Founder of the Ecuadorian Federation of Indians

Founder of the Ecuadorian Federation of Indians

Tránsito Amaguaña was born in Pesillo, in the province of Pichincha, in 1909 and throughout his life he fought for the defense of indigenous rights.

He participated in the creation of the first agricultural unions in the country and, together with other human rights defenders, founded the Ecuadorian Federation of Indians in 1944.

Later he promoted and formed the agrarian cooperative as one of the mechanisms of social and political pressure to demand from the State the delivery of land for the Indians.

On his own initiative and without support from the Government, in 1945 he started peasant schools, founding, in the Cayambe area, four bilingual schools (Quichua-Spanish), remembers Ecuadorimediato.

When she returned from the Soviet Union in 1963, where she traveled to attend a Congress, she was arrested and imprisoned accused of receiving money and Russian weapons to promote the revolution in the country, something she denied.

Cecilia Miño Grijalva, author of the biography 'Tránsito Amaguaña, indigenous heroine', refers to her as "an indigenous woman, illiterate, mistreated and immersed in poverty".

"Amaguaña, belligerent agitator, tireless fighter, persistent activist, gave herself to the cause despite constant persecution," he adds.