There are many broad patterns in the development of societies. Jared Diamond talks about how each society, how each continent and how each region developed the way they did. Of course, some of the places had and still have more advantages than the others.
Diamond says that almost every societies started either as hunt-gathering, working in agriculture, herding or doing metallurgy. But as they learned ways to improve their way of living, they invented new tools and become civilized. However, in some parts of the world the process of civilization took longer simply they were not in favorable place.
One can infer that those countries that are still struggling had a bad beginning. They were people who used stone and wood tools to survive either from hunger or from other tribes who wanted to invade them.
Ecuador is one of those many struggling countries. Even though it is a developed country, it still has indigenous population and groups of tribes who are not civilized. According to Diamond’s point of view on how geography either favors or not, Ecuador was in a place where not favorable. They were hunters, worked in agriculture so the process to civilization and developed as country took more time than others. And when they were invaded by Spaniards, the natives were slaves. So basically the Spaniards were the ones who made Ecuador a civilized place because they brought their ideas on how to mine the gold and the oil and eventually they developed a political system that control people.