Hatunllacta

Hatunllacta, “great town,” is a name associated in early Spanish records with the country of Pasto in the northern Andean highlands. The valley below Galeras volcano was inhabited by Indigenous peoples including the Quillacinga, while the Pastos lived farther south. The highland landscape of fields and mountains connected communities across the region before the arrival of Spanish expeditions.

In the 1530s expeditions led by Sebastián de Belalcázar entered the area and established a Spanish settlement known as Villaviciosa or Pasto. Documents from 1537 refer to Villaviciosa de Hatunllacta. The town grew in a country already occupied and named by Indigenous peoples, whose communities faced the demands of the new colonial authorities.