Portal:Ecuador/Selected article
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The History of Ecuador: Numerous indigenous cultures thrived in Ecuador for thousands of years..Ancient Valdivian artifacts from as early as 3500 B.C...A large number of stone objects were found which were undoubtedly implements...Age of objectsThat the principal part of these objects and implements in stone are of considerable or of great age is apparent from the fact that they are scarcely mentioned at the time...The Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizarro set out on his third expedition during the final months of 1531, the expedition would end in the defeat of the Inca Empire and the Spanish colonization and conquest of Ecuador...The struggle for independence in the Audiencia de Quito was part of a movement throughout Spanish America led by the criollos. A group of Quito's leading citizens followed suit, this early revolt against colonial rule (one of the first in Spanish America) The criollos' resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the peninsulares was the fuel of revolution against colonial rule. The spark was Napoleon's invasion of Spain, after which he deposed King Ferdinand VII and, in July 1808, placed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne...The second chapter in Ecuador's struggle for emancipation from Spanish colonial rule began in Guayaquil, where independence was proclaimed in October 1820 by a local patriotic junta under the leadership of the poet José Joaquín de Olmedo. By this time, the forces of independence had grown continental in scope and were organized into two principal armies, one under the Venezuelan Simón Bolívar Palacios in the north and the other under the Argentine José de San Martín in the south. Unlike the hapless Quito junta, the Guayaquil patriots were able to appeal to foreign allies, Argentina and Venezuela, each of whom soon responded by sending sizable contingents to Ecuador. Antonio José de Sucre, the brilliant young lieutenant of Bolívar who arrived in Guayaquil in May 1821, was to become the key figure in the ensuing military struggle against the royalist forces.
