Let’s zoom in on the structure (who had power, who answered to whom) and then what that meant for real people’s daily lives: Spaniards, criollos/mestizos, Indigenous communities, and Afro-Ecuadorians.

ENGLISH

The basic power triangle: Crown / State, Church, Land (hacienda)

A helpful way to picture colonial Ecuador is as three overlapping systems:

State (the Crown’s administration) = laws, taxes, courts, officials
Church = religion and schooling, records (birth/marriage), moral rules, festivals
Hacienda economy = land + labor + local bosses, especially in the Sierra

And then, underneath all three: Indigenous communities doing constant negotiation for survival, plus Afro-descended communities (especially on the “edges” like Esmeraldas) who fought for autonomy.

1) State: who ran things day to day?

In Quito and the highlands, the key state institution was the Real Audiencia of Quito—both a top court and an administrative authority. (digitalrepository.unm.edu)
Below that, local power was carried by officials like the corregidor, described in one study as “one of the fundamental pillars” of colonial political-administrative structure. (FLACSO Andes Repository)

What that looked like in daily life:

People constantly filed petitions, complaints, requests for exemptions, disputes over land or tribute.
Local councils (cabildos) suggested “local order,” but lots of decisions still came from the imperial chain of command.
For ordinary people, “the state” often felt like: tax/tribute, labor obligations, paperwork, and who gets believed in court.

Small quote to keep the vibe:

“The office of corregidor was one of [the regime’s] fundamental pillars.” (FLACSO Andes Repository)

2) Church: not just faith — a parallel government in daily life

The Church wasn’t only Sunday mass. It was also:

education and catechism
community organization
who was “respectable,” who could marry whom, and what counted as “proper” behavior
the calendar of the year (saints, Holy Week, Christmas cycles)

A really useful concept here is the doctrina (often called “doctrinas de indios”): Indigenous parishes that became the nucleus of evangelization. One academic article calls doctrinas/parroquias indígenas “the nucleus” of evangelizing work. (Dialnet)
And a thesis summary from Cuenca describes reducciones/doctrinas as Indigenous family groupings created for religious instruction, run by curas doctrineros, and notes that over time they could become another channel of exploitation. (Cuenca Institutional Repository)

What that felt like for people:

For many Indigenous families, church life could be both community glue and surveillance.
For Spanish and criollo elites, the Church was a status network: weddings, baptisms, patronage, donations, positions in confraternities.
Festivals weren’t “extras”—they were the main public stage where identity was displayed.

Tiny quotes:

Doctrinas were “the nucleus” of evangelizing work. (Dialnet)
Reducciones/doctrinas: groupings for instruction that later could become exploitation. (Cuenca Institutional Repository)

3) Hacienda + labor systems: how the economy really functioned

In the Sierra, daily life was often shaped by haciendas (large estates) and attached labor systems.

A Quito history study summarized how haciendas used Indigenous labor and how obrajes (textile workshops) linked sheep raising with textile production, in a vertical “estate + workshop” setup. (FMC)
Other research points to long-lasting forced/coercive labor systems in Ecuador such as concertaje (debt peonage), whose effects are studied even in modern outcomes. (EconStor)
And local Ecuador scholarship frequently lists colonial exploitation channels as encomienda, mita, obraje, and concertaje. (Dspace UCE)

What that meant for day-to-day life (especially Indigenous workers):

You could be tied to a place by debt, obligations, or lack of alternatives.
Families often survived with small subsistence plots (later known in the Andean world as arrangements like huasipungo, depending on time/place), while owing labor. (ResearchGate)
Work rhythms followed harvest cycles, textile schedules, and forced labor calls.

For Spanish/elite families:

Estate management meant overseeing labor, negotiating with church/state, and maintaining status.
“Power” often looked like being the person who could make paperwork happen (or stop it).

4) Indigenous communities: not passive — constantly negotiating

This is the part people miss if they imagine colonial society as just “Spaniards dominating everyone.”

Indigenous communities had:

local authorities and internal organization
communal lands (often under pressure)
strategies: petitioning, relocating, bargaining, using church and courts when possible

A recent dissertation framing “ayllus and haciendas” emphasizes Indigenous Ecuadorians’ ability to understand and exploit “gaps” in colonial structures. (digitalrepository.unm.edu)
And long-form economic/social work on the Audiencia of Quito includes detailed case studies of community lands and local realities. (digitalrepository.unm.edu)

Daily life for many Indigenous families often included:

maintaining language, foodways, kin networks
paying tribute and meeting labor demands
using festivals and parish life as both obligation and community identity
living with legal categories that shaped who was listened to and who wasn’t

5) Afro-Ecuadorians and the “edges” of empire: Esmeraldas autonomy

On the coastal margins, especially Esmeraldas, colonial control could be weaker and more contested.

A 2024 Cambridge archaeology paper explicitly discusses Esmeraldas’s resistance and autonomy, noting leaders negotiated agreements with Spanish authorities and sought recognition of control. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)
There’s also major Ecuador-focused scholarship on this theme (for example, a UASB-published book dedicated to Black autonomy in Esmeraldas across the colonial centuries). (Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar)

Daily life here could look different:

more autonomy (though never “easy”)
communities defending territory and negotiating recognition
a distinct cultural development shaped by local geography and resistance politics

6) Sierra vs Coast: two different everyday worlds

A really practical way to explain colonial Ecuador to a friend is:

Sierra (Quito-centered): administration, church institutions, estates, obrajes, Indigenous tribute/labor structures. (FMC)
Coast (Guayaquil-centered): trade, port life, supplies moving inland/out to Peru; Guayaquil was described as a “key hinge” for exports (including Quito textiles) and imports that fed the highlands. (Biblio FLACSO Andes)
And yes, coastal cacao gradually became important in the long run (details vary by period and source), but the main “daily vibe” is that coastal life was more tied to shipping, supplies, and export routes.

Tiny quote (coast-as-hub):

Guayaquil as a “key hinge” for exports and imports in the colonial economy. (Biblio FLACSO Andes)

ESPAÑOL

Ecuador colonial — cómo se organizaba el poder y cómo vivía la gente

La idea clave: Estado (Corona) + Iglesia + Hacienda

En el Ecuador colonial, el día a día se entendía mejor como un cruce de tres fuerzas:

Estado/Corona: leyes, tributos, justicia, autoridades
Iglesia: fe, educación, registros, fiestas, normas sociales
Hacienda: tierra + trabajo + control local, sobre todo en la Sierra

Y por debajo de todo: comunidades indígenas negociando para sobrevivir, y comunidades afrodescendientes (especialmente en Esmeraldas) defendiendo autonomía.

1) El Estado: ¿quién mandaba en la práctica?

La institución clave era la Real Audiencia de Quito. (digitalrepository.unm.edu)
Y a nivel local, el corregidor era un personaje central; una investigación lo llama un “pilar fundamental” del régimen político-administrativo. (FLACSO Andes Repository)

En la vida real, “el Estado” se sentía como:

tributos/tributación
trabajo obligatorio (según zona y época)
papeleo y pleitos
quién tenía influencia ante jueces y autoridades

2) Iglesia: era religión, pero también “estructura social”

La Iglesia organizaba:

catequesis y educación
archivos de bautizo/matrimonio
fiestas públicas
redes de prestigio

Las doctrinas de indios (parroquias indígenas) fueron el núcleo de la evangelización. Un artículo las llama el “núcleo” de ese proceso. (Dialnet)
Y un trabajo académico describe reducciones/doctrinas como agrupaciones para instrucción religiosa, a cargo de curas doctrineros, que con el tiempo podían desvirtuarse y convertirse en otra forma de explotación. (Cuenca Institutional Repository)

3) Hacienda y trabajo: el motor económico (sobre todo en la Sierra)

Un estudio sobre Quito explica cómo haciendas y obrajes (talleres textiles) se integraban: pastoreo de ovejas + producción textil, con fuerte uso de trabajo indígena. (FMC)
También se mencionan sistemas coercitivos como el concertaje (peonaje por deudas) y su huella histórica. (EconStor)
Y en investigaciones ecuatorianas se enumeran formas de explotación como encomienda, mita, obraje y concertaje. (Dspace UCE)

4) Vida indígena: no fue “pasiva” — fue negociación constante

Hay trabajos que resaltan cómo comunidades indígenas aprovecharon “huecos” del sistema colonial para proteger intereses, tierras y autonomía. (digitalrepository.unm.edu)
En lo cotidiano: familia, lengua, comunidad… pero también tributos, obligaciones y presión sobre tierras comunales.

5) Esmeraldas: autonomía afrodescendiente en los márgenes

Un artículo reciente habla de la “resistencia y autonomía” de Esmeraldas y de negociaciones con autoridades coloniales. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)
Y hay obras ecuatorianas dedicadas al tema de “zambaje y autonomía” en la provincia. (Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar)