The Ecuador Flag has a rectangular shape and shares the colors yellow, blue and red with Venezuela and Colombia, since the three countries were integrated in a great nation known as Gran Colombia .
The flag of Ecuador differs from Colombia and Venezuela in that it carries in its center the national shield. This shield was adopted in the year 1900 after using more than five since the first attempts of independence in the early nineteenth century.
The Ecuadorian tricolor flag was created under the rule of Eloy Alfaro during his first term in 1989, after adopting five different flags between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
With the Revolutionary Junta of Quito in 1,809, the first flag was created and evolved until the year 1900 when the National Congress, presided over by Manuel Cueva, issued the decree that regulated the use of the tricolor banner.
History of the Ecuadorian flag
The first flag that referred to Ecuador as a nation consisted of a horizontal cloth of red color with a white blade of lines and was erected by the Revolutionary Junta of Quito in the year 1.809.
Its design was equal to the one of the flag of the Spanish empire with the cross of Burgundy, but had the inverted colors.
The Revolutionary Junta of Quito happened when a group of patriots wanted to take the power. However, the population supported the Spanish reign and the revolution failed.
With the independence of the province of Guayaquil in 1820, the use of a new horizontal flag with three blue and two white stripes and three white stars at the center was decreed.
According to the historian Wilfrido Loor, the stars represent the cities of Guayaquil, Portoviejo and Machala, although other historians affirm that they refer to the districts of Cuenca, Guayaquil and Quito.
When the departments of Cuenca and Quito were integrated into Gran Colombia, the Supreme Junta of the Free Province of Guayaquil issued a decree on June 2, 1820, through which it ordered the use of a white background flag with a blue box in the top left and inside a white star.
Two years later, in 1822, Ecuador was integrated into the Greater Colombia and adopted its flag with the colors yellow, blue and red, and with a shield in the middle that had in its background the white color.
On the shield had a piece of arrows finished in the shape of a cross protected by two horns full of fruit, protected by two olive branches.
Historians believe that the design of this flag was Francisco de Miranda and was first waved on July 14 in several places of the liberated territory.
In the year 1830 a political crisis broke out and the Great Colombia was dissolved. Ecuador then decided to keep the tricolor on the flag but inside it placed a blue background shield with the same set of arrows protected by two horns full of fruit.
He also removed the olive branches and added at the top of the shield a sun and seven yellow stars.
This flag was used during five years until in the year 1833, during the Constitutional Convention of Ambato in which the Republic was declared, it was decided to change the central shield by one that included two mountains, a belt that closed in the form of a sun and seven stars at the top.
In 1845, popular discontent with the social and economic policies of the government created an atmosphere of uncertainty that culminated with the Marcista revolution, a name that recalled the month of March, when popular revolts took place.
The flag changed once more and now consisted of a white cloth with a central vertical strip of azure blue and three white stars in its center that later happened to be seven.
In the year 1860 the order was restored by Gabriel García Moreno and the new rulers decided to return to the tricolor of the Great Colombia.
Inside, the shield adopted by the Marist revolutionaries was maintained, with some modifications that included the change of the mountains by water and land that made reference to the region of Chimborazo, maintaining a diadema adjusted with the sun.
This flag was maintained until October 31, 1900, when the National Congress, presided over by Manuel Cueva, issued the decree that regulated the use of the tricolor flag.
The oval shield was kept in its center and included in the upper part the sun, with that portion of the Zodiac in which the signs corresponding to the months of March, April, May and June are found.
To the right, at the bottom, was represented Mount Chimborazo, from which a river is born and a steamship as a symbol of navigation and commerce.
The shield is adorned externally with national flags and branches of palm and laurel, and crowned with a condor with the wings unfolded.
Meaning
The yellow color that occupies a third of the flag means the abundance of the harvests and the fertility of the earth; the blue, the color of the sea and the sky; and red, the blood shed by soldiers who gave their lives during the battles of independence.
The shield highlights the importance of the memorable months in which the emancipation was achieved, remembers the presence of the mountain El Chimborazo, with the great volcano, located at 6,263 masl, and the national commercial production with a steamship.
References
- Lauderbaugh, G. (2012). The history of Ecuador . ABC-CLIO.
- Ayala Mora, E. (2004). Ecuador, Homeland of all, Manual of Civics. Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar-Corporación Editora Nacional .
- Reyes, O. E. (1977). Brief General History of Ecuador (Vol. 2). Central University Press.
- Lara, J. S. (1990). Flags to the wind: essays on independence (No. 446). Pan American Institute of Geography and History.
- Corpas, J. P. (1955). Breviary of the flag . Bank of the Republic.