Ecuador and the Spanish

Ecuador Spanish colonizers became an important but not the only cultural influence. Our nation has become a synthesis of multiple cultures and languages that merged somewhere in time at some stage of history. The Ecuador Spanish language is a fusion of American, European and African words, and it is also enriched with multiple native Arab and Jewish words. This synthesis has not been completed yet because the culture of the Spanish mixed race still remains separated from other national communities. Ecuador has several cultures and languages and some ethnic groups are still marginalized in different regions of the country. 

Ecuador Spanish influence originated a government change, nevertheless, the spanish maintained some of the Inca's mechanisms of economic exploitation. For instance, the spanish conquerors maintained the imposition of quechua language in the Ecuador regions. Eventually, the abusive labor exploitation of the natives at the mines, land grants (encomiendas) and settlements (mitas) caused a strong decrease of the native population. These and other social problems drove the Spanish Crown to issue laws to protect Ecuador indians. Despite these measures, complete groups of Ecuador natives migrated to forests and jungle running away from the exploitation of the conquerors and their successors.

For the Ecuador native populations as well as for the rest of America, the Spanish conquest became a generalized ethnocide. Father Velasco, who was an historian and religious man, described in his writings about the estimated disappearance of 44 Ecuadorian tribes and the extinction of their mother tongues. He obtained this information by analyzing the  situation of several native ethnic groups by the end of the colonial period around 1789. Therefore, Quechua and Spanish became the dominant languages in Ecuador.

The segregation of the natives was one of the characteristics of the Spanish Colonial structure. This hostile environment aggravated the conditions of labor exploitation, but paradoxically it also allowed the survival of some Ecuador native cultures. For the Indians of the mountains, Quichua language became the element of union as well as the element to avoid Spanish intrusion. Ecuador Natives escaped to areas of difficult access. In the coastal and oriental mountain areas, indians maintained an active resistance to all attempts of Spanish domination. It is worth to mention the Shuar community case (Jíbaros) who firstly succeeded fighting against the Inca invasion in Ecuador. Then, they were apparently dominated by the Spanish conquerors but regained their freedom by starting a rebellion against mine working and by destroying the eastern colonial cities of Wamboya, Logrono de los Caballeros and Sevilla de Oro.

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