Chichimeca War

The Chichimeca War was fought from 1550 to 1600 across north-central Mexico between the Spanish Empire, with its indigenous allies including the Tlaxcalans, Otomi and Purepecha, and a loose confederation of semi-nomadic Chichimeca peoples, chiefly the Guachichiles, Pames, Guamares and Zacatecos. The war grew directly out of Spain's 1546 discovery of silver at Zacatecas, which drew colonial roads, mines and settlers into Chichimeca territory and provoked fierce and sustained indigenous raiding in response. Early Spanish attempts at outright suppression, including an official policy of war by fire and blood adopted in 1567, failed to end the fighting, and by 1561 Chichimeca raids had already killed more than four thousand Spaniards and their allies. Spain eventually turned to negotiation and material inducement instead, and a purchase-for-peace program begun around 1590 succeeded where decades of warfare had not, gradually drawing the Chichimeca peoples into settled, nominally Catholic communities within New Spain.