Francisco Tenamaztle - Background

Background

The first contact and zero head of the Caxcan and other indigenous peoples of northwestern Mexico with the Spanish, was in 1529 when Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán set forth from Mexico City with 300–400 Spaniards and 5,000 to 8,000 Aztec and Tlaxcaltec allies on a march through the future states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Durango, Sinaloa, and Zacatecas. Over a six-year period Guzman conducted frequent violent slave raids throughout Northern Mexico, enslaving thousands of Indians. Guzmán and his lieutenants founded towns and Spanish settlements in the region, called Nueva Galicia, including Guadalajara, the first temporary site of which was at Tenamaztle’s home of Nochistlán, Zacatecas. The Spaniards encountered increased resistance as they moved further from the complex hierarchical societies of Central Mexico and attempted to force Indians into servitude through the encomienda system.

Tenamaztle was baptized a Catholic sometime after Guzman’s expedition and given the Christian name Francisco. He became “Lord Tlatoani of Nochistlan,” an urban center and region in the southern part of Zacatecas. The Caxcan Indians are often considered part of the Chichimeca, a generic term used by the Spaniards and Aztecs for all the nomadic and semi-nomadic Native Americans living in the deserts of northern Mexico. However, the Caxcanes seem to have been sedentary, depending upon agriculture for their livelihood and living in permanent towns and settlements. They were, perhaps, the most northerly of the agricultural, town-and-city dwelling peoples of interior Mexico.

Presumably at the same time as his baptism, Tenamaztle also swore allegiance to the Spanish crown and was confirmed in his position and any property he owned. Spanish rule, however, was oppressive and in mid-1540 the Caxcanes and their allies, the Zacatecos and possibly other Chichimeca tribes, revolted. The command structure of the Caxcanes is unknown but the most prominent leader who emerged was Tenamaztle.