South & Central America
Highlights - Essential Info - Itineraries - History
The true anthropological history of Ecuador dates back to many thousand years BC, but it is from the Inca period onwards that is generally of most interest. In the 16th Century when the Inca throne was held by Huayna Capac he spent much of his time travelling throughout the vast empire which stretched as far as Bolivia. When Huayna Capac died in 1526 he left the empire between his two sons, Huascar based in Cusco and Atahualpa in Quito and in the very same year, the Spanish made their first exploratory landing in Ecuador. The two sons fought each other for ultimate control and finally Atahualpa was victorious, but this left the empire weakened and in 1532 the Spanish arrived under the leadership of Pizarro who took the Inca leader into custody and had him killed, which effectively led to the end of the Inca empire.
For the next two hundred years the Spanish ruled and Ecuador remained a relatively peaceful colony and agriculture and the arts prospered, despite the fact that the indigenous Indian population were treated poorly and used virtually as slave labour. It was not until the early 19th Century that the first serious uprising against the Spanish rule occurred, but this was unsuccessful and it was not until the great Venezuelan Simon Bolivar marched south that the Spanish grip on power slowly started to loosen. Colombia was liberated first and then in 1822 Field Marshall Sucre defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Pichincha and took Quito. Then in 1830 Ecuador finally achieved full independence, which has been enjoyed to this day despite the occasional minor military clash with Peru over their shared Amazonian border.
In typical South American tradition the 20th Century has seen quite a turbulent political situation with strong political rivalry between different parts of the country and regular scandals leading to a rather high turnover of governments and presidents, particularly in the last decade. The later 1990’s saw the country suffer its worst ever financial crash leading to dollarization of the economy, which has helped to stabilise the economy and the political situation.
