Many studies have examined the plate tectonic relationships of the Caribbean, the Middle Americas, and the Andes south of the equator. However, tectonic interpretation of the zone of Caribbean-South American-Nazcan convergence has been difficult and controversial. In this study, I use focal mechanisms and moment tensors of earthquakes to define present day stresses and strains in the North Andes and show how they relate to the tectonic models for the area. To examine the approximate directions of the principal stresses in both the over-riding plate and the oceanic plates as well as the deeper events located in the subducting lithosphere, I plotted the P and T axes of the focal mechanisms in map and cross-sectional view. To evaluate the strain due to the seismic events, I summed the moment tensors of structurally coherent subregions. In the upper 50 kilometers of the lithosphere, the P axes of both the focal mechanisms and the summed tensors coincided with the directions of relative motion of the plates. In the down-going slabs, the stress orientations are controlled by the geometry of the slabs and the axes indicate that the dominant mode of strain release is extension that is oriented in the plane of the Wadati-Benioff zone and roughly down the dip of the subducting slab.