History of Quito

By Dawn Wohlfarth

Pre-Inca Civilization

Despite its high altitude and scarcity of easily cultivable land, the area around Quito has been the scene of human settlement for nearly 10,000 years, dating back to the Quitu (who gave the city its name), Cara, Shyri and Puruhá indigenous groups. Due to its central location, Quito flourished as a permanent commercial trading center, or tianguez, for the peoples residing in the Amazon basin, the sierra and on the coast. The merchants traded products like salt, cotton and shells from the coast for cinnamon, medicinal herbs and precious metals from the Amazon region. Traders from the sierra sold potatoes, corn and other agricultural products native to the area.

Inca Rule

Those early inhabitants of Quito fiercely resisted the Inca invasion of the late 15th century; however, after more than a decade of fighting, Quito fell to Inca rule under Túpac Yupanqui and became an important part of his empire. Túpac Yupanqui’s son, Huayna Capac, was born near Quito, making him the first Inca ruler to be born outside the confines of Cusco. A generation later, Atahualpa, one of Huayna Capac’s sons, used Quito as his capital during his war against his brother. No architectural evidence of the pre-Columbian city remains, however, because it was destroyed by the Inca general Rumiñahui to keep it out of the hands of the Spanish conquistadors.

Spanish Rule

Colonial officials rebuilt Quito in the style of a Spanish city, featuring a grid of narrow streets dotted with public squares, still largely intact today as the city’s Centro Histórico. While it remained a compact city, colonial Quito was the capital of an administrative district larger than present-day Ecuador. The city also made an enormous contribution to the arts of the Spanish empire. Originally used as a means of inculcating the indigenous inhabitants of the region into Christianity, religious painting and sculpture flourished in the city. The so-called “Quito School” of the 17th and 18th centuries was marked by the use of dramatic, often quite gruesome, images to depict Biblical stories. Many of these works can still be viewed in Quito’s art museums and colonial churches.

Over time, Quito’s native-born population chafed under the rule of the Spanish crown. This frustration resulted in the quiteños’ 1809 declaration for independence. Quito’s- and Ecuador’s- independence from Spain was sealed on the slopes of Volcán Pichincha, high above the city, when José Antonio de Sucre’s army defeated the Spanish garrison on May 24, 1822. Today, the site of the battle is marked by La Cima de la Libertad, a military museum and memorial.

Post-Independence

Quito continued to serve as Ecuador’s capital, first when it was part of Gran Colombia and then when it achieved full independence. The city expanded little in the decades following independence; however, in the boom years of the early-twentieth century, and especially after the Second World War, Quito expanded dramatically. The wealthy abandoned the Centro Histórico for new neighborhoods farther north. Meanwhile, the difficulty of earning a living through agriculture and the availability of jobs in the city lured many people from the countryside to settle in the Quito’s poorer neighborhoods, a migration which continues to this day.