The city was founded on the sea, settled permanently in the current bay in March 1628 with the official name of Villa de San Antonio de la Bahía de Caráquez by Jose de Larrazabal during the reign of Philip IV of Spain, by order of the President of the Royal Audience of Quito, Doctor Antonio de Morga.
Also from the late sixteenth century at the time of the Spanish conquest until the middle of the seventeenth century it constituted a trade route covering the Panama-Quito axis, and consolidated the most important contact between the ports of Pacific South America and Central America, but the splendor of this monopoly was dismantled in 1629 when, from the city of Los Reyes, the viceroys of Peru at the time, took decisions in favor of th Santiago de Guayaquile port and shipyard, their elite merchant having found themselves engaged in the enrichment and centrality of the Spanish crown that was to endure severe currency crisis, for which reason they even deliberately banned free enterprise at the Indian ports with European vessels other than Spanish.
The Spanish naval companies had to disclose the reduction of ports to avoid leakage of silver and food consumed in the Iberian Peninsula, in addition to reducing costs and bureaucratic positions necessary to save their skins from the coffers of the Austrias minors
