[Ecuador, Snow on the Equator]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

Snow On The Equator
Published by the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs Commerce Department Building, Washington, D. C.
Church of La Compania, Quito
WAR emphasizes the importance of Ecua-
dor in the inter-American picture because of her strategic position and production of war materials. Ecuador’s possessions include the Galapagos Islands, some 700 miles off the coast, which are essential for the defense of the western
approaches of the Panama Canal. The United States has been granted bases in the islands and on the mainland, particularly at Salinas. In raw materials, such Ecuadorian forest products as balsa wood, rubber, quinine, and kapok, are filling vital -military needs of the United Nations.
To the historian, Ecuador has long been a fascinating study; in its highlands there lived early peoples among the most advanced in the hemisphere in crafts, in building, and in their social organization. The Kingdom of Quitu was conquered by a tribe called the Caras about 1,000 A. D., and late in the fifteenth century came under the rule of the Incas. The Incas extended their remarkable network of roads into
Ecuador, and imposed their system of land holdings based
on family needs.
Inca rule, however, was destined to be short lived. The king, Huayna Capac, the last of the Incas to enjoy a long reign, died in 1529. Already Francisco Pizarro had made two
Section of the
Guayaquil-Quito Railway
expeditions along the Ecuadorian coast and had found impressive treasures in the temples of the Incas. He established Spanish rule over the whole Inca empire but did not bring it peace, for the conquistadores soon fought among themselves. Finally in 1556 a peaceful colonial administration was established, and continued until the struggle for independence about 250 years later.
Spanish rule was readily accepted because of Ecuador’s isolated geographical position in the Andes, and because the Indians were already accustomed to a highly centralized administration under the Incas. The city of San Francisco de Quito founded by Pizarro’s lieutenant, Sebastian de Benalcazar, in August, 1534, became a center of cultural and literary life in Spanish America. The Spanish friar and
Simin Bolivar
HISTORY OF ECUADOR
chronicler, Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa, writing early in the seventeenth century, re-
ported that Quito was a city of fine churches, monasteries and convents. Its population he put at about 3,000 Spaniards and mestizos, adding: “It is a region with a lively trade, on the King’s Highway and a necessary transit point for all those coming from the Spanish Main and the New Kingdom of Granada to Peru.” Vazquez also mentions the great abundance and cheapness of tropical fruits, meat, vegetables, flowers, and the * excellent shoes to be found in Quito.
The Audiencia of Quito was a stronghold of conservative Spanish ideas, but the revolutionary doctrines of eighteenth century Europe came to be widely accepted towards the end of the century. Revolt in Quito broke out in 1809, and again in 1820, when the republicans called on Simon Bolivar, the great Venezuelan liberator, for assistance. Bolivar sent Antonio Jose de Sucre, who reached Guayaquil in May, 1821. Defeated by the royalist forces, Sucre appealed to San Martin, the Argentine patriot who had been fighting in Peru. With the help of San Martin, Sucre advanced to Quito where he defeated the Spaniards in May, 1822. Bolivar, who had encountered a second royalist army in the north, persuaded Ecuador’s
Antonio Jose de Sucre
leaders to join Colombia and Venezuela in the republic of Gran Colombia, but by 1830 both Venezuela and Ecuador had seceded. Representatives of the various Ecuadorian departments drafted a constitution and elected a president. A frontier dispute with Colombia resulted in brief hostilities, but peace was signed on December 8, 1831, and the boundary between the two countries has remained virtually unaltered ever since.
As in all new republics, self-government posed many problems, complicated in this case by the isolation of the
coastal area from the mountain valleys. Nor was Ecuador free from the revolutions, frequent changes of constitutions and at times near-anarchy which beset many of the newly liberated countries of the Americas. However, two presidents, Gabriel Garcia Moreno and Eloy Alfaro, have been outstanding in the development of the country. The conservative Garcia Moreno represented a reaction from the period of civil war and unstable conditions in the early years of the republic. He became president in 1861 and remained in power until his assassination in 1875. He brought his country an ordered administration with improved finances, built many roads and public buildings, and attracted an outstanding group of foreign scientists.
Eloy Alfaro dominated the political life of his country from 1895 to 1911, serving as president from 1895 to 1901 and from 1906 to 19H. His great dream was to see the construction of a railroad from the port of Guayaquil to Quito. One of the early believers in inter-American solidarity, he went to the United States for his engineer, and the 280 miles of the road were completed in 1908. The railroad, one of the most brilliant engineering feats in the Americas, rises over difficult passes to a height of almost 12,000 feet. Alfaro established normal schools in Quito to provide teachers for a new national system of education. He started high schools for girls and boys, and naval and military academies. Under his ad-
Hard
^Surfaced Roads
500 miles
Balsa Trees
ECUADOR'S PRE-WAR EXPORTS
Foodstuffs
CACAO
COFFEE
BANANAS, hM,
RICE, ETC.,
Other Vegetable Products
TAGUA NUTS
RUBBER, BALSA
PANAMA HATS
Minerals & Other
CYANIDE PREC. & Others
NOTE: GOLD and SILVER not included
Each symbol represents 5% of value of exports
ministration, women were admitted to public service, and measures taken to protect the Indians from inhuman treatment. He has been compared in much of his work to Abraham Lincoln.
The constitution adopted in 1906 during Alfaro’s presidency has, except for one brief period, governed the republic ever since. Alfaro’s term of office was followed by more than 10 years of economic progress and political peace. The long-standing border dispute between Ecuador and Peru was at last settled at the Rio de Janeiro Conference held in January, 1942. In the same month, Ecuador severed relations with the Axis. The government of Carlos Arroyo del Rio was overthrown by a revolt in May, 1943, and replaced by a provisional'government headed by Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra,a former president.
The division of Ecuador into a mountainous central area and a tropical coastal region has had a far-reaching effect on^
ECUADOR HELPS WIN THE WAR
1 her economic and political development. The third geographical area lying on the east side of the Andes, though potentially rich in such resources as oil and fine woods, is sparsely populated and isolated. In the mountainous Andean section live more than three-fourths of the population, and it is not unusual to see Indians in their remote valleys tilling the soil much as their ancestors did in the Kingdom of Quitu. Subsistence farming is commonly practiced with such crops as wheat, corn, barley, beans and potatoes predominating. The hot coastal area, with Guayaquil as its chief port, produces most of the export crops, including cacao (source of cocoa and chocolate), coffee, bananas and rice. The western slopes of the Andes also yield tagua nuts used for buttons, toquilla palm leaves for so-called Panama hats, and of particular importance today, balsa wood for planes and life rafts, and wild rubber. Transportation between the * coast and the highlands, and in the highland region itself, has been inadequate because of the high mountain ranges running from the north to the south. The people of the coastal regions, having wider contacts with the outside world, have often shown a more practical awareness of the country’s economic problems.
Since much of Ecuador’s population is self-sufficient, the country’s foreign trade figures are low for its size and population. In 1941, exports totaled $13,300,000 and imports $10,000,000. Imports were largely manufactured goods., such as machinery of all kinds, structural iron and steel, cotton manufactures, chemicals, paper, trucks, tires, wool yarn and cloth.
Mineral deposits in Ecuador include oil and gold. Oil found along the coast west of Guayaquil provides most of local petroleum requirements. Even ?>today gold production is a large source of income,
ECUADOR'S SHARE OF WORLD CACAO PRODUCTION
Each symbol represents 2% of world production
with production in 1941 valued at approximately $3,500,000.
Ecuador now makes a large share of its cotton textiles, and smaller quantities of rayon and wool fabrics from imported raw materials. Local factories also produce shoes, leather, cement, beverages, soap, furniture, and buttons. The shipbuilding industry constructs river craft, and there are large sawmills in Guayaquil for cutting balsa wood. The ancient art of weaving straw hats, which has made Ecuador the chief
producer of “Panama” hats, is a home industry of considerable importance. In Cuenca, a center of the industry, clerks in stores often busy themselves by working on a hat between customers.
Ecuador’s forest products, of small commercial importance in peacetime, are essential to the United Nations in war. Like Brazil, Ecuador had a rubber boom in the early 1900’s; but with the expansion of plantation rubber cultivation in the Far East, production declined to less than 100
The Cacao Plant and Fruit
tons a year. Today Ecuadorian rubber has assumed a new strategic importance. Wild rubber trees grow in large numbers on the lower slopes of the Andes near the seacoast. New trails have been cut through the jungles and medical services set up for the rubber tappers, with the result that production in 1942 totaled 3,000 tons.
Balsa, one of the lightest woods known, grows wild in Ecuador. Long used by the Indians for rafts, balsa wood today is being made into liferafts and airplanes, notably the British mosquito bomber. Ecuador is the United Nations’ chief source for balsa. Production has been greatly increased with the war. A farmer who lives along the Guayas River and its tributaries builds a balsa raft, piles his produce on it, floats down to Guayaquil, and sells both produce and raft.
The cinchona tree which yields quinine, used in the treatment of malaria, is native to Ecuador. With the loss of Far Eastern production, Ecuador is an important source for quinine. Kapok, from the pods of the ceiba tree, is six times as buoyant as cork. Ecuadorean wild kapok is used for life preservers, now that the cultivated variety from the Philippines is no longer available.
Air travel has come as a boon to countries like Ecuador where adequate railroad or road transportation has been too costly.
The Convent of San Francisco, Quito
Eventually, the Pan-American Highway will run 700 miles through the country, further augmenting the 800 miles of railroad lines. Currently, a short new railroad running from Sibambe to Cuenca is being built to connect southern Ecuador with Guayaquil and Quito. Still in existence is the mule train which competes with railroads, particularly for short hauls, and even uses the railroad as a trail.
Quito with its Spanish colonial churches, old white adobe houses with terra-cotta tile roofs and cobbled streets, lies high on an Andean plateau surrounded by snow-covered mountains. It is among the more isolated of South American capital cities, but has one of the most pleasant, invigorating climates in the world, and has kept, perhaps more than any other city on the continent, its Spanish colonial atmosphere. Of immense importance in the architecture of the city was the art school founded by the Franciscans in 1535.
One picturesque aspect of life in Quito is the markets. The type of goods sold changes with the days of the week, with furniture on one day.and food the next. Only on Tuesdays in the great market on the Avenue Twenty-fourth of May is everything for sale.
The new law on public education passed in 1938 is an evidence of a growing interest in the schools. The isolation of many small mountainous communities has made the intro-
duction of universal compulsory education difficult. In 1941, there were 3,140 primary schools with a total enrollment of 248,905 children, the number of primary schools having increased by almost 50 percent within 10 years. In addition, there were twenty-three secondary schools with 9,137 pupils. Four universities with a total of 1,755 students offered training in law, medicine, dentistry, engineering, etc.
Ecuador has had a long literary tradition. Her famous president, Gabriel Garcia Moreno, was a journalist and poet. His great rival, Juan Montalvo, was an essayist of such a biting turn of phrase that when Garcia Moreno was assassinated, Montalvo remarked, “My pen has killed him.” However, Montalvo’s most widely read work is his Siete Tratados after the style of Montaigne. Jose Joaquin Olmedo, one of the early figures of the country’s literature, ranks among the most distinguished classic poets in America. The last decade has seen the emergence of a vigorous group of young writers vitally concerned with the social problems of Ecuador. Their contribution has had great sociological and literary value. A few of them are Jorge Icaza, who has described the exploitation of Indian labor in his novels, Huasipungo and En las Calles; Jose de la Cuadra, one of the best short story writers; Demetrio Aguilera Malta, who, like de la Cuadra, depicts the social panorama of the coastlands; Enrique Gil Gilbert, the novelist; Humberto Salvador, a forceful portrayer of the drama of the middle classes, in his native Quito; and Pablo Palacio, a humorist with a serious message.
The labor code, in effect since 1938, provides for minimum wages and a 44-hour week. A new social security law, adopted in 1942, provides sickness, maternity and life benefits, old age pensions and accident insurance.
Ecuador’s indigenous population and farm labor are under the special supervision of the National Welfare Institute, and a number of measures are directed toward Indian rehabilitation, among them a more equitable distribution of crop lands, better credit, sanitation, housing and education.
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