Abstract. – According to most recent research, Quichua-speaking indians in Ecuador’s Amazonian region were largely unaffected by modern markets and political systems until the 1960s. But this view minimizes the essential role of indigenous people in earlier cycles of resource extraction and agricultural production. Beginning in the 18th century, Quichua and other ethnic groups were defined as much by their place within long-distance economic networks as they were by their languages or cultures. Using newly discovered historical records, it is now possible to reconstruct the ebb and flow of commodity booms in Amazonian Ecuador and trace their impact on indigenous populations there. [Amazon, Ecuador, indians, population, ethnicity]