Manta

The Manta were the northern branch of the Manteño coastal tradition, a pre-Columbian culture of the Ecuadorian Pacific seaboard, flourishing from about 850 along the shores of Manabí, with Picoazá as a leading chiefdom and ceremonial centres at Cerro de Hojas and Cerro Jaboncillo. Their towns were linked less as a kingdom than as a trading ring.

Manteño divers harvested Spondylus shells, working their purple and orange valves into ornaments and currency that travelled as far as Mexico. The Incas never conquered them: the Manta bought peace with the sacred shells.

They were still independent when Pedro de Alvarado explored their coast in 1534, and Francisco Pacheco founded Portoviejo among them in 1535, after which epidemic disease and colonial rule dissolved the chiefdoms into the new coastal society.