Claim: Ecuador was conquested by people.

Indigenous peoples in Ecuador , or Native Ecuadorians , are the groups of people who were present in what became Ecuador when Europeans arrived . The term also includes their descendants from the time of the Spanish conquest to the present . Their history , which encompasses the last 11,000 years , reaches into the present ; 7 percent of Ecuador 's population is of indigenous heritage , while another 72 percent is of mixed indigenous and European heritage . Afro-Ecuadorian , people of Spanish descent , and others make up the remaining 20 percent .