Costume and History in Highland Ecuador

Chapter 3. Ecuador under the Spanish Empire

An Introduction to the History of Colonial Ecuador suzanne austin Conquest and Settlement Following the capture of Atau Huallpa at Cajamarca in 1532, Francisco Pizarro dispatched his lieutenant, Sebastián de Benalcázar, to explore and conquer the northern area of the Inca Empire. The Spanish received a mixed reception in the region of what would soon become the Audiencia of Quito. With the assistance of Cañar soldiers from Tumi Pampa, Benalcázar and his men defeated the native armies of the Riobamba area and continued northward , encountering resistance in some places and welcome in others. With few exceptions, the Spanish found little treasure, fueling their frustration with Quito’s indigenous inhabitants. In at least one instance, disappointment over the paucity of loot erupted into a massacre at El Quinche, northeast of Quito. But the Spanish were not the only ones terrorizing the native population ; the Inca generals Rumi Ñahui and Quizquiz slaughtered inhabitants of the Pomasqui Valley for collaborating with the Europeans. On December 6, 1534, Benalcázar and some two hundred Spanish soldiers founded the city of San Francisco de Quito. Although native resistance continued in isolated areas for several years, Benalcázar exercised control over much of the region by 1535. Within weeks of the city’s founding, the Spanish had begun to seize control of the best lands for themselves. In the city itself, Benalcázar ordered all indigenous houses destroyed to make space for the buildings of the conquerors . Most of the now homeless natives were resettled close by in the valley of Guapulo so that the Spanish would have easy access to their labor. To preCHAPTER 3 Ecuador under the Spanish Empire Ecuador under the Spanish Empire 97 vent flight through mass migration and to ensure a steady supply of workers, the cabildo (town council) of Quito soon passed legislation mandating that all natives remain permanently in the communities where they resided at the time of the Spaniards’ arrival. Distribution of land to the city’s new European residents quickly encompassed the most fertile areas in the region, including Pomasqui, Cumbaya, Cotocollao, Pinta, Chillos, and Guayllabamba. Five years later, in 1540, the cabildo was distributing land as far north as Cayambe and as far south as Riobamba, because all of the land close to Quito had already been claimed.1 In keeping with Spanish policy, the leading citizens of Quito received encomiendas as rewards for their participation in the conquest and settlement of the region. An encomienda was a grant from the Spanish Crown to an individual, the encomendero, usually for one or two lifetimes , entitling them to tribute and personal service from specified indigenous districts. Disappointed with the lack of gold and silver in the Quito area, Benalcázar abandoned his governorship of Quito and, in 1536, embarked on the conquest of New Granada. His was not the only expedition to leave the region during this period. In fact, military campaigns and exploratory expeditions placed such a drain on the indigenous population that in 1537, the cabildo ordered an end to the practice of forced recruitment of indigenous people for these particular ventures. Legislation did not guarantee compliance, however, and between 1534 and 1580, at least twenty-nine major expeditions, including approximately 50,000 indigenous men and women, left Quito. Few returned; most died of disease or starvation, and some were sold into slavery in New Granada (Larrain Barros 1980, 2:56–57). In 1538, Gonzalo Pizarro, youngest brother of the conqueror of Peru, arrived in Quito to assume the governorship. But he did not remain long; in 1541, he departed at the head of an expedition to explore the Amazon Basin. He returned two years later only to discover that his brother had been assassinated in Lima. Hostilities between the youngest Pizarro and representatives of the Spanish Crown festered; when Blasco Núñez Vela, first viceroy of Peru, arrived, civil war erupted. During a battle on the outskirts of Quito in 1546, Pizarro’s troops defeated the royal army and killed the viceroy. The apprehension and execution of Pizarro and his closest supporters by Spanish officials two years later left many encomiendas vacant in the Quito area. Those who received these grants became the new elite; they and their descendants dominated the province for the remainder of the century. The Council of the Indies created the Audiencia of Quito in 1563. The Audiencia was both a territorial unit encompassing all of modern-day Ecuador as well as large areas of Colombia...