A Brief History of Ecuador Regionalism in Ecuadorian history Geography has been a significant factor in determining the political history of Ecuador. The country is divided into three geographic zones: The Pacific Coast, the Sierra Highlands, and the eastern Upper Amazon Basin, often called the Oriente. This regionalism has been a strong factor in Ecuadorian politics, especially in the divisions between the liberal port city of Guayaquil on the coast and the conservative administrative city of Quito in the highlands. Ecuador's modern political history is characterized by divi- sions between liberal leaders from Guayaquil and conservative leaders from Quito. In contrast to these two "civilized" areas, the third region (the Eastern Amazon, or Oriente) has stereotypically been viewed as a "savage" area. The coastal plain of Ecuador is wider than the Peruvian coast, and because the cold antarctic Humboldt Current turns out to sea just before it reaches Ecuador, the coast is also much wetter and hotter than in Peru. The coast, along with the surrounding low-lying hills which lie inland before reaching the Andean mountains, has an export-oriented agricultural economy which includes the production of cattle, bananas, rice, sugar, and coffee. The coast contains forty-nine percent of the country's population including the liberal, commercial coastal port of Guayaquil, the country's largest city with a population of over two million people. Counterpoised against Guayaquil are the conservative, Catholic Sierra Highlands with forty-eight percent of the population. The highlands are dominated by two parallel mountain chains with over thirty volcanos, eight of them active. Although wider and higher further south in Peru and Bolivia, mountain peaks in Ecuador reach to twenty thousand feet; eight of them are permanently snow capped. The equator is at its highest point in the world on Ecuador's Mount Cayambe, and because of the equatorial bulge the peak of Mount Chimborazo is the furthest point from center of earth and for a while was thought to be the world's highest mountain. Nestled between the two mountain chains is the fertile nine-thousand foot high Central Valley. Whereas the coast is dominated by export-oriented agriculture, domestic agriculture such as cattle grazing, potatoes, and corn are more important in the highlands. Also located in the Central Valley is Quito, the nation's capital. Until the last twenty or thirty years, Quito remained relatively isolated. With an oil boom in the 1970s, Quito has changed from a quaint colonial city to a vibrant administrative and economic center with an important banking sector. The third region, the Upper Amazon Basin which in Ecuador is commonly called the Oriente, comprises nearly half of the national territory but only three percent of its population. Political and economic power in Ecuador has historically been concentrated in the liberal city of Guayaquil and its conservative counterpart in Quito, whereas in the twentieth century outsiders, as Norman Whitten has noted, still commonly view this region "as a mostly uninhabited, flat, Amazonian jungle morass, sparsely populated by a few groups of 'savages'" some of whom "were known worldwide for their shrunken heads" and "for spearing some North American missionaries" (Whitten 1985:38). Since the conclusion of the wars of independence from Spain in the 1820s, Ecuador has been locked in territorial disputes with the neighboring countries of Colombia and Peru over the location of the international borders in the Amazonian region. Occasionally these disputes have led to open warfare, especially between Ecuador and Peru. The last significant armed conflict over the region occurred in 1941 when, during the beginning of the Second World War, the United States forced Ecuador to sign the 1942 Rio Protocol, which effectively seceded over half of its territory to Peru. The degree of Ecuador's loss is represented by the fact that after independence, Ecuador claimed 714,860 square kilometers of territory, while currently it effectively controls 275,341 square kilometers, with a total loss of almost seventy-five percent of its national territory (Corkill and Cubitt 1988:98). Though important as a rhetorical device for politicians, until relatively recently this region had remained marginal from Ecuadorian state formation. It was not until 1879 after the conservative president Gabriel Garcia Moreno sought to modernize and inte- grate the Oriente into national life that the region finally became organized as a province. The steadily increasing political importance of the Oriente during the twentieth century is reflected in the fact that in 1920 the region was divided into four provinces, and in 1989 a fifth province was carved out of the oil-rich northern part. The formation of ethnic and group identity in Ecuador As in the rest of Latin America, Ecuador has been subjected to the myth of mestizaje which holds that a new Latin American culture was forged from the blending of three separate traditions (European, indigenous, and African). Although this Latin version of the "melting pot" theory holds more true for the mestizo segment of the Ecuadorian population, it threatens to subvert the unique history and surviving cultural traditions of the indigenous groups which continue to exist in that country. Much research has been carried out on the dominant white and mestizo cultures and little of it needs to be repeated here. There has been less scholarly interest in the African population, which is mostly concentrated in the province of Esmeraldas in the northwestern part of the country. Many of these people are descendants of escapees from a slave ship which was bound for Peru but shipwrecked off of the Esmeraldas coast in 1535. Hispanicized slaves leading the rest liberated themselves, forged inland, and formed the Zambo Republic. They intermixed (and sometimes fought over limited land and resourc- es) with the indigenous people whom they encountered. In addition to creating a new life for themselves, they also provided a haven and home for fugitive slaves and Spaniards who were fleeing the law. After one hundred and fifty years of independence, they eventually allied with Quito and the Spanish crown on their own terms. Today about half of the population of this region is of African descent. They number about half a million people. Before the Inka and Spanish conquests many more indigenous groups existed in Ecuador than today. In a recent survey of Ecuador's indigenous groups, Jose Alcina Franch has examined this process of ethnocide in Ecuador as the number of native ethnic groups dropped from twenty-four before the Inka conquest to ten currently, including a drop from twelve to three on the coast (Alcina 1986:94). At the present rate, Alcina predicted extinction for Ecuador's indigenous groups, but also expressed hope for the future. Although they comprise a large segment of the population, indigenous peoples have not maintained political and economic power equal to their numbers. Since the time of the Spanish conquest, power has resided in the hands of a small white elite. Estimates of the number of surviving Indians vary greatly, from around ten percent of the population or about one million people to estimates as high as three and a half million people and forty percent of the population. Many of the surviving groups, however, still retain their own culture, language, dress, music, and traditions. The three indigenous ethnic groups which still exist in the coastal region are the Awa, Chachi, and Tsachila. These groups are located in the northwestern part of Ecuador and speak similar languages. On the rest of the coast, indigenous ethnic groups have either become extinct or have disap- peared into the mestizo culture, frequently through the economic influence of the export-oriented agricultural capitalist development which has resulted in a rural proletariate. Each of these three remaining groups is rather small and have struggled to preserve their ethnic identity. The Awa (which means "people," but are often called Coaiquer after a small Colombian town) live on both sides of the Ecuadorian-Colombian border. The Chachi often clash with Blacks who occupy the same region over limited resources. According to Chachi tradition, they are originally from the province of Imbabura in the highlands but fled toward the coast in the face of the Inka and Spanish conquests. Better known than these two groups are the Tsachila, a word which means the "true people" or the "true word" but who are often called Colorados be- cause of their body paint. The Tsachila have become a tourist curiosity for the dominant culture because of this body paint. Until the 1950s when a road was built through their territory and the national government began to colonize the zone, the Tsachila remained isolated from the national culture and economy. Now, however, they more than the other coastal ethnic groups have been integrated into export-oriented agricultural economy and are quickly losing their traditional culture and dress. Many different indigenous ethnic groups live in the Sierra Highlands, but these are often grouped under the singular category of "Quichua." They are part of the larger ethno-linguistic Quechua group, the largest surviving indigenous language in the Americas which stretches across the Andean high- lands from Colombia to Chile and includes between eight and twelve million speakers. (By comparison, the next largest indigenous language in the Americas is Guaran¡ with between two and three million speakers in Paraguay and Brazil. Although parts of Mesoamerica (especially Guatemala) have a larger percentage of indigenous inhabitants than the Andes, they are divided between many more languages and hence the number of speakers of a particular language are smaller than than of Quechua.) As a result of the fifteenth- and sixteenth- century spread of the Inka Empire in the Ecuadorian highlands along with the subsequent Spanish missionizing impulses, many of the Quichua-speaking peoples in this region have lost much of their linguistic, religious, and cultural distinctiveness. Economically, many of these people have become peasants or campesinos. There remains, however, a strong sense of place and it would be a mistake to lump the entire region into one category. Together, Gregory Knapp estimates between 0.84 and 1.36 million Quichuas in the highlands in 1987, although others put the number considerably higher (Knapp 1987:28). In the highlands, indigenous populations have become integrated into the national culture through their economic roles. The Canar people in southern Ecuador, for example, began manufacturing Panama hats in the 1950s as a way to cope with the increasing poverty, as they slowly lost much of their land to the white population. Niels Fock has expounded on the ironies of the Canaris' adaptation to cultural imperialism and economic exploitation. The Inkas had incorporated the Canaris' territory into their empire sixty years before the Spanish conquest, but unlike most groups that the Inkas conquered the Canaris never lost their separate ethnic identity. In 1532, the Canaris were one of the groups that considered the Spanish invaders as their liberators from Inka tyranny and entered into strategic alliances with the conquistadores (Moreno 1989:19). Ironically, although the Inkas were much more successful than the Spanish colonists or their modern national counterparts in obliterating ethnic identity, only now do the Canaris identify with their pre-Hispanic Inkan oppressors against the Spanish culture which they joined in the conquest against the Inka Empire (Fock 1981:417-18). The primary example of highland Indian integration into national history through economic means, however, is the one of the Otavaleno weavers from the northern province of Imbabura. The Otavalenos are often considered to be an economic success story. They are the most famous of the various highland groups, and are known around the world for their weavings and textiles which pre-date the Spanish conquest. They market their products themselves in Colom- bia, New York, Europe, and elsewhere. Although they have retained their indig- enous customs, dress, and beliefs, the Ecuadorian elite respects them because of their entrepreneurship and sees them as different than other "indios." Various other Quichua groups also inhabit the Ecuadorian highlands. These groups include the Salasacas who live in the province of Tungurahua in central Ecuador. According to ethno-historical accounts, the Salasacas are descendents of a mitimae (colonist) group which the Inkas brought from Bolivia to help subdue the Ecuadorian highlands. Chimborazo has the highest concentration of Indians in Ecuador. About forty percent of the province's population is indigenous, and together they number about a quarter of a million people. Historically, the indigenous people from Chimborazo have gained a repuation as Ecuador's most rebellious Indians. With increased interest in the world's remaining rainforests, recently more attention has been paid to Ecuador's Upper Amazon Basin. It is from this region (known as the Oriente) that many of Ecuador's dominant culture's stereotypes of indigenous groups emerge. These stereotypes have often been presented as an ethnic duality between Cristianos who are the civilized, Spanish, educated, proper society and Aucas or Jivaros, barbaric, uncivilized, pagan, backward, savage, headhunters from the Amazon. Naturally, many of these stereotypes are inaccurate and the cultural reality is much more complex than this. Although the richness and complexities of indigenous cultures have begun to erode these simplistic stereotypes, it has not necessarily reduced the tension between the Spanish and indigenous populations. For many Ecuadorians, the myth of the Amazon is seen as the key to their national salvation. Six different ethnic groups survive today in the Amazon region, the largest being various groups of Quichua speakers. In the ethnographic litera- ture, these Quichua Indians are often divided into the Quijos Quichua (from the Napo Province) and the Canelos Quichua (from the Pastaza Province). Although this division reflects cultural differences, their identity is often much more localized. In any case, although these Indians share a language which is similar to that which the Quichuas speak in the highlands, their forest culture is quite different from that found in the Sierra. The origins of these Quichua speakers in the Amazon is a controversial matter, and scholars have forwarded several possible explanations for their presence in this region. Some people believe them to be the result of migra- tions of Inka-conquered people from the Andes who had acquired the Inka lingua franca. Others point to the influence of missionizing friars who employed Quichua as the language for converting indigenous people rather than learning a myriad of existing languages. Still others, such as Norman Whitten, argue that Quichua originated in the Amazon around 600-800 AD. Perhaps the Inkas re- introduced the language, but it is native to the Ecuadorian jungle and not an outside imposition (Whitten 1981:131). The Inkas' very limited success in subduing the jungles east of the Andes would seem to logically limit their influence in spreading this language to the area. Quite possibly Quichua arrived in the Oriente as a trade language to facilitate commerical relations between highland and lowland Indians, and that only later other factors (such as Jesuit missionaries) subplanted a myraid of aboriginal languages with this lingua franca. The second largest and one of the most studied Amazonian groups are the Shuar who have a long history of survival and defense against outsiders and who have long had a reputation as headhunters and savages. They are located in the southeast part of Ecuador between the Pastaza and Maranon Rivers, east of the present city of Cuenca along the contested border region with Peru. It is a rocky region covering approximately 25,000 square miles along the lower eastern slopes of the Andes. The Shuar's geographic locale with the escarpment of the Andes to the west and unnavigable rapids in the rivers to the east has protected them from outside interference and has helped them retain their independence. The word Shuar simply means "people," and until relatively recently outsiders (including ethnographers) have used the term Jivaro or Jibaro to refer to them. The word Jivaro has no meaning in the Shuar lan- guage, and they have rejected it both because it is a term foreign to their culture and because of its historic negative association with "savages" and headhunting. Related to the Shuar are the Achuar (as well as other groups on the Peruvian side of the border) who are in the same area and share many of the same customs and traditions and speak a similar language. In the northeastern Amazon are the Siona-Secoya and the Cofan. These groups have historic and linguistic connections with neighboring indigenous groups in Colombia. The Siona-Secoya originally were two separate ethnic groups with similar cultures and languages which were part of the Tucano fami- ly of language. At the beginning of the twentieth century they began to merge, particularly due to intermarriage, and currently are considered to be only one ethnic group. The traditional dress of the Cofan (sometimes refered to as A'I, from the name of their language A'Ingae) is an important part of their identi- ty, and includes the characteristic perforations in their nose and ears for the wearing of feathers, flowers, and other materials. Until the 1950s when the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) missionaries began efforts to evangelize them, the Cofan had remained relatively isolated from Western society. Since that time, both the Siona-Secoya and Cofan have been devas- tated by outside forces. The region which they occupy has been an area of intensive petroleum exploitation, especially in the 1970s with the Texaco-Gulf consortium. Roads, pipelines, penetrating colonists all have had a devastating and exploiting effect on their territory. "Quito planners and developers and SIL linguistics talked of protecting the Cofan and of creating a park for them so that they could be exploited more effectively for tourism" (Whitten: 1981:135) This has all led to an increasing disruption of society, including as with the encroachment of colonization jaguars (who the Cofan believe to be reincarnated shamans) disappear which leads to a further breakdown of their worldview. Finally, in November of 1993, the Siona-Secoya fought back by suing Texaco for more than one billion dollars for a variety of environmental abuses, including dumping more than three thousand gallons of a oil a day into lagoons. Recently, the Huaorani (sometimes called Aucas, a Quichua word meaning "savage,") have faced similar problems. The Huaorani are perhaps equalled only by their Shuar neighbors to the south for their reputation as a ferociously independent group, hostile to outside intrusions and readily willing to resort to violence to defend their territory. Of Ecuador's indigenous groups, they remain the most isolated from Western civilization. Since the earliest record- ed contact with European society in the 1600s, their relationships with the outside world have been characterized by violence and bloodshed. Contact with nineteenth-century rubber barons and with oil explorations beginning in the 1940s have only provided a continuity with this earlier history. David Stoll credits the Huaorani with defying "the world market like few others" by de- fending seven percent of Ecuador's valuable jungle territory against those who wish to exploit the territory for its natural resources and economic potential (Stoll 1982:278). The Huaorani hardly meet Jean-Jacques Rousseau's stereotype of a noble savage living in an earthly paradise. They have been plagued by spearings and revenge killings that threatened to decimate the population. James Yost reported that in recent memory over half of the Huao deaths were violent, due to both intra-tribal warfare and violent contact with outsiders. These violent deaths are equalled only by the more subtle (and not so subtle) forms of violence waged on the group by contact with white society. These include not only the cultural disruption of contact with European society and the intrusion of the tourism industry, but also the deaths due to the intro- duction of diseases to which the Huaorani lack natural immunity (Yost 1981:687). The Huaorani are perhaps most famous for spearing five North American Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) missionaries in 1956. As both Yost and David Stoll attest, it is this same missionary group who sought to bring the gospel to an unreached tribe that has had perhaps the largest recent impact on this group. Since their initial contact in 1956, the destinies of these two groups have been closely intertwined, though to different ends. Whereas the Summer Institute of Linguistics has exploited the Huaorani for their evangeli- cal propaganda purposes in the United States, the legacy of this contact for the Huaorani has meant increased social cohesion, the development of a nation- al identity, and integration into a pan-Indian movement in Ecuador. The Huaorani have been described as "an ancient tribe whose survival is threatened by American oil development" as well as "missionary zeal, corporate encroachment, and American environmentalist campaigns claiming to represent their interests" (Kane:1993:54). They are "facing new cataclysmic change in their territory but also as a people known primarily by false and distorted myths which present their culture through the eyes of those seeking to convert and subvert it" (Whitten 1981:138). In addition to the oil companies which have repeatedly attempted to exploit their territory for its natural resourc- es, the Huaorani have recently become a target for ethno- and eco-tourism. In a recent critical treatment of the negative impact of tourism on the Huaorani, Randy Smith notes that "there is not a doubt in my mind that tourism is the number one culprit in the deculturation process of the Huaorani," even in comparison to SIL and other missionaries (Smith 1993:235). In fact, Smith credits Rachel Saint (the sister of one of the SIL missionaries who were speared in 1956) from saving them from extinction by stopping constant intra- tribal feuding. In the face of these threats to their culture, the Huaorani have begun to organize themselves. To defend their interests in the face of outsiders (including not only oil companies and missionaries, but also environmental groups and threats from the large neighboring Quichua and Shuar ethnic groups), they formed the Organizacion de Nacionalidad Huaorani de la Amazonia Ecuatoriana (ONHAE, or the Organization of the Huaorani Nation of the Ecuadorian Amazon) in 1990. Joe Kane has noted the tensions between local group identity and national identity, stating that "Huao culture has no precedent for speaking in the united voice required for political power" (Kane 1993:78). A final (seventh) indigenous group in the Ecuadorian Amazon are the Zaparoans. Their history demonstrates the devastating impact of Western civilization as their numbers collapsed from possibly more than one hundred thousand to seven, and are probably now extinct. Their history shows the catastrophic repercussions of the European conquest which began five hundred years ago continues to exercise on native populations of the Americas. As Blanca Muratorio has observed, "the process of conquest and initial evangelization brought about an 'ethnocidal simplification' of the Amazon's rich ethnic variety" (Muratorio 1991:42) The result is not only the disappear- ance of the Zaparoans but also many other aboriginal ethnic groups and languages. The historical roots of indigenous revolts in Ecuador In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. History is written by the winners, and so begins the traditional history of the Americas which the dominant class has presented as the objective truth. The glorious discovery of the Americas is followed by Cortes' victorious conquest of the Aztecs in 1519, and Pizarro's defeat of Atahualpa and overthrow of the Inka Empire thirteen years later. Clearly, this is only one side of the story. These traditional histories ignored the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas, or worse presented them as savages who presented an obstacle which needed to be overcome in the forward march of Western Civilization. Historical research over the past fifty years has done much to uncover and present indigenous perspectives on the European conquest. This has accompanied a shift in focus in the historiography from the Spanish point of view to that of the indigenous population. Especially in the Andes, this historiographic shift resulted in a series of "resistance studies" which glorified the heroic deeds of indigenous populations in the face of the Spanish conquest. These studies emphasize actions such as that of Ruminahui, the General of the Inka army in Quito who, after Atahualpa's capture at Cajamarca on November 16, 1532, unified the remaining Inka forces in order to stop the Spanish advance. John Murra has noted that "one can discern almost national feeling and solidarity in Ruminahui's ability to raise large multi- lingual armies in an attempt to stop the Spanish invasion" (Murra 1963:811). In July of 1534 Ruminahui circled Sebastian de Benalcazar's troops in the Ecuadorian sierra and was at the point of crushing the Spanish army when the Tungurahua volcano erupted. The Inka troops interpreted this as the anger of the gods and withdrew to Quito. At Quito they continued their battle against the Spanish, and finally burned the city when they saw that all was lost. The Spanish captured and burned Ruminahui and other indigenous leaders in January of 1535 in the Plaza de la Independencia in Quito. Ruminahui has hence come to embody the spirit of Inka resistance in Quito, and for the Ecuadorian Republic is considered an early nationalist hero for his struggles against the Spanish. Thoughtful reflection on Andean history, however, demonstrates that such a historiographic approach is, in its most fundamental sense, more of a continuation of the traditional Spanish-centric history than a refutation of it. Such a history is one of elites which ignores the actions and perceptions of the bulk of the population. Even those with only a casual knowledge of Andean history should be aware that the Inkas had appeared on the Andean scene only relatively briefly before the Spanish made their debut in 1532. The Andes have a deep cultural history which precedes both the Spanish and Inkas by thousands of years. For the inhabitants of the Ecuadorian Andes, the Inkas were also outside invaders just like the Spanish. In fact, the Canaris in the southern Ecuadorian Highlands joined the Spanish against the Inkas in the hope that they would be liberated from their overlords. Ocassionally the interests of the Spanish and the Inkas coincided, as evidenced by the actions of Don Francisco, a son of the last Inka king Atahualpa, who led troops against an indigenous uprising against a Spanish encomendero. Sometimes there was what could be termed truly popular resistance, as when the Huancavilcas burned Guayaquil three times before the Spanish finally established control of the city. More often, however, what occurred was a clash between two imperialis- tic empires. Inka resistance against the Spanish invasion, therefore, becomes not a popular movement against a foreign invasion or against human rights abuses, but an elite action in defense of an empire and for the status quo. For the inhabitants of what later became the Ecuadorian republic, however, they had to endure from 1450 to 1550 what could be termed a one hundred-year Age of Conquests. Inka expansionism and the Spanish conquest came as a very rapid one-two punch that displaced not only their cultures and traditions, but also deprived them of their political independence. Contrary to popular perceptions, the Spanish conquerors did not encoun- ter passive and easily subdued populations in the Andes. Ecuador, as in most other countries in the Americas, has a long tradition of indigenous revolts against the dominant European economic and political control. Coastal groups such as the Atacames, Caraquez, and Punaes resisted repeated Spanish attempts to penetrate the South American mainland between 1524 and 1531 (CEDIS no. 1 1985:6). Segundo E. Moreno Yanez' studies clearly demonstrate a high level of resistance from many different sectors against the Spanish conquest and colo- nization. Moreno has published two books detailing nineteen individual uprisings in Ecuador during the colonial period. The Confederation of Indige- nous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) has compiled an impressive list of about 145 indigenous uprisings over the past five-hundred years (CONAIE 1989:258-303). These sources recount a large number of actions against the Spanish confiscation of lands, tribute and labor demands, and in general, the abuse, mistreatment, and exploitation of the indigenous people at the hands of the Spanish. These early uprisings against the Spanish subjugation of indige- nous cultures lacked a unified strategy or broad vision for social change. Often the acts of resistance were of an individual nature, such as committing suicide, but other actions, such as those taken by the many forasteros who fled to inhospitable regions in order to escape the Spanish abuses, required a more unified community response. In addition to this transition in focus from the point of view of the Spanish to that of the Indians there has also been a change in the nature of the critiques of the indigenous people's actions. No longer are Indians, as Nathan Wachtel presented in his Vision of the Vanquished, seen as victims who were unjustly defeated by a stronger power. Social history scholarship has moved beyond Gibson's and Wachtel's simplistic acceptance of the fundamental aspects of the Black Legend which portrayed the Indians as passive objects in the face of the conquest by a superior civilization. Not only does the new scholarship portray the indigenous people as actors in the face of the Spanish conquest, they are also seen as living, breathing people who have control over their historical destiny. Many traditional political histories of the Andes begin with the Spanish conquest in 1532, or perhaps with a quick summary of the Inka Empire. Tradi- tional histories ignore the rich cultural history of the region which stretch- es back for thousands of years, and deridingly call the period before the Spanish conquest "prehistory." Enrique Ayala Mora notes, however, that Ecuadorian history does not begin with the conquest and rather calls this early period the "Aboriginal Era" (Mora 1993:13). One of the earliest signifi- cant cultures was the Valdivia in the coastal region near present-day Guayaquil. The Valdivia period, which dates to about five thousand years ago, is characterized by small ceramic figurines. Many different groups resided in the territory which is currently Ecuador, including the Canaris in the southern highlands and the historically questionable Kingdoms of Quito and Shyris to the north. The Inka occupation of the highlands erased much of this early history. The Inkas were late arrivals in Ecuador, having begun their imperial expansion out of their capital of Cuzco only with the ninth Inka rul- er, Pachacuti Inka (1438-1471). His son Tupac Inka (1471-1493) continued this expansion, but it was not until the rule of the eleventh Inka, Huayna Capac (1493-1527), that there was a serious attempt to conquer Ecuador. Huayna Capac put much of his hope and identity in Ecuador; he spent much of his time there and established a second capital at Tumibamba (near present-day Cuenca). He established control over the highlands, but never any more than a very tenuous grip on the coast or Amazon Basin. He died in Ecuador, apparently during a smallpox epidemic which spread before the arrival of the Spanish, and the Spanish stumbled upon the resulting struggle for control of the empire between an Ecuadorian son (Atahualpa) and a Peruvian one (Huascar). In this brief fifty-year period, the Inkas with their great civilizing project which imposed their superior religion, language, and customs on the barbarians which surrounded them were able to destroy more indigenous cultures than the Spanish which came after them. Nevertheless, in non-Quichua place names and in communal historical memories the idea remains among Ecuador's indigenous people that they are not Inkas. This imperial expansion did not happen without important resistance from the current occupants, such as the Canaris in the southern highlands and the Caranqui, Cochasqui, Otavalo, and Cayambe people in the northern highlands. Perhaps more than anywhere else in Ecuador, this non-Inka identity persisted most strongly in Antisuyu, the geographical region which formed the northeast quarter of Tawantinsuyu (the Inka Empire) and today is known as the Oriente. For the Inkas this region, which stretched the length of the eastern slopes of the Andes from Bolivia to Ecuador, was a place where coca grew, jaguars roamed, and wild uncivilized savages lived. Although Antisuyu began not far from the Inka capital city of Cuzco, its wildness and disorder were completely foreign to the highly struc- tured and disciplined life to which the Inkas were accustomed. The Inkas feared the people who lived there and called them antis, which means "savag- es." Although the Inkas held military superiority over the people who lived in Antisuyu and made numerous attempts to subjugate them, the Inkas never com- pletely conquered or politically controlled the region, nor were they ever entirely comfortable with its presence so close to their civilization. It formed a Siberian-style exile grounds which the Inkas could use to punish capital crimes by sentencing offenders to spend the rest of their lives working in the Inkas' coca fields. The Inkas, therefore, saw a clear division between their organized, rational world of the sierra and the confusing, unorganized world of the selva. Although the lowland tropical forest cultures contributed a great deal to highland Andean cultures, and the Inkas relied on Antisuyu for many of their products, it was an area that they feared and never really understood. Antisuyu represented something wild and untamed that needed to be subdued in order to become a part of the efficient and productive empire of Tawantinsuyu. There is a good deal of continuity between how the Inkas perceived Antisuyu and how the Spanish saw it. The Spanish came into the new world fresh from a holy crusade to expel the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula, and they carried this crusading mentality with them as they first overthrew the Aztec and Inka empires and then pushed inland toward Antisuyu in search of wealthy empires to overthrow. The Spanish conquistadors quickly came to fear the region and the people who inhabited it. Misunderstanding and tension have been the norm between the "center" and the "margins" (as viewed from the perspective of the dominant culture). Throughout history, external dominant cultures have always viewed Antisuyu as something that needed to be subdued. During the colonial period, the Spanish incorporated what is now Ecuador into their administrative system as the Audiencia of Quito under the Viceroy- alty of Peru. Spanish efforts to press the indigenous population into servi- tude resulted in uprisings against this repression and the abuses of colonial institutions, censuses, tribute payments, and labor drafts. This was a popular movement, but it was not unified. Due to its local and isolated nature it lacked a broad social or national vision for change. Forms of resistance included suicide, fleeing to inhospitable regions, killing Spanish, etc. What emerges, therefore, is not the traditional picture of Indians passively accepting Spanish rule, but increasing resistance (especially during the eigh- teenth century) with more than one hundred uprisings which resulted in the elimination of the encomienda, mita, and eventually political independence for Ecuador. Political independence from Spain came to Ecuador on May 24, 1822, after the successful Battle of Pichincha. For eight years Ecuador was part of the Confederation of Gran Colombia with Colombia and Venezuela, before becoming an independent country in 1830. Although indigenous people made up a large part of the independence army, the movement for independence was largely an affair of elite creoles. A white minority ruled the resulting independent republic. Graffiti which appeared on walls in Quito stated that it was the "last day of despotism and the first day of the same" (CEDIS no. 2 1985:26) Despite the large role which indigenous peoples played in gaining independence for Ecuador, it resulted in little change in their social and economic life. Racial discrimination (including slavery in Ecuador) continued, a small elite continued to control the country, and women were still excluded from political life. Independence was not a process of national liberation for the great majority of Ecuador's population; the system of exploitation simply continued under different forms. To the indigenous population, it did not make much difference that Ecuador was a free and independent country. Cultural diversity was not recognized, and indigenous rights to education, land, and culture were repressed. Rather, political leaders presented the idea that Ecuador was a unitary state built upon a European culture. Consequently, indigenous upris- ings continued even after independence from Spain. During the nineteenth century there was a continual struggle for political control of the country, and much of the twentieth century has been marked by a series of military dictatorships. The nineteenth century saw the emergence of a liberal ideology which championed freedom of work, commerce, conscience, and education. The name most associated with the Ecuadorian brand of liberalism is Eloy Alfaro. Like most liberal leaders, Alfaro was from the coast (he was born in the city of Montecristi in the province of Manabi, north of Guayaquil). He led numerous revolts against the conservative government of Gabriel Garcia Moreno. Conservative abuses led to the rallying of popular forces, including indigenous people, peasants, and workers, to a radical liberal movement led by Alfaro. According to a history of popular struggles in Ecuador, this "was the only movement which identified with the suffering of the people and their aspirations for liberty" (CEDIS no. 2 1985:4. The result was that in 1895 General Eloy Alfaro and his liberal army led a campesino insurrection which took control of the country. Alfaro promulgated a new constitution which guaranteed separation of church and state and freedom of religion, provided for the secularization of education, instituted civil marriage and divorce, outlawed racial and social discrimination, and created a professional army. As a bourgois revolution, however, the liberal revolution was limited and partial because it "did not produce all of the transformations which the society required" (CEDIS no. 2 1985:30). Twentieth-century Ecuador has been marked by a series of popular organizing efforts. One of the first major working-class organizing efforts was a general strike in Guayaquil which was brutally suppressed by the military. The strike resulted in a bloody massacre on November 15, 1922, in which hundreds of workers lost their lives. In 1926 leftists founded the Ecuadorian Socialist Party, which soon became very fractionalized with a pro-Stalin split forming the Ecuadorian Communist Party in 1931. Nevertheless, as Enrique Ayala Mora has noted, "since the 1920s socialism has constituted one of the most dynamic ideological influences in Ecuador" (Mora 1993:94). In many ways, the socialist left continued the reformist tradition of nineteenth-century liberal radicalism including struggles for secularism and educational reform. Popular organizing efforts in the 1930s and 1940s came from two differ- ent poles. The Catholic Church, together with the Conservative Party, orga- nized the first national labor union, the CEDOC (Confederacion Ecuatoriana de Obreros Catolicos, or the Ecuadorian Confederation of Catholic Workers). Although founded with a reactionary anti-socialist and anti-communist ideology which opposed the idea of class struggle, the emergence of CEDOC was an important development in the emergence of popular organizations in Ecuador. In 1944, the left (in particular, the Communist Party) organized the CTE (Confederacion de Trabajadores del Ecuador, or the Confederation of Ecuadorian Workers) which in turn launched the FEI (Federacion Ecuadoriana de Indios, or the Ecuadorian Federation of Indians), Ecuador's first national peas- ant/indigenous organization. Beginning in the 1960s with the influence of the Cuban Revolution and reforms in the Catholic Church, progressive religious personnel became critical in the organization of popular forces for social change. 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