Mixton War

The Mixton War was fought from 1540 to 1542 in what is now the Mexican state of Zacatecas, when the Caxcan people and allied indigenous groups rose up against Spanish colonial rule in the region known as Nueva Galicia. The revolt began after Spanish authorities arrested and executed a group of indigenous leaders, and it escalated when natives killed a Spanish encomendero and withdrew to fortified hilltop strongholds, most famously the hill of Mixton for which the war is named. The Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado died attempting to storm the Caxcan stronghold in 1541, but Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza then assembled a large combined force of Spanish troops and indigenous allies, including Tlaxcalans and Mexica, which captured the rebel center of Nochistlan in November 1541 and finally took Mixton itself in early 1542. Spanish victory secured the region and its valuable silver deposits, but the war's high cost foreshadowed the still longer and bloodier Chichimeca War that followed within a decade.