Chichimeca War

The Chichimeca War (1550–90) was a military conflict waged between Spanish colonizers and their Indian allies against a confederation of Chichimeca Indians. It was the longest and most expensive conflict between Spaniards and the indigenous peoples of New Spain in the history of the colony.

The Chichimeca wars began eight years after the Mixtón War of 1540–42. It can be considered as a continuation of the rebellion as the fighting did not come to a halt in the intervening years. Unlike in the Mixtón rebellion, the Caxcanes were now allied with the Spanish. The war was fought in the Bajío region known as La Gran Chichimeca, specifically in the Mexican states of Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Jalisco, and San Luis Potosí.

Prelude

On September 8, 1546 Indians near the Cerro de la Bufa in what would become the city of Zacatecas showed the Spaniard Juan de Tolosa several pieces of silver-rich ore. News of the silver strike soon spread across Spanish Mexico. The dream of quick wealth triggered multitudes of people to migrate from southern Mexico to the city of Zacatecas in the heartland of La Gran Chichimeca. Soon the mines of San Martín, Chalchihuites, Avino, Sombrerete, Fresnillo, Mazapil, and Nieves were established. The Chichimeca nations resented the intrusions by the Spanish and their Indian laborers and allies on their ancestral lands. Disobeying the Viceroy, Spanish soldiers soon began raiding native settlements of both friendly and unfriendly Indians to acquire slaves for the mines. To supply and communicate with the mines in and near Zacatecas, new roads were built from Querétaro and Jalisco across Chichimeca lands. The slow-moving caravans of carts and wagons full of goods along the roads were a tempting target for Chichimeca raiders.

Chichimeca

Chichimeca(Spanish  [tʃitʃiˈmeka] ) was the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to many bands and tribes of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who inhabited northern modern-day Mexico. Chichimeca carried the same sense as the Roman term "barbarian" to describe people living outside settled, agricultural areas. The name and its pejorative sense was adopted by the Spanish. For the Spanish, in the words of scholar Charlotte M. Gradie, "the Chichimecas were a wild, nomadic people who lived north of the Valley of Mexico. They had no fixed dwelling places, lived by hunting, wore no clothes and fiercely resisted foreign intrusion into their territory, which happened to contain silver mines the Spanish wished to exploit."

In modern times only one ethnic group is customarily referred to as Chichimecs, namely the Chichimeca Jonaz of whom a few thousand live in the state of Guanajuato.

Overview and identity

The Chichimeca peoples were many groups of varying ethnicities and speaking distinct languages from different families. As the Spaniards worked towards consolidating the rule of New Spain over the indigenous peoples during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Chichimecan tribes resisted. A number of ethnic groups of the region allied against the Spanish. The first and most long-lasting of these conflicts (1550–91) was the Chichimeca War.

Chichimeca (moth)

Chichimeca is a genus of moths of the Noctuidae family.

References