Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Quito
But before Quito became the jumpy cosmopolite it is today, the city was a kingdom
fought over by many tribes, the Inca, the Spanish and finally, the Ecuadorians that to this
day represent a mosaic of them all. The Quitu (or Kitu) were a horizontal alliance of local
indigenous cultures that created a commercial center in the first millennium and
christened it Quito. In the year 800 AD, the Caras culture from northwest Ecuador mi-
grated to Quito and conquered the natives, calling the subsequent confluence of their
civilizations The
Shyris
, or Kings. They ruled for four centuries before the Inca arrived
and attempted to subjugate them into their kingdom, but they brawled for another few
decades before The Shyris would be completely conquered. In 1534, the Spanish took
over Quito and had much of what it is today built by their laborers, until 1822 when Anto-
nio José de Sucre led troops into the legendary Battle of Pichincha and toward independ-
ence. The rest, as they say, is history.
