The search engine Google paid tribute to Ecuador’s first declaration of independence, August 10, 1809, by posting an Ecuadorian image on its home page worldwide. The art, composed of Ecuador’s national colors, shows a toucan in the foreground of a coastal scene.
Although Ecuador would eventually win its independence from Spain in1822, the 1809 revolt was, ironically, in support of the Spanish crown. A group of Quito loyalists, upset that Napoleon had deposed King Fernando VII a year earlier, forced Count Ruiz de Castilla, representative of Joseph Bonaparte, to surrender. The insurgents then claimed the royal palace, now Carondelet Palace, and established a junta that ruled briefly in the name of Spain.
For their trouble, 32 of the revolutionaries were imprisoned several months later. They were executed in August 1810.
