The nature of the so-called Chichimecas has varied in time and place. Originally the Spaniards and their Indigenous allies referred to the semi-nomadic people who inhabited the frontier area of Nueva Galicia as Chichimecas. They waged a 40-year-war against them. But two hundred years later, the Spaniards also used the term for the nomadic Coahuiltecan tribes of the northeast.

Doing research on one’s indigenous roots in Guanajuato can be a challenge. In the Eighteenth Century, many Indigenous People simply did not have surnames. Instead, they were likely to have two given names. Other Indigenous People would carry a Spanish surname for a period of time and then discard it in favor of another surname, or none at all.

If your ancestors are from Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Jalisco or San Luis Potosí, it is likely that you are descended from the indigenous peoples who inhabited these areas before the Spaniards arrived from the south. The historian Eric Van Young of the University of California at San Diego has called this area, the “the Center-West Region” of Mexico. This cultural region, according to Dr. Van Young, amounts to about one-tenth of Mexico’s present-day national territory.

Mexico’s Northern Mountainous Regions

The Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains run from Chihuahua into Durango, Zacatecas, Jalisco and farther south. The Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains run parallel to the Sierra Madre Occidental range on the eastern side of the country.

The Cristero Rebellion affected the lives of many Mexicans. Many Mexican-American families still talk of it today. This work discusses the ideologies of the two combatants: The Mexican Government and the Catholic Church. The battles are not discussed here, but the beginning and end of the conflict are discussed as viewed by the American press.

At the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, Mexico was a colony of Spain, a European nation located approximately 5,500 miles (8,850 kilometers) from its Gulf Coast shoreline. In 1810, the Spanish Empire consisted of 13.7 million square kilometers (5.3 million square miles) and occupied 9.2% of the world’s land area, most of which was in the Americas. Spain had the fifth largest empire in world history.

Guanajuato is a relatively small state – twenty-second in terms of size among the Republic’s states – with a surface area of 30,608 square kilometers of territory, giving it 1.6% of the national territory. Politically, the State is divided into 46 municipios. Guanajuato’s 2010 population was 5,853,677, representing 4.9% of Mexico’s total population and ranking six among the 31 states and the Distrito Federal.

The landlocked State of Guanajuato — located in the center of the Mexican Republic — shares borders with San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas on the north, with Querétaro on the east, the state of México on the southeast, Jalisco on the west, and Michoacán on the south. Guanajuato is a relatively small state ‒ twenty-second in terms of size among the Republic’s thirty-one states ‒ with a surface area of 30,768 square kilometers of territory, giving it 1.6% of the national territory. Politically, the state is divided into 46 municipios.