Painted tiles commemorating independence
About this photograph
- Creator
- Margery H. Freeman
- Date created
- 1991
- Location
- Riobamba, Ecuador
- License
- This photograph copyright ©2006. Terms of use
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- Search LEARN NC for Bolivar, colonialism, Ecuador, and independence.
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A wall of tiles has been painted with a historical scene of the movement for independence. Behind a cauldron a fire a man, most likely Simon Bolívar, holds a broken chain. The right of the mural is a cross section of the population of Ecuador: farmers, businessmen, and indigenous laborers.
Ecuador won its independence from Spain through the efforts of “The Liberator,” of South America, Simon Bolívar. In 1822, Ecuador joined Bolívar’s Gran Colombia, a newly-formed confederacy made up of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. Bolívar then used Colombia as a staging point to invade Spain’s last hold-out in South America—Peru. In 1830, Ecuador broke free of Gran Colombia to become an independent nation.
