Spanish Conquest
In 1534, at the time of the arrival of the first columns of Spanish conquistadores, the population of the present day territories of Ecuador is believed to border the figure of one million inhabitants. This might have been a result of epidemics of smallpox and diphtheria that spread in the Andes after the first contacts with Spanish explorers and their livestock. According to early Spanish chronicles the Inca Huayna Capac died of smallpox and then the territories of Collasuyo and central Peru so a period of civil war for the control of the royal household between two brothers each an heir to the dominions of their respective maternal feudal lands.
Huáscar was a prince born to a noble family of Cuzco and Atahualpa was a son from a noble family of the Quitus. The quitus were a tribe that formed an aliance with the Incas during the conquest of Huayna Capac. Most important in this civil war was the participation of Huyna Capac generals on the side of Athaulpa's faction, probably due to the late sovereign wish.
Read more about this topic: Indigenous Peoples In Ecuador
Famous quotes containing the words spanish and/or conquest:
“The Bermudas are said to have been discovered by a Spanish ship of that name which was wrecked on them.... Yet at the very first planting of them with some sixty persons, in 1612, the first governor, the same year, “built and laid the foundation of eight or nine forts.” To be ready, one would say, to entertain the first ship’s company that should be next shipwrecked on to them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)