An Indian Federation in Lowland Ecuador

The history of frontier settlement in South America has been characterized by a rather uneven penetration towards the interior of the continent. At the time of the formation of South American repub­lics, the areas of dense demographic concentration were confined to the Coast-highland strip along most of Western South America and part of the eastern coast of present day Brazil (Butland 1966196), It was from these areas that the colonization movements of the 19th and 20th centuries first began to spread; eventually occupying the rest of the continent with the exception of the tropical forest. Generally speaking, climatic and geographic factors, as well as historic ones, have pre­vented a dense colonization of lowland South America by white settlers.