Indigenous Chihuahua:
A Story of War and Assimilation

By John P. Schmal
- © 2005 John P. Schmal
His Bio -

Several million Americans look to the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua as their ancestral homeland. Chihuahua - with a total of 245,945 square kilometers within its boundaries - is the largest state of the Mexican Republic and occupies 12.6% of the national territory. In stark contrast, Chihuahua's population - 3,052,907 residents in the 2000 census - amounts to only 3.13% of the national population.

An understanding of Chihuahua's indigenous inhabitants from the pre-Hispanic era to the Nineteenth Century requires an imagination that dispenses with national borders. The borders of the present-day state of Chihuahua with its neighboring Mexican states and the American states on its north is a creation of political entities. These borders may cause the reader to believe that the indigenous groups from Chihuahua were unique to their area and distinct from the indigenous inhabitants of New Mexico, Texas, Coahuila, Sonora, or Durango.

However, nothing could be further from the truth. Although an international border separates Chihuahua from Texas and New Mexico, the indigenous inhabitants of Chihuahua did in fact have extensive cultural, linguistic, economic and spiritual ties with the indigenous groups of those two American states.

For several thousand years, indigenous groups living in Chihuahua have had trading relations with indigenous groups located in other areas. And many of the Chihuahua Amerindians do in fact share common roots with the Native Americans of New Mexico and Texas. And, up until the last part of the Nineteenth Century, the border of Chihuahua and the United States was a meaningless line in the sand, across which Apaches, Comanches and other groups freely passed.

If you are from Chihuahua, it is likely that you have both indigenous and European ancestors because this frontier region represented both a melting pot and a battleground to the many people who have inhabited it during the last five centuries. Spanish explorers started exploring the region of Chihuahua (which was part of the Spanish province of Nueva Vizcaya) in the mid-Sixteenth Century, especially after the discovery of the Santa Barbara mines in 1567.

As they made their way through the Western Sierra Madre highlands and the deserts of Bolsin de Mapimi, the Spanish explorers found a wide range of nomadic and semi-nomadic indigenous groups. Some of the indigenous groups were named by different explorers at different times and, as a result, carried two or three names. Anyone who is studying the indigenous groups of Chihuahua may at first find this somewhat confusing.

The Concho Indians lived near the junction of the Rio Concho River and Rio Grande Rivers in northern Chihuahua. This region - known as La Junta de los Rios - is a historic farming and trading area. The present-day towns of Presidio (Texas) and Ojinaga (Chihuahua) lay at the center of this region. The Conchos were named for the Spanish word "shells," most likely a reference to the many shellfish they found in the Conchos River. The Conchos - at an early period - cooperated with and allied themselves with the Spaniards, although on a few occasions they also fought against them.

The Toboso Indians lived in the Bolsón de Mapimi region. Living in parts of both Coahuila and Chihuahua, the Tobosos frequently raided Spanish settlements and posed a serious problem during the Seventeenth Century. The Jumanos who inhabited the La Junta area along the Rio Grande River above the Big Bend engaged in agriculture, growing a wide range of crops, including corn, squash, figs, beans, pumpkins and melons.

The Suma Indians lived in the vicinity of present-day El Paso and through parts of northwestern Chihuahua and northeastern Sonora. The Suma Indians joined some of the missions that the Spanish missionaries set up during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Sumas eventually declined and disappeared, mostly as a result of the assimilation and mestizaje that took place in the Spanish-sponsored settlements in Chihuahua.

The Pescado Indians - named for the Spanish word for fish - lived along the Rio Grande along northern border of Chihuahua and in parts of Texas. At some point, they were absorbed by other Indian groups and the Spanish settlers that moved northward into their tribal lands. The Mansos Indians also lived near present-day El Paso along the Rio Grande border area. In 1659 Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Mission was established by Spanish missionaries for the Manso Indians living near present-day Ciudad Juárez.

The Coahuiltecan tribes roamed through parts of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and most of Texas west of San Antonio River and Cibolo Creek. These Indians consisted of countless small nomadic bands, each of which was given different names by different explorers. Little is known about the linguistic affinity or the cultures of the Coahuiltecan Indians because they eventually disappeared, having been decimated by war, disease or assimilation, at the hands of the Europeans, Comanches, and Apaches.

The Tarahumara Indians who inhabited southern Chihuahua . . .

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