Caras (tribe)

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The Caras tribe flourished in coastal Ecuador, in what is now Manabí Province, in the first millennium CE. In the 10th Century CE they followed the Esmeraldas River up to the high Andean valley now known as the city San Francisco de Quito, where they defeated the local Quitu tribe and set up a kingdom.

For more than four centuries under the kings (Shyris) of the Caras, the Kingdom of Quito dominated much of highlands of modern Ecuador. The Caras and their allies were narrowly defeated in the epic battles of Tiocajas and Tixán in 1462, by an army of 250,000 led by Túpac Inca, the son of the Emperor of the Incas. ^[1] After several decades of consolidation, the Kingdom of Quito became integrated into the Incan Empire. In 1534 the Caras/Quitu people were conquered by the Spanish and became extinct after interbreeding with the spanish conquerors to produce the mestizos of the region.

A representation of a Mestizo, in a "Pintura de Castas" in the Colonial era. "A Spanish and Amerindian, produce a Mestizo"

Although the language of the Caras has not survived, it is preserved in place names such as the city of Carán and the martial term Shyri, which is still in use in the Ecuadorean Army.