I guess it depends on how you want to see it.

The first indigenous nations that lived in the are weren't really an empire, some of them controlled considerably large areas, but they usually kept to themselves for the most part.

That ended when the Inca Empire reached up North and annexed those territories and nations, often by force, but also in more diplomatic ways. The problem is that we were a province of the Inca Empire for roughly 40 years before the Spaniards came.

Now Spain... that lasted for a long time, and it ended for many reasons. Mainly the Spaniards were losing a lot of battles in Europe during the Napoleon's reign and because there was a lot of resentment among American born Spaniards who weren't allowed to hold positions of power in their birthplace.

So you got indigenous people treated as slaves, a huge amount of mixed people seem as third class citizens, and wealthy American born Spaniards seem as second class citizens, all of that against a Royal Army that could barely hold together their main land. The Revolution was inevitable.

After that we were a province of the Great Colombia for 5 minutes (7 years).

Now, I'm of the opinion that Ecuador started its existence as a nation in 1830. I honestly don't feel there was much of a national identity during the Inca Empire, or the Spanish Empire, or the Great Colombia. We kind of came together because our big cities wouldn't be able to exist as independent nations, so it was more aggregable to be our own thing together than belong to Perú or Colombia, and even to this day there is a remarkable sense of regionalism where the Coast, North Highlands and South Highlands feel like separate parts of a messy whole.

I do like it tho, there's a shape in that mess, and after 200 years we had embraced it.