page_title: Guanajuato
section_title: Colonial period
hierarchical_section_title: Guanajuato / History / Colonial period
caption_attribution_description: Convento de San Agustín de Yuriria, fundado en 1550 por los Agustinos, Yuriria, Guanajuato, México - San Agustín de Yuriria Convent, founded by the Agustines in 1550, Yuriria, Guanajuato, Mexico
context_page_description: Guanajuato, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Guanajuato, is one of the 32 states which make up the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato. The largest city in the state is León.
  Guanajuato is in central Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Jalisco to the west, Zacatecas to the northwest, San Luis Potosí to the north, Querétaro to the east, and Michoacán to the south. It covers an area of 30,608 km².
  Guanajuato is between the arid north of the country and the lusher south, and it is geographically part of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, the Mexican Plateau. It was initially settled by the Spanish in the 1520s due to mineral deposits found around the now capital city of Guanajuato, but areas such as the Bajío region also became important for agriculture and livestock. Mining and agriculture were the mainstays of the state's economy, but have since been eclipsed by the secondary sector. Guanajuato has particularly seen growth in the automotive industry.
context_section_description: As Guanajuato marks the beginning of the arid north of Mexico, at first relatively few Spanish came to settle as opposed to points south, where rainfall and indigenous labor was in much greater supply. The first Spanish expedition to arrive to the Guanajuato area was led by Cristóbal de Olid in 1522 which arrived to the Yuririhapúndaro and Pénjamo areas. The discovery of silver and gold in the area of the city of Guanajuato spurred Spanish settlement of the area in the 1520s and 1530s. When the Spanish did arrive, native tribes retreated to the most inaccessible areas of the Bajío and mountains ranges in the state, resisting the invaders, attacking settlements and travelers along the routes that connected Spanish settlements and mining camps. Unlike the more settled indigenous peoples, the Spanish were unable to force the natives of this area to work and brought African slaves and indigenous peoples from other areas to work the haciendas and mines. The colonization efforts in the eastern part of the state began in 1542 when Spanish land grants were issued for the Apaseo and Chamácuaro areas. In 1555, San Miguel el Grande was founded to protect roads linking mining camps and cities with Mexico City. The Villa de León was founded in 1576 to counterattacks by the indigenous peoples. But through the first centuries of the colonial period, the city of Guanajuato dominated because of its mines. The official name of the state is Guanajuato, Estado Libre y Soberano (Guanajuato, Free and Sovereign State). "Guanajuato" comes from Purépecha Quanaxhuato, which has been translated as both "place of frogs" and "places of many hills". The coat of arms of the state is that of the city of Guanajuato which was granted by Carlos I of Spain.
  In 1590, the Villa de San Luis de la Paz was founded named after the peace (paz) treaty between the Spanish and the Chichimeca. With the Spanish occupying most of the most productive land and its resources, the indigenous of the area became extremely impoverished. This eventually allowed the Spanish to negotiate peace with chiefs in exchange for basic goods such as blankets, clothes and food. This would bring temporary truces. For the long term, evangelization efforts would bring longer term submission. Franciscans and Augustinians worked to gradually modify the worldview of the Chichimecas and others until many moved out of the mountains and into settlements and profess, at least nominally, the Catholic faith. However, the indigenous remained extremely marginalized and poor, losing both language and culture until most eventually intermarried with outsiders to produce mestizos.
  Through the colonial period, most of the area's wealth came from mining, with much of the agriculture springing up to support the mining communities. The height of mining came in the 18th century, mostly from the mines in the hills around the city of Guanajuato, leading to the construction of a large number of notable civil and religious buildings in the same area. The Bajío area was extremely fertile and became a major agricultural area for New Spain. Both of these activities brought in more Spanish and Criollos to take advantage, as well as mestizos and some African slaves to work the mines and fields, making the area's population grow rapidly and eventually concentrate in urban centers. The area was made an "indentencia" or province in 1786, when New Spain was divided into twelve parts.
caption: San Agustín de Yuriria Convent, founded by the Augustinians in 1550.
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