Investor Presentaiton
The Chichimecas: Assimilation & Mestizaje
Unable to decisively defeat the native groups, the Spanish initiated a "peace by
purchase" policy, which bribed the Chichimecas to make peace by offering them a
more luxurious existence with the trappings of the so-called "civilized world." At
strategically located depots, the Spaniards offered the Chichimecas vast quantities
of food (mostly maize and beef) and clothing (woolen cloth, coarse blankets, woven
petticoats, shirts, hats and capes). They also received agricultural implements,
including plows, hoes, axes, hatchets, leather saddles, and slaughtering knives.
Soon Christian Indians were brought from the south (Tlaxcalans, Aztecs, Otomies
and Tarascans) and settled among the Chichimecas to help them adapt to their new
existence. The peace offensive and missionary efforts of the Spaniards were so
successful that within a few years, the Zacatecos and Guachichiles had settled
down to peaceful living within the small settlements that now dotted the Zacatecas
landscape.
Working in the fields and mines alongside their Indian brethren, the Chichimeca
Indians were very rapidly assimilated and, as historian Phillip Wayne Powell writes,
"The Sixteenth-century land of war thus became fully Mexican in its mixture."
Source: Philip Wayne Powell, "Soldiers, Indians and Silver: North America's First Frontier War" (Tempe, Arizona: Center for
Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, 1973).
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Copyright © 2019 by John P. Schmal.
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