The first Franciscan to enter the present Ecuador was the well known Fray Marcos de Niza, who accompanied the conqueror Benalcázar from Caxamarca, Peru, to Quito in 1533, and thence returned to Mexico. There, it seems, he was instrumental in sending the first Franciscan missionaries not only to Peru but also to Ecuador. In 1534, the year in which the city of Quito was founded, the Father Commissary Fr. Juan de Granada sent three friars from Mexico to Ecuador: Fr. Jodoco Ricke (de Rycke) de Marselaer, Fr. Pedro de Gosseal, and Fr. Pedro Roqueñas.

In the same year Fr. Jodoco began the founding of the famous Franciscan church and friary in Quito. They were only small and poor structures then, and it took more than a century before the present church and friary were completed. The first doctrinas to be founded outside of Quito were Santa Clara de Pomasqui, San Juan de Cotocollao, and San Jorge de Perucho. Additional friars soon joined the original group, and under Fr. Jodoco’s direction friaries were founded also at Cotocollao, Guano, Pasto in southern Colombia (probably in 1549), Cuenca, and Loja.