Ecuadorian people The great majority of Ecuadorians trace their origins to one or more of three geographical sources of
human migrations: the
pre-Hispanic indigenous populations who settled the region over 15,000 years ago, the
Europeans (principally
Spaniards) who arrived over five centuries ago, and ultimately the
black sub-Saharan Africans whom they imported as
slave labor during the same period. The mixing of two or more of these three groups established other mixed ethnic groups.