When you stand on the beach at San Jacinto or look across the estuary at La Boca, you’re basically standing in a very old “frontier zone” between sea and river trade routes. Long before the Spanish arrived, this coast was part of the world of the Manteño-Huancavilca peoples, famous sailors and merchants who lived along what is now Manabí and Santa Elena from at least around 700 CE. They farmed the hills, fished the coast and traded using large balsa rafts that could sail all the way up to Mexico and down toward Chile. (orias.berkeley.edu)
Japotó / Charapotó: an ancient center
What we now call Charapotó was known in pre-Hispanic times as Japotó and is often described as one of the oldest settled places in Manabí. Local historical work and archaeology say the area has been inhabited for roughly 1,400 years, and that it was an important Manteño-Huancavilca center. (GAD Parroquial de Charapotó)
Manteño communities around Japotó and the Portoviejo valley combined:
- Agriculture (maize, squash, yuca, fruits)
- Fishing and shell gathering, including the famous red Spondylus shell used as a luxury trade item
- Craft production, especially fine ceramics and some metal objects
Spanish and later researchers describe how the Manteño used balsa rafts loaded with textiles, ceramics, Spondylus and metal ornaments (including gold and silver) to trade along the Pacific. One early contact story mentions the Spanish capturing a raft loaded with precious goods, which helped convince them that there must be serious wealth somewhere on this coast. (orias.berkeley.edu)
So gold was present as worked objects and ornaments, but not necessarily as big local mines. The real base of wealth was trade and control of routes.
1534: Pedro de Alvarado lands at La Boca
The “Spanish and gold” part of the story really kicks in around 1534. According to the Charapotó parish history, a Spanish expedition under Pedro de Alvarado landed near what is now La Boca, the mouth of the Portoviejo River between Crucita and San Jacinto. After a hard battle with the people of Japotó, Alvarado claimed the area and renamed it “Villa Hermosa de San Mateo de Charapotó”, becoming its first Spanish authority. (GAD Parroquial de Charapotó)
Wider histories of Manabí paint Alvarado as one of the harshest conquistadors in the region. A modern account describes how he pushed through Manteño territory torturing people who refused to reveal where gold or emeralds were hidden. By about 1534, much of that coastal civilization had been devastated by violence, forced marches and disease. (Nan Magazine)
So from the beginning, the Charapotó–Portoviejo–La Boca area was tied to Spanish mining dreams, even though the local economy had been based on something very different: farming, fishing and long-distance trade.
Portoviejo: a cabildo “promising emeralds and gold”
A year later, in 1535, the Spaniards founded Villa Nueva de San Gregorio de Portoviejo (today’s Portoviejo) under Francisco Pacheco, as part of the same push to secure Manabí and open a safer route toward the highlands. Local histories explain that Portoviejo was set up as a formal Spanish cabildo (town council) partly because the area was believed to “promise emeralds and gold,” making it attractive in the eyes of colonial authorities. (GAD Parroquial de Charapotó)
In practice, things didn’t play out that way. A modern summary of Manabí’s history notes that the promised gold and emeralds never really materialised, and Portoviejo also suffered from harsh drought cycles. The lack of big mineral discoveries meant the city did not become a colonial mining center, and its growth was uneven for a long time. (Nan Magazine)
Instead, the Portoviejo valley turned into a “pantry” region: agriculture (hortalizas, legumes and tropical fruits), some early agro-industry and, much later, services and trade. (Wikipedia)
So where was the gold?
The large-scale gold the Spanish wanted was mostly found farther south, in what is now El Oro province, especially around Zaruma and Portovelo. Those towns became major colonial and later republican gold-mining centers, where indigenous people and enslaved workers labored under extremely harsh conditions. Histories of Zaruma describe it as one of the main gold districts of the Spanish Empire in the region, second only to giants like Potosí in some periods. (Tours in Ecuador and Galapagos)
By comparison, Manabí’s “gold” was more about trade wealth than big mines. The Manteño-Huancavilca network moved precious metals, Spondylus and other valuables through ports like Jocay (Manta) and interior valleys like Portoviejo. When the Spanish arrived, they saw gold objects and heard stories, but did not uncover huge local veins. Their response was still brutal: they tried to force communities like Japotó/Charapotó to reveal sources of precious metals that probably lay mostly elsewhere (highlands and southeast) or were simply items acquired through trade.
San Jacinto today: from imagined gold to real “everyday riches”
San Jacinto itself is a more recent beach town, part of the rural area of Sucre canton, with a fishing-tourism economy and the Portoviejo River delta (La Boca) at its southern end. Modern descriptions highlight its beaches, mangroves and biodiversity more than any mineral story. (Wikipedia)
But if you zoom out, San Jacinto, Charapotó and Portoviejo sit right where:
- pre-Hispanic traders once moved Spondylus and crafted goods by raft,
- conquistadors marched through, obsessed with gold,
- and later farmers and fishers rebuilt a coastal society based on land, sea and culture, not on big mines.
In that sense, the Spanish “gold rush” in this part of Manabí was more about imagination and violence than about actual deposits. The long-term “wealth” that survived here is different: fertile valleys, a strategic river mouth, maritime know-how, ceramics and food traditions, and now tourism.
Breve resumen en español
En la zona San Jacinto–Charapotó–Portoviejo existía, mucho antes de los españoles, un importante mundo manteño-huancavilca: agricultores, pescadores y grandes navegantes que comerciaban en balsas hasta México y Chile, moviendo conchas Spondylus, cerámicas y objetos de metal, incluso de oro. (orias.berkeley.edu)
En 1534, Pedro de Alvarado desembarcó en La Boca, conquistó Japotó y lo rebautizó como Villa Hermosa de San Mateo de Charapotó, buscando someter a la población y averiguar dónde había oro y esmeraldas. Un año después, en 1535, se fundó Portoviejo como cabildo español con la esperanza de que la zona produjera esos metales preciosos, pero en la práctica nunca se encontraron grandes yacimientos y la ciudad terminó siendo sobre todo agrícola y comercial. (GAD Parroquial de Charapotó)
Los grandes centros de oro colonial estuvieron más al sur, en Zaruma y Portovelo, mientras Manabí fue, ante todo, un corredor de comercio marítimo y agrícola. Hoy, la “riqueza” de San Jacinto, Charapotó y Portoviejo está en su paisaje, su comida, su historia y su cultura, más que en el oro que los españoles creyeron encontrar aquí. (Tours in Ecuador and Galapagos)
