Independence of Cuenca

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The Independence of Cuenca is celebrated in Ecuador on 3rd November each year. This marks the day in 1820 that Cuenca in Ecuador declared its independence from Spain.

The War of Independence in Ecuador was fought from 1820 to 1822 between several South American patriot armies (inspired and led by the associates of Simón Bolívar) and Spain, over control of the Presidencia de Quito - the Spanish colonial administrative region from which would eventually emerge the modern Republic of Ecuador.

The War of Independence ended with the defeat of the Spanish forces at the Battle of Pichincha on 24th May 1822, which brought about the independence of the entire Presidencia de Quito.

The Ecuadorian War of Independence is one of a number of struggles, almost all led by Bolívar, San Martin, Sucre or O'Higgins, fought during the first two decades of the 19th century.

The military campaign for the independence of modern Ecuador from Spanish rule could be said to have begun on 9th October 1820, when the port city of Guayaquil proclaimed its independence after a brief and almost bloodless revolt against the local Spanish garrison. The leaders of the movement, a combination of Venezuelan and Peruvian pro-independence officers from the colonial Army, along with local intellectuals and patriots, set up a "Junta de Gobierno" and raised a military force with the purpose of defending the city and carrying the independence movement to the other provinces in the Presidencia.

In the early 1820s the tide of the wars of independence in South America had turned decisively against Spain. The victory at the Battle of Boyacá on the 7th August 1819 had sealed the independence of the former Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada (New Granada), while to the South José de San Martón, after landing his Army on the Peruvian coast on 8th September 1820, was preparing his army for the campaign against the Viceroyalty of Peru, based in Lima.

The news of the proclamation of independence of Guayaquil spread rapidly to other cities in the Presidencia, with several towns and cities following the example in quick succession. Portoviejo declared its independence on 18th October 1820, and Cuenca, the economic centre of the Southern highlands of Ecuador, did the same on 3rd November 1820.

Following this unilateral action in Cuenca, the stage was set for the campaign to gain the liberation of Quito - which was achieved after the Battle of Pichincha - and independence for all of Ecuador on 24th May 1822, within the wider Gran Colombia scheme of Simón Bolívar – in which Ecuador remained until it collapsed in 1830.

Each year on 3rd November, the people of Cuenca in particular, and Ecuador as a whole celebrate the declaration of independence of what remains a major central location within the country.