In 1736, French scientist, Charles-Marie de la Condamine, arrived to Quito as part of the much-rumoured French geodesic mission. Quito, at almost 3,000 meters altitude, and nested on a thin valley at the foot of the active volcano Pichincha, was an isolated city, where news of academics from the Royal French Academy of Science in Paris shook the capital more than any of its typical earthquakes.
The French Geodesic Mission
In the eighteenth century, Europe was caught in a debate about the shape of the earth. Was it round like a ball or flattened at the poles? The mission's purpose was to measure the earth’s circumference and the equatorial region of the Province of Quito was chosen as the suitable location to perform their measurements. Condamine’s work was accompanied by fellow scientists Louis Godin and Pierre Bouger, as well as assistants and two Spaniards, Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa.
Suspect and Suspicion
These Spaniards had been sent on part of the Spanish king, Felipe. Though relations between France and Spain were friendly at the time, monarchical relations could change like the wind, and were marked always by suspicion and caution, especially on the part of Spain, which had immense colonies and wealth coming from their mines, forests, and industries. Spain treated its colonies with great secrecy, as they lived under the threat of foreign attacks and piracy and plunder. King Felipe acquiesced his permission to the foreigners to travel throughout his lands, but sent Juan and Ulloa as his agents in “overseeing” the Frenchmen.
The Volcano Pichincha
As part of their work, Condamine ascended the volcano Pichincha, and stayed there for weeks, enduring a severe climate of storms and sub-zero temperatures and ruthless terrain. During that time, Condamine wrote that a friend ascended with the intense curiosity to ask “what they were doing there for such a long time.” Below, the capital of Quito was ablaze with rumours. Who were these Frenchmen? What on earth were they doing in such a God-forsaken place? Perhaps they were not scientists, but spies sent by French King Louis, or treasure hunters, they said, hunting for Atahualpa’s gold.
Atahualpa’s Ransom
The 16th century was witness to a social upheaval that would forever change the South American continent. In 1526, Francisco Pizarro discovered the famed “kingdom to the south” where the Inca reigned from southern Colombia to Chile. And in 1533, he executed its last sovereign ruler: Inca Atahualpa.
Francisco Pizarro captured Atahualpa during the ambush of Cajamarca and confined his prisoner to a house under heavy guard. During his captivity, Atahualpa learned of the Spaniards’ appetite for gold. He offered a ransom: a promise to fill a room with gold in return for his freedom. Pizarro accepted the proposal and Atahualpa sent out the order to bring gold from all corners of his kingdom.
The gold flowed to Pizarro’s hands, but he also feared the Inca, believing he was a liability that would eventually mobilize his army to incite rebellion and attacks. Pizarro held a mock trial that found Atahualpa guilty of treason and fratricide for having ordered the execution of his brother Huascar, and Atahualpa was sentenced to death by strangulation, a commuted sentence after a speedy Catholic conversion. When Atahualpa’s loyal subjects in the north heard that their King had been executed, they hid their treasures in the folds of Pichincha.
Atahualpa’s gold became something of a legend, a treasure that many aspired to find but no one ever confessed to finding.
Quito Transformed
Throughout his eight-year stay in the Americas, Condamine was both esteemed by the citizenry and made suspect; he and the other members of the expedition were the reason for ongoing rumours, scandal, and investigation as to their “true” motives. Yet they were also respected and held in awe by a population that had yet to import the concepts of science and method. While Europe had made headway in the purports of scientific rationalism, the Province of Quito stagnated in long-winding discussions of jurisprudence and theological virtue. The Frenchmen incited Quito’s universities to shift toward a new paradigm. Libraries were stocked with new books and discussions about the thinkers of the Enlightenment exploded everywhere, from street corners to university classrooms. Indeed, truth exists in Condamine’s words after descending Pichincha: “… since then we have conserved the fame for being a class of extraordinary men.”
Condamine’s Legacy
Today’s Quito holds a prestigious French-language school named Le Lycée La Condamine, and many accredit the naming of the “Republic of Ecuador” to the French expedition, and Condamine in particular, his writings branding the Province of Quito as the equatorial zone or the land of the equator.
Any visit to Quito would be incomplete without a tour of the Middle of the World, an attraction allowing the visitor to straddle the equator and step across the hemispheres, its celebrated obelisk commemorating the work of the French geodesic mission.
References
La Condamine, Charles-Marie. Diary of a Journey to Ecuador. Quito. Publitecnica. 1986
Prescott, William. History of the Conquest of Peru. Seattle. World Wide Library. 1999
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