Acaxee Rebellion

The Acaxee Rebellion was an insurrection against Spanish rule in Mexico by Acaxee Indians in 1601.

The Acaxee

The Acaxee spoke a Uto-Aztecan language and lived in the mountains, the Sierra Madre Occidental, and canyons of east central Sinaloa and western Durango, east of the city of present day city of Culiacan. Their territory was about 125 miles north to south and 50 miles east to west. The area was called Topia and Tepehuana by the Spaniards. The Acaxee and their neighbors shared common features of culture identified by scholar Susan M. Deeds as

The dispersed village culture of the Acaxee at the time of the first Spanish contact in the late 16th century may have been the remnant of a more complex hierarchical society that had been decimated by disease earlier in the same century. An epidemic swept the region in 1576-1577, killing many thousands of Indians including possibly many Acaxee, and additional epidemics broke out in 1590 and 1596-1597. Thus, by the time of the rebellion the Acaxee probably numbered only a few thousand. Furthermore, their capacity to resist the Spanish was adversely impacted by their endemic warfare with the Xixime to their south and the Tepehuan to the east.

Acaxee

Acaxee was a tribe or group of tribes in the Sierra Madre Occidental in eastern Sinaloa and NW Durango. They spoke a Tarachatitian language in the Southern Uto-Aztecan language family. Their culture was based on horticulture and the exploitation of wild animal and plant life. They are now extinct as an identifiable ethnic group.

History

In December 1601, the Acaxees, under the direction of an elder named Perico, began an uprising against Spanish rule. This revolt was called the Acaxee Rebellion. They are said to have been converted to the Catholic faith by the society of Jesuits in 1602. Early accounts by Jesuit missionaries allege continual warfare and cannibalism among the Tepehuan, Acaxee, and Xixime who inhabited Nueva Vizcaya. Interestingly, ethnographer Ralph Beals reported in the early 1930s that the Acaxee tribe from western Mexico played a ball game called "vatey [or] batey" on "a small plaza, very flat, with walls at the sides".

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