The Indians whom the first European explorers, settlers, and conqueros encountered ranged culturally from extremely primitive nomads (Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and Amazon Basin) to highly advanced communities of the Inca State (in present-day Peru, northern Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador) and the Chibchas (of present-day Colombia). These societies of the Andes are believed to have had rural communities dependent on agriculture as early as 1000 B.C.
The Inca empire developed an economy based on an intensive terracing of mountain slopes and irrigation. This civilization, which developed urban centers, a road network, and a well organized and efficient administration, achieved remarkable skills in metal refining and metal working, architecture, weaving, pottery, and other arts. The Spanish conquest brought to an end the Inca empire in 1532.
Disease and opression brought by colonial rule and immigration greatly reduced the indigenous Indian population in large part of the continent and mainly in the Andes; in some parts Indians almost disappeared. The number of Europeann who settled in South America during the colonial period (1500-1800) was, according to some estimates 200,00 to 300,000 including missionaries, army personnel, and government and church officials. These settlers were to a large extent Spanish and Potuguese, as colonial authorities admitted only small numbers of other European countries.
The division of South America between Spain and Portugal was originally based on the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) between those countries. It gave Portugal the right to take possesion of the northeastern and eastern coast of Brazil. Spanish possesions extendend from the northwestern coast of South America till the south. Lima was for over two centuries the main Spanish administrative center, as capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, which extended over all Spanish possesions. During the eighteenth century this entity was divided into three main administrative units: the Viceroyalty of New Granada, established in 1717 (Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador); the Viceroyalty of Peru, in 1542 (Peru and Chile); and the Viceroyalty of La Plata, in 1776 (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia). This division ramained until the end of the colonial period.
All the new states became formal republics, with constitutions similar, in most cases, to that of the United States; they were headed by a President with wide executive powers and had a legislature composed of two chambers. Most states were throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century subject to internal instability and strife between rival political and economiv groups or regions (in some cases with secessionist tendencies). The strict restriction of foreign inmigration and trade which prevailed trought the colonial period was lifted following he attainment of Independence. It took however, several decades before the region attracted inmmigrants on a much larger scale than before and also for the volume of foreign trade to increase substantially. The Andean countries attracted comparatively fewer European inmmigrants than the Atlantic states of the continent (Argentina, Uruguay, Brasil).
The rapid population growth of Andean countries from the beginning of the twentieth century and especially since the 1930s was to a large extent due to natural increase, which was for many years higher than that of any other part of the continent and the world. Substantial progress toward industrialization began in some countries only after World War I and had been accelerated in most only after World War II. Industrial production plays an important role in the economy of all the Andean countries, where only in recent years democratic regimes have gain control and there are clear indications of advanced toward a more progressive social and political order.