at his third attempt. His tough macroeconomic adjustment measures were unpopular, but he succeeded in pushing a limited number of modernisation initiatives through Congress. Durán Ballén's vice president, Alberto Dahik, was the architect of the administration's economic policies, but in 1995, Dahik fled the country to avoid prosecution on corruption charges.

A war with Peru (named the Cenepa War, after a river located in the area) erupted in January-February 1995 in a small, remote region, where the boundary prescribed by the 1942 Río Protocol was in dispute. The Durán-Ballén Administration can be credited with beginning the negotiations that would end in a final settlement of the territorial dispute.

1996-1997: Abdalá Bucaram

In 1996, Abdalá Bucaram, from the populist Ecuadorian Roldosista Party, won the presidency on a platform that promised populist economic and social reforms. Almost from the start, Bucaram's administration languished amidst widespread allegations of corruption. Empowered by the president's unpopularity with organised labour, business and professional organizations' alike, Congress unseated Bucaram in February 1997 on grounds of mental incompetence. The Congress replaced Bucaram with Interim President Fabián Alarcón.

In May 1997, following the demonstrations that led to the ousting of Bucaram and appointment of Alarcón, the people of Ecuador called for a National Assembly to reform the Constitution and the country's political structure. After a little more than a year, the National Assembly produced a new Constitution.

1998-2000: Jamil Mahuad

Congressional and first-round presidential elections were held on May 31, 1998. No presidential candidate obtained a majority, so a run-off election between the top two candidates - Quito Mayor Jamil Mahuad of the DP and Social Christian Álvaro Noboa Pontón - was held on July 12, 1998. Mahuad won by a narrow margin. He took office on August 10, 1998. On the same day, Ecuador's new constitution came into effect.

Mahuad concluded a well-received peace with Peru on October 26, 1998, but increasing economic, fiscal and financial difficulties drove his popularity steadily lower. However, the coup de grace for Mahuad's administration was Mahuad's decision to make the local currency, the sucre (named after Antonio José de Sucre), obsolete and replace it with the US dollar (a policy called dollarization). This caused massive unrest as the lower classes struggled to convert their now useless sucres to US dollars and lost wealth, while the upper classes (whose members already had their wealth invested in US dollars) gained wealth in turn. Under Mahuad's recession-plagued term, the economy shrank significantly and inflation reached levels of up to 60 percent.

2000-2002: Gustavo Noboa

On January 21, 2000, during demonstrations in Quito by indigenous groups, the military and police refused to enforce public order. Demonstrators entered the National Assembly building and declared, in a move that resembled the coups d'etat endemic to Ecuadorean history, a three-person junta in charge of the country. Field-grade military officers declared their support for the concept. During a night of confusion and failed negotiations, President Mahuad was forced to flee the presidential palace for his own safety. Vice President Gustavo Noboa took charge by vice-presidential decree; Mahuad went on national television in the morning to endorse Noboa as his successor. The military triumvirate that was effectively running the country also endorsed Noboa. The Ecuadorean Congress then met in an emergency session in Guayaquil on the same day, January 22, and ratified Noboa as President of the Republic in constitutional succession to Mahuad.

Although Ecuador began to improve economically in the following months, the government of Noboa came under heavy fire for the continuation of the dollarization policy, its disregard for social problems and other important issues in Ecuadorean politics.

2002-2005: Lucio Gutiérrez

Retired Colonel Lucio Gutiérrez, a member of the military junta that overthrew Mahuad, was elected president in 2002 and assumed the presidency on January 15, 2003. Gutierrez's Patriotic Society Party had a small fraction of the seats in Congress and therefore depended on the support of other parties in Congress to pass legislation.

In December 2004, Gutiérrez unconstitutionally dissolved and appointed new judges to the Supreme Court. This move was generally seen as a kickback to deposed ex-President Abdalá Bucaram, whose political party had sided with Gutiérrez and helped derail attempts to impeach him in late 2004. The new Supreme Court dropped charges of corruption pending against the exiled Bucaram, who soon returned to the politically unstable country. The corruption evident in these manoeuvres finally led Quito's middle classes to seek the ousting of Gutiérrez in early 2005. In April 2005, the Ecuadorian Armed Forces declared that it "withdrew its support" for the President. After weeks of public protests, Gutiérrez was overthrown in April. Vice President Alfredo Palacio assumed the Presidency and vowed to complete the term of office and hold elections in 2006.

2006 Elections

The 2006 election did not produce a conclusive winner until a runoff election on 26 November elected Rafael Correa over Alvaro Noboa. His margin of victory (57% of valid votes) was the highest in the democratic period inaugurated in 1979, after Jaime Roldós (1979) and Sixto Durán Ballén (1992).