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Mexico Travel :: The Colonial States

State of Jalisco

In 1962, a mammoth skeleton was discovered just west of Lake Chapala in the state of Jalisco. The mammoth may have been killed by prehistoric hunters, of whom there is ample evidence around the state. After 300 BC, Jalisco was occupied by the tribes of the Tomb Culture, who also thrived in neighboring Nayarit and Colima. These peoples wereremarkable for their shaft-tombs filled with lively pottery figures depicting dancers, musicians, shamans, warriors, couples, houses, animals, and so on. These may have represented the world of the dead. In the Post-Classic era (AD 800-1521), Jalisco saw great demographic and cultural development, including gold and silver working, textile manufacturing and intensive agriculture.

During the 1520s various conquistador relatives of Cortes tried to set up little kingdoms in Jalisco but failed. In 1530, after his rape of Michoacan, the brutal Nuno Beltran de Guzman arrived in the territory determined to succeed. He conquered the Pacific Coast up to Sonora and founded the Province of Nueva Galicia with himself as governor. His capital was Guadalajara, originally called Villa del Espiritu Santo, which moved three times before arriving at its present site in the Valley of Atemajaco. In 1536, Guzman was recalled to Spain to account for his actions and was never allowed to return to Mexico. Nueva Galicia grew rapidly with the discovery of rich mines and the establishment of huge plantations and cattle ranches; Guadalajara, as its capital, boomed. There were battles with the Indians into the 19th century, but the vigorous evangelization initiated by the Franciscans tempered their ardor.

In 1810, Guadalajara was one of the four Mexican cities with a printing press. When Miguel Hidalgo with his insurgent army entered the city in November of that year, one of his first actions was to set the press rolling with decrees abolishing slavery, the alcohol tax, the expropriation of peasant lands and Indian tribute. In early 1811, royalist troops caught up with the insurgent troops and routed them at the Calderon Bridge near Guadalajara. Hidalgo and the remnants of his army fled north, hoping to find money and supplies, but they were captured two months later. Guadalajara weathered the battles between liberals and conservatives and the French occupation, becoming by 1900 the second largest city in Mexico. During the Revolution many residents starved because of the blockades imposed on food and water by the warring parties. In 1926 and 1927, Jalisco was the center for the Cristero rebellion against the anti-clerical laws of President Calles. Bands of Cristero guerrillas torched schools, blew up police stations and dynamited the Mexico-Guadalajara train. In retaliation the army executed priests and sacked churches, turning them into stables. The heart of the rebellion was the Los Altos district of northeastern Jalisco, a region of deep conservatism and intense machismo.

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