THE CONQUEST
GUANAJUATO'S MINING WEALTH

With the arrival of the Spaniards on American soil, the fighting began and the indigenous peoples suffered a series of defeats that ended in their total subjugation. With surprising ease, the armor-clad Conquistadors, often fighting on horseback, subdued the entire native population.

In the territory of Michoacan, there was a fierce rivalry between the Spanish landholders, known as 'encomenderos', and the local king, Tzintzicha Tangaxoan, who charged tribute from the area's Purepecha chieftains in return for protection from the ambitions of the Conquistadors. Each encomendero was entrusted the task of controlling a given area of land together with the native population and villages within its borders. In return for working for the Spanish, the natives were supposed to receive protection and be taught Christianity. In reality, the system gave the encomenderos carte blanche to exploit the natives in the most savage way.

In 1529, Nuño Beltran de Guzman, President of the Royal Audience, charged with administering justice in the colony, organized a foray south in order to subdue the Chichimecs of Michoacan. Accompanied by three hundred Spanish foot and horse soldiers and a native army of more that 10,000, Beltran sought out the Purepecha's western dominions, demanded tribute and forced them to provide him with troops.

Meanwhile, the encomenderos took advantage of Beltran's presence in order to accuse Tangaxoan of interfering with their work. Using this as a pretext, they rounded up the local chiefs, imprisoning them in the town of Patzcuaro on the charge of worshipping their old gods and sheltering men guilty of murdering Spaniards. Beltran was more than happy to oblige the encomenderos, subjecting Tangaxoan to a hasty trial and a cruel death. With Tangazoan's demise, the rule of the Purepechas quickly collapsed. Despite the subsequent efforts of some of the more powerful Purepechas, the Spanish settlers had even greater freedom to exploit the Indians, now bereft of any protection from the legitimate power in the area.

Beltran de Guzman took possession of the Purepecha territory, including modern-day Guanajuato, in the name of the King of Spain and initiated a campaign of unprecedented savagery, displacing the native settlements and founding the towns of Tepic, San Miguel de Culiacan, Guadalajara, Purificacion and Compostela.

Driven by the thought of riches, the Conquistadors ruthlessly killed or enslaved the natives and took over their goods and lands. To further increase profits, Spanish landowners drove the Guamares, Pames and Guachichils out of the valleys and grasslands of the Bajio and gave the prairies over to cattle. The territory proved ideal for raising the strong, dark, longhorn cattle that are ancestors to the modern Spanish fighting bull. Moreover, the land supported the hardy merino sheep, which was an excellent source of meat and wool.

As the animals took up more and more space in central Bajio, the Spanish gradually extended their rule to the outer territories, where the pasture was less lush. With the cows, of course, came the cowboys, riding the sturdy gray-brown horses without which their work would have been impossible. In the southwestern valleys of Yuriria and Acambaro, the conditions were found to be excellent for pig farming as well as for raising chickens, mules and donkeys.

Unsurprisingly, the Chichimecs responded with hostility to the Spanish occupation of their land, with its accompanying destruction, pillage and killing. But the Spaniards swept all before them, and following the invasion the territory was carved up between a new set of landholders. To Juan de Villaseñor went the frontier settlements of Puruandiro and Penjamo; to Juan de Tovar, Yuriria. Acambaro was initially gifted to Pedro de Sotomayor, but eventually passed to the control of Hernan Perez de Bocanegra.

In the territories they were ostensibly overseeing, the new cattlemen petitioned the Viceroy for "graces" - personal grants of land plus the natives to work it - and thus began the history of abuse and personal enrichment that would eventually result in the great haciendas of New Spain.

GUANAJUATO'S MINING WEALTH

In 1552, Captain Juan de Jaso, probably acting under orders from Hernan Perez de Bocanegra, discovered the Guanajuato mineral seam, subsequently setting up Real de Minas (The Royal Mines). The first political entity on Guamar territory, it became the town of Guanajuato in 1679 and a little more than 60 years later, in 1741, Guanajuato City.

Jaso quickly found himself obliged to put down a Guamar revolt, therefore neglecting the mining project, which he claimed was made impossible by the behavior of the natives. This allowed several of his soldiers, among them Melchor Manzo, Pedro de Napoles and Hernan Vascones, to capitalize on Jaso's unavailability to register claims under their own names and spread the news to other prospectors. One of these, Pedro Muñoz, openly disputed the primacy of the Royal claim, causing prospectors to descend on Guanajuato en masse and incidentally opening up the road system throughout the entire Bajio region, from Guanajuato to Michoacan and forever changing the mining centers of Sierra Gorda, Xichu, Atarjea, Santa Catarina and Victoria.

THE HACIENDAS

The great majority of hacienda owners preferred to live in the capital, employing managers to oversee the running of the ranch in their absence. These managers lived in the small towns of the Bajio, competing for social prominence with the local smallholders, most of them beneficiaries of modest royal land grants (the aforementioned "graces").

Convinced by the well-watered grasslands and the plentiful supply of native labor, the colonists of the Bajio valleys became farmers, with corn, beans, wheat and squash as their principal crops. The great Bajio prairies, stretching from Celaya to Leon to Penjamo, were initially turned over to cattle ranching, but as the richness of the Lerma-irrigated meadows became apparent, new techniques were developed in the area of irrigation and plowing practices. To ensure a ready supply of peasant labor, the natives were forced to congregate in the southeast of what is now Guanajuato state. During the sixteenth century, with a view to establishing a ready labor supply, each new settlement was located in the vicinity of a native population. Thus, Leon had to its north the village of San Francisco de Coecillo, and to the south San Miguel de la Real Corona. Acambaro embraced 12 native villages and 20 cattle and agricultural settlements.

Towards the start of the nineteenth century, settlements displaying a significant growth in population were reorganized. The area around Celaya contained Salamanca and Salvatierra, Apaseo, Chamacuero, Tarimoro, Santiago Maravatio, Acambaro, Tarandacuao, Coroneo and Jerecuaro. Guanajuato was rich in artesans - shoemakers, carpenters, bakers, blacksmiths, etc., but for sheer craftsmanship, none could compete with the Purepecha communities reorganized by Vasco de Quiroga.

THE RELIGIOUS CONVERSION

Almost as soon as the Conquistadors set foot in America, missionaries were a powerful force among them. The first to arrive were the Franciscans, notably the friars Juan de San Miguel and Bernardo Coussin, who got as far as Michoacan, where they set about preaching to the Chichimecs.

It is thought that Brother Juan de San Miguel arrived around the end of 1530 in order to take up the work of one Brother Martin de Acuña. His first task consisted in learning the Purepecha language in order to understand their ideas, habits and customs. He founded various towns, such as Tancitaro, Periban, Charapan, Los Reyes and Uruapan in Michoacan, as well as San Miguel el Grande in Guanajuato. Moreover, he undertook the organization of the native population, planning the streets, constructing the buildings such as hospitals and churches as well as houses and ensuring a piped supply of water to the community. He also gave the locals classes in music and singing, choosing the best voices for the church choir. Others were taught how to construct organs or to play other instruments. He also founded the first college, which he named San Miguel, in the town of Guayangareo (subsequently Valladolid, now Morelia) adding to the college of Saint Nicholas in Patzcuaro, founded by Vasco de Quiroga. Brother Juan de San Miguel also found time to travel through the greater part of Michoacan, Jalisco, Queretaro, Guanajuato, and even as far as San Luis Potosi.

He undertook the conversion of the Guamares, Pames and Guachichils. In Acambaro, he decided to bring the gospel to the Chichimecs, who - although not totally without resistance - were gradually getting used to the idea of settling in one, fixed place, with streets and houses, and giving up their nomadic existence altogether.

Brother Juan de San Miguel died in Uruapan on May 3, 1555. He is credited, along with Vasco de Quiroga, with the creation of hospitals and the organization of the hospital system, to the extent that, by the end of the seventeenth century there were already several hospitals in different regions. In the Highlands of Guanajuato, there was the Villa de San Miguel hospital and in the Bajio valleys there were another two: in Yuriria and Acambaro. In the central plain there was an abundance of them, with the Conception of Our Lady Hospital in Silao, with more in Irapuato, Penjamo, Celaya and Apaseo. In Leon, the hospital was under the care of the Order of St. John, while there were a further two in Marfil: one for Tarascos, another for Mexicas and Otomis. The Santa Ana Mine also had one for Tarascos and in the Santa Fe Mine in Guanajuato there were three more: one for Otomis, one for Mexicas and another for Tarascos.

Meanwhile, Brother Bernardo de Coussin (or Cozin) went about his work of conversion accompanied by 12 native apostles at the monastery of San Martin.

The Augustinians centered their activity in Yuriria, where they founded a monastery in 1550. The Jesuits were also a presence, most notably Gonzalo de Tapia, who consolidated several congregations, the most important being San Luis de la Paz.

A NEW SOCIETY

In the region of Michoacan, the native population declined dramatically due chiefly to the excessive exploitation to which they became victim. Of course, Guanajuato was not without its share of deaths, the incipient gold mining industry accounting for the majority.

The greatest single loss of life occurred during the Chichimec war, where more than 200 Spaniards and at least 2,000 natives died. Due to their nomadic existence, no census was taken among the Chicimecas, but there are believed to have been somewhere between two and three thousand Guamares before the Conquest. The Pames and Tarasco populations were too mixed for any estimate of their numbers to be made.

Added to this, the native population was put under severe strain by the diseases the Spaniards brought with them, such as smallpox, measles, and typhus, against which they had no organic defenses.

The oldest Guanajuato census of which we have knowledge was undertaken by Bishop Baltasar de Covarrubias in 1620. From this we know that there were some five thousand heads of family in the province at that time. Of these, the Spaniards accounted for around a thousand, along with seven hundred so-called Mulattoes and Negroes, the rest being natives concentrated in the region of Yuriria and Acambaro. If the figures are to be believed, they depict a Guanajuato all but depopulated by the ravages of disease, overwork and ill-treatment.

Approximately 300,000 Spaniards are believed to come to New Spain, but immigrants from many diverse origins also made their contribution to the ethnic fusion that took place here. There were some 250,000 African slaves, working in the fields, mines, or as house servants, as well as Europeans from France, Italy, Portugal, and Germany. From Asia there came Indians, Burmese, Siamese, Indonesians and Phillippinos, making the present-day inhabitants of Guanajuato the heirs to a melting pot made up of African, European and Asian blood, as well, of course, as that of the indigenous population.