Guayaquil Through Independence: Urban Development in a Colonial System

Abstract

In the 1530’s, as Mexico and then Peru began sending eastward the treasure which would so profoundly affect European life, the town of Guayaquil was established on the coast of present-day Ecuador. During the next three centuries Guayaquil developed into a society fundamentally different from and even antithetical to those of the great highland capitals. Agriculture, industry, and commerce, rather than mining, became the mainstays of Guayaquil’s economy. The decline of indigenous population on the coast and an influx of free Negroes from the north rendered an egalitarian and racially mixed people of low social differentiation. Cacao grown on the coastal lowlands provided the thrust for a wide range of trade and manufacturing activities. Yet tensions between location on a main imperial trade route and the stifling commercial control of nearby Lima resolved into a rough-and-tumble political system which thrived on contraband and autonomy. By the early nineteenth century Guayaquil had achieved a large measure of independence from Spain, and it played an important role in the liberation movements of western South America. After sketching the early development of the city, we will examine in some detail the system of labor and production in Guayaquil during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Then the city’s precocious autonomy within the colonial system will be discussed, prior to a concluding assessment of the social outcomes of Guayaquil’s development by the time of Independence.