Ecuadorian War of Independence
The Ecuadorian War of Independence, part of the Spanish American wars of independence of the early 19th century, was fought from 1809 to 1822 between Spain and several South American armies over control of the Real Audiencia of Quito, a Spanish colonial jurisdiction which later became the modern Republic of Ecuador. The war ended with the defeat of the Spanish forces at the Battle of Pichincha on May 24, 1822, which brought about the independence of all the lands of the Real Audiencia of Quito.
War[edit]
Beginning of the war[edit]
The military campaign for the independence of the territory now known as Ecuador began after nearly three hundred years of Spanish colonization. Ecuador's capital, Quito, was a city of around ten thousand inhabitants. There, on August 10, 1809, came one of the first calls in Latin America for independence from Spain,[1] led by the city's criollos, including Carlos de Montúfar and Bishop José Cuero y Caicedo.
The short-lived State of Quito was suppressed by Juan de Sámano in the Battle of Ibarra (1812).
For the next 7 years, Ecuador remained firmly under Spanish control, until the wars of independence in South America turned decisively against them, when Simón Bolívar's victory at the Battle of Boyacá on August 7, 1819 sealed the independence of the former Viceroyalty of New Granada. To the south, José de San Martín landed the Liberating Expedition of Peru on the Peruvian coast on September 8, 1820, which with the blockade of the ports of Callao and Guayaquil by Lord Thomas Cochrane since September 1819, finally obtained the independence of the Viceroyalty of Perú, the center of Spanish power in South America.
On October 9, 1820, the port city of Guayaquil, part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, proclaimed its independence after a brief and almost bloodless revolt against the local garrison. The leaders of the movement, Peruvian pro-independence officers from the colonial army led by colonel Gregorio Escobedo, second in command of the garrison, and Ecuadorian intellectuals and patriots summoned by José Joaquín de Olmedo, set up a Junta de Gobierno with a military force to defend the city and carry
the independence movement to the other provinces of the country.
News of Guayaquil's proclamation of independence spread rapidly to other cities in the Presidencia, and several quickly followed its example. Portoviejo declared its independence on October 18, 1820, and Cuenca—the economic center of the southern highlands—did the same on November 3, 1820.