Otavalo

Otavalo lies in a highland basin north of Quito, among the mountains and lakes of Imbabura. The Indigenous people of the area possessed a textile tradition before the Spanish conquest, working fibres into cloth in a region long connected by paths and exchange. Their history was bound to the neighbouring Caranqui and Cayambe communities of the northern Andes.

During colonial rule Otavalo became an important centre of textile production. Large workshops known as obrajes employed Indigenous labour under oppressive conditions; one of the largest was established by encomenderos in the late sixteenth century. A royal workshop at nearby Peguche followed in the seventeenth century. Spinning, dyeing and weaving supplied cloth to colonial markets, while the labour demanded of the workers carried a heavy human cost.