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South American Handbook The South American Handbook Edited by Patrick Heenan and Monique Lamontagne Advisers Rory Miller David Rock University of Liverpool University of California, Santa Barbara 2002 FITZROY DEARBORN PUBLISHERS LONDON • CHICAGO Chapter Six Ecuador Marc Becker The political scientist John Martz once from any unified and coherent action: Quito observed that Ecuador "serves as a microcosm declared independence in 1809 but Guayaquil for a wide variety of problems, questions, and did so in 1820. When Antonio José de Sucre issues relevant to various of the other Latin defeated Spanish forces outside Quito in American countries" (Martz p. vii). Named May 1822, its citizens, the Quiteños, passively after the Equator, which it straddles, Ecuador watched while foreigners and Guayaquileños is one of the smaller countries in South fought. America but is also one of the most fascinating. However, the focus on Quito and Guayaquil It has a strong popular movement, but repeat- effectively marginalizes the southern urban edly elects populist leaders who implement center of Cuenca; the eastern Amazon, which economic policies that hurt the poor. This is stereotypically viewed as a "savage" area, situation has led to the growth of a power- but now provides the oil revenues that fund ful indigenous movement, which threatens much of the rest of the country; and the rural the white elite and has begun to reshape the indigenous population, which made up a large country's social and economic landscape. part of the independence army but subse- quently gained little from the struggle. Deep regional and social divisions continue to divide Geography and Resources the country, which make it is a mistake to speak Ecuador's physical and human geography has of Ecuador as a unified nation. had a significant impact on its economic, polit- The three regions have very different ical, and social development. The country can ecological and economic bases. The coastal be divided into three geographic zones: the plain is wider than that further South in Peru western pacific coastal lowlands, the sierra high- and, because the cold Antarctic , Humboldt lands, and the eastern upper Amazon basin, Current turns out to sea just before it reaches often called the Oriente (East). Regionalism is Ecuador, it is much wetter and hotter than in particularly apparent in the economic and Peru. The coast, along with the surrounding political divisions between the liberal commer- lowlying hills, has an export-oriented agricul- cial coastal port city of Guayaquil and the tural economy, which includes the production conservative administrative city of Quito in the of bananas, cattle, rice, sugar, coffee, and highlands. Ecuadorians have long recognized maritime products, such as shrimp and tuna. the presence of this tension, and, as the politi- Currently, half of the country's population cal scientist George Blanksten noted in the resides on this coastal plain, which includes the 1950s, "the story of Ecuador is a tale of two port of Guayaquil, now the country's largest cities" (Blanksten p. 161). Regional divisions are city, with a population of over 2 million. so pronounced that even the country's declara- tion of independence from Spain did not result Counterpoised against the liberal commer- cial coast are the conservative, Catholic sierra 69 70 Nation States highlands, with around 45% of the population. denounce their opponents, until relatively Two parallel mountain chains, with over recently the Amazon remained marginal to 30 volcanoes, eight of them active, dominate Ecuador's state formation and economic devel- this region. One of these mountains, Cotopaxi, opment. The discovery of rich oil deposits in is the world's highest active volcano. The the Amazon in the 1970s resulted in an econ- Equator reaches its highest point in the world omic boom for the elite, ecological disaster for on the snowcapped southern slopes of Mount the Amazon, and increased impoverishment Cayambe, and, because of the equatorial bulge, for its inhabitants. Nevertheless, many Ecuado- the peak of Mount Chimborazo is the furthest rians believe that the Amazon is key to their point from the center of the Earth (and national salvation, both because of issues of was once thought to be the world's highest territoriality and because of the potential mountain). Nestled between the two mountain economic wealth from exploitation of petro- chains is a series of 15 fertile intermontane leum and other minerals. basins. Whereas export-oriented agriculture has dominated the coast, domestic agricultural production such as cattle, potatoes, corn, bar- Until the 20th century, Ecuador remained ley, and wheat destined for local markets was an overwhelmingly rural country, with the vast traditionally more important in these highland majority of people living in the highlands. basins. Increasingly, however, nontraditional Migratory patterns have affected this human exports, such as flowers, have replaced pro- geography of Ecuador in three different duction of food. With an Amazonian oil boom ways. First is a population shift away from in the 1970s, Quito, the country's capital, the highlands, a trend that emerged after the changed from an isolated quaint colonial city liberal revolution of 1895, based on the coast, into a vibrant administrative and economic attempted to break conservative landowners' center with an important banking industry. stranglehold on indigenous labor on the large highland estates called haciendas. The construc- tion of the Guayaquil and Quito Railway Ecuador's third region, the upper Amazon further facilitated the migration of highland rainforest or Oriente, comprises nearly half of laborers to the coast, where they took higher- the country's territory, but, according to the paying jobs on banana and other plantations, census of 1990, it contained only 4% of its contributing to the monoculture agricultural population, most of it rural. Since the export economy. In 1974, for the first time, the conclusion of the wars of independence in the census indicated that the coastal population 1820s, Ecuador has been locked in territorial surpassed that of the sierra highlands. A similar disputes with the neighboring countries of migration has more recently taken people to Colombia and Peru over the delineation of the Amazon in search of land or jobs with oil international borders in the Amazonian region. companies. Second is a migration from rural Occasionally these disputes have led to open to urban areas in search of higher-paying jobs warfare between Ecuador and Peru, most and more economic opportunities: in 1990 the notably in 1941 and again in 1995, and in census reported that the urban population had 1942, the United States forced Ecuador to sign surpassed the rural population. Third, econ- the Rio Protocol, which effectively ceded over omic crises in Ecuador during the 1990s drove half of its territory to Peru (Corkill and Cubitt one of the largest per-capita outmigrations, p. 98). Yet Ecuador's identity is integrally tied to primarily to the United States, of any country the Amazon. The Spanish conquistador in South America. These migrations continue Francisco de Orrellana left from Quito in to have an irreversible impact on Ecuador, and 1540 to become the first European to float are visible in the nature of ethnic identities, down the Amazon, and it is this feat that social movements, and political structures. leads to Ecuador's territorial claims. The country embraces as a national slogan " Ethnicity Ecuador was, is, and will be an In Ecuador, as in the rest of South America, Amazonian country" Although important as a the myth of mestizaje holds that a new culture rhetorical device for politicians who use the issue to make nationalistic statements and to Ecuador 71 was forged from the blending of three separate restrictions, effectively granting traditions, European, indigenous, and African. citizenship rights to the majority of Although this held partly true for the mestizo Ecuadorians for the first time. segment of the Ecuadorian population, it Ecuador's population of African descent is threatened to subvert the unique history and concentrated in the province of Esmeraldas surviving cultural traditions of the indigenous in the Northwest, in addition to pockets in and African groups. Rather than embracing Guayaquil, Quito, and the northern ethnic diversity, mestizaje contended that provinces of Imbabura and Carchi. A popular these ethnic identities must be suppressed in legend has it that the Afro-Ecuadorians are order for the country to move forward. descendants of escapees from a slave ship that Modernization was often associated with the " was bound for Peru but shipwrecked off the whitening" of society. This ideological frame- Esmeraldas coast in 1553. Under the work created a situation of racial leadership of Alonso de Illescas, they discrimination that placed indigenous forged inland and intermixed with and African groups at a disadvantage in indigenous peoples, sometimes fighting society. In addition, ideologies of mestizaje with them over limited land and resources. implied the presence of a coherent national After 150 years of independence, they identity in Ecuador, which has in fact eventually allied with Quito and the Spanish never existed. Local and regional forms of crown. Today, Afro-Ecuadorians amount to identity have always been the primary factors in around 3% of the population (see Whitten). people's sense of self. The formation and structure of these identities underlie Mestizos comprise perhaps 60% or more of movements for social change, and have Ecuador's population, and work as both rural influenced economic and political development campesinos (peasants) and poor workers in urban in turn. areas, although with increased educational opportunities more mestizos have been entering professions. On the coast, for example, Since the Spanish invasion of Ecuador in lower-class mestizo peasants working as a rural the 1530s, the white population has always proletariat on export-oriented been a small but dominant force in society. agricultural plantations are known as A lack of good demographic studies and the montuvios.
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