Yazne

Yazne lies in the gold-bearing mountain country around Zaruma, above the coastal lowlands of southern Ecuador. Long before the colonial town grew around its mines, the region was inhabited by Indigenous peoples of the southern Andes. The mineral wealth of its hills would make the place an important centre of Spanish rule in the Audiencia of Quito and attracted settlers seeking precious metal.

Zaruma was formally established as a Spanish villa in 1595, beside the existing mining settlement. Gold and silver extraction brought periods of wealth and crisis, while Indigenous people from surrounding communities were compelled to work the mines. In 1607 a miner introduced the use of mercury to extract gold at Zaruma, changing the methods used to process the ore.