The Wall of Tears tells the story of the island’s first settlers who were prisoners sent there as punishment by the president at the time, José María Velasco Ibarra. In 1946, approximately 300 prisoners were exiled and transported to Puerto Villamil where they ended up building the wall by manually carrying the vast rock. Living conditions were extreme to the point that many of these men ended up dying from dehydration due to the fact that there was no fresh water. Today the Wall of Tears is a remembrance site displaying the suffering undergone by those who were made to pay for their mistakes through forced physical labor.