History of Ecuador

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History of Ecuador
Pre-Columbian Pre-Columbian Ecuador Las Vegas Culture Valdivia culture Inca Empire Spanish conquest Spanish colonization of the Americas
Colonial Ecuador Viceroyalty of Peru Viceroyalty of New Granada
War of Independence Revolution of October 9 Free Province of Guayaquil Luz de América Battle of Pichincha Guayaquil Conference
Ecuador as part of Gran Colombia 1827 Guayaquil uprising
Republic of Ecuador 1830–1860 Marcist (March) Revolution 1860–1895 Battle of Guayaquil 1895–1925 1925–1944 1944–1960 1960–1990 1990–present
Topics Ecuador–Peru conflicts Military history Demographic history Economic history
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The History of Ecuador covers human habitation in the region reaching back 8,000 years

During that period a diversity of cultures have influenced the people and the land that today make up the contemporary Republic of Ecuador. Indigenous tribes inhabited the area for millennia before being invaded and absorbed into the Inca Empire in the early fifteenth century.

The Incas themselves were conquered shortly afterwards by the Spanish led by Francisco Pizarro in the early 16th century. The region fell under the Viceroyalty of Peru although it was granted certain autonomy through the Quito Audencia established in 1563. In 1720, it was joined to the Viceroyalty of New Granada.

A rebellion in 1812 against the Quito Audencia was crushed early in the Spanish American wars of independence, but the struggle was revived in 1820 by a new rebellion originating in Guayaquil. The city was also the site of the Guayaquil Conference between Simon Bolivar and San Martin. Ecuador became independent initially as part of the Republic of Gran Colombia, before finally breaking away in 1830.

Ecuador would endure a period of civil war until the mid nineteenth century after which it would be dominated by caudillos, alternatively conservative and liberal. In the twentieth and twenty first centuries Ecuador would continue to struggle in achieving both economic and political stability.