Los pueblos nómadas llegaron a esta región hace unos 15000 años. Estos petroglifos encontrados en las regiones del noroeste de San Sebastián muestran escenas de la vida cotidiana como cazadores y recolectores. Los indios huicholes de Nayarit y la costa de Jalisco todavía cuentan historias de días más felices como hombres libres que vagaban por el campo en lugar de estar atados al trabajo del campo.

Estos petroglifos fueron documentados en la década de 1980 por la Universidad de Guadalajara y se encuentran señalados en el mapa.

Hace unos 7.000 años se domesticaron los cultivos y se establecieron pequeñas aldeas en los valles cerca de ríos y arroyos. La cerámica y las formas de arte aparecieron con frecuencia en esta área hace unos 3500 años.

Ejemplos de estos se encontraron al noroeste de San Sebastián como se indica en el mapa aquí.

Estos son algunos ejemplos de los primeros trabajos realizados por los nativos de esta región.

Algunas de estas jarras fueron descubiertas en pozos antiguos que datan de alrededor del año 1000 a. Las otras formas y vasijas son de alrededor del 0 al 100 dC y fueron descubiertas en tumbas de tiro. El uso de tumbas de tiro es exclusivo de esta zona. Ninguna otra cultura en México los usó. Esta era una tradición en la cultura de Teuchitlán que dominó la región desde alrededor del 350 a. C. hasta el 500 d.

Map of the scope of their influence:

This is an archaeologically defined culture named after the city of Teuchitlán , northwest of Guadalajara and northeast of San Sebastián. The largest site of the Teuchitlán culture, Los Guachimontones , is one of several dozen sites in the region, but it is most notable for the number and size of its ceremonial buildings. Like many other Mesoamerican cultures, the Teuchitlán culture lacked a writing system . Archaeologists don't know what they called themselves or what language they may have spoken.

This is what a town in Teuchitlán looked like:

Obsidian was abundant in the Guadalajara Valley and therefore attracted the interest of other cultures in the area.

 

Around 600 CE, the influence of the Toltec and Teotihuacan cultures is seen, as evidenced by items from central Mexico discovered in this region. Toltec inscriptions describe a domain of Xalisco in 618 CE. , probably established west of San Sebastián, in the fertile valleys below. In fact, Jalisco was called Xalisco (which means “on a sandy surface” in Nahuatl) until 1836. The indigenous people of this region spoke a language related to Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs.

 

Around AD 1112, the tribes of Jalisco rebelled against the Toltecs and became independent, but around 1129 the Chichimecas (a Nuhuatl term for barbarians from the north) invaded and dominated the region. The Aztecs themselves were a related migration to the north.

 

By AD 1320, the Purépecha Indians of Michoacán (who had their independent kingdom separate from the Aztecs, the emerging power of central Mexico), occupied parts of the southern part of the state.

 

 When the Spanish began to explore Jalisco and Zacatecas in the 1520s and 1530s, they encountered various nomadic tribes occupying the area which they referred to as La Gran Chichimeca . The Aztecs collectively referred to these Indians with the all-encompassing term, Chichimecas . All the Chichimeca Indians shared a primitive hunter-gatherer culture, based on the gathering of mesquite, acorns, roots, and seeds, as well as the hunting of small animals, including frogs, lizards, snakes, and worms. Within the current limits of Jalisco, the Caxcanes, Guachichiles, Tecuexes, and Guamares were considered Chichimecas.

 

The nephew of conquistador Hernán Cortés, Francisco Cortés de San Buenaventura was born in 1499 or 1500, apparently in Medellín, Extremadura, the same city as his uncle. According to Don Manuel Orozco y Berra, he was among the Spaniards who consummated the conquest of Tenochtitlán in 1521. In addition to this, Francisco had an important relationship with our region, which he would begin a few years later.

 

In 1524 he was lieutenant governor of the town of Colima, from where he left, by order of Hernán, to explore the northern lands. After passing without problems through Zapotitlán and Amula, he arrived with his army at Autlán where, according to Don Rubén Villaseñor Bordes, the inhabitants offered resistance, which was overcome without much effort.

 

From here, Francisco Cortés's expedition headed for the region of Tenamaxtlán and Tecolotlán, Etzatlán, Ameca and present-day Nayarit, where he starred in one of the best-known passages of his brief existence: being in the vicinity of present-day Banderas. Valle, the Spaniards were left face to face with a force of around 10,000 indigenous people, dressed for war precisely with flags and feather decorations. Given the number of enemies, Cortés spoke with his captains to consider the decision to withdraw from the place, to which one of them, Ángel de Villafaña, raised his voice to demand that they face danger "like brave Spaniards." . This was done, the natives were defeated and, by the way, Captain Cortés was left like a coward before his men.

 

On his return to Colima, passing through Tomatlán, Chamela and the valley of the future Villa Purificación, he again passed through the Autlán valley, acting as visitor to the town of Tecomatlán on March 10, 1525. It was Francisco Cortés who entrusted the Indians from Autlán to Hernán Gómez and Hernán Ruiz de la Peña when he defeated them during his first stay here and who ordered the latter to leave to settle in Autlán when he returned to Mexico City in 1525, thus establishing the first Spanish settlement in the town.

 

After participating in political intrigues in ancient Tenochtitlán in later years, Francisco Cortés returned to participate in an expedition, this time by sea, together with Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. They weighed anchor from the port of Acapulco on May 30, 1532 and sailed north, with the order of Hernán Cortés to discover new lands in that direction.

 

The brig under the command of Francisco Cortés ran aground on the current coast of Jalisco, apparently near Chacala, very close to this region. There he was murdered by the natives, at no more than 33 years of age, along with almost all of his crew.

 

Due to fierce resistance from the region's natives, a second force was launched to subdue the area for Spain.

 

In December 1529, Nuño de Guzmán left Mexico City at the head of a force of five hundred Spanish and 10,000 Indian soldiers. According to J. Lloyd Mecham, the author of Francisco de Ibarra y Nueva Vizcaya , "Guzmán was a capable and even brilliant lawyer, a man of great energy and firmness, yet insatiably ambitious, aggressive, cunning, and cruel."

 

In a swift and brutal campaign that lasted from February to June 1530, Guzmán traveled through Michoacán, Jalisco, and southern Zacatecas. Historian Peter Gerhard writes that “Guzmán's strategy throughout was to terrorize the natives with often unprovoked murder, torture, and enslavement. The army left a trail of corpses and destroyed houses and crops, forcing the surviving men into service and leaving the women and children to starve.”

Once Guzmán had consolidated his conquests, he ordered that all the conquered Indians of Jalisco be distributed among the Spanish encomiendas.

 

The individual receiving the encomienda, known as the encomendero, received free labor and tribute from the Indians, in exchange for which the subjects were entrusted to the encomendero's care. It was the duty of the encomendero to Christianize, educate and feed the indigenous people under his care. Unsurprisingly, however, such humane institutions were prone to abuse and misuse, and some Indians were reduced to slave labor as a result.

 

Taking formal possession of the conquered areas, Guzmán named his conquered territory "Greater Spain."   However, twelve years later, the Spanish administration renamed the region as Nueva Galicia (New Galicia). Reports of Guzmán's brutal treatment of indigenous people drew the attention of authorities in Mexico City. Two years later, he was returned to Spain in chains to stand trial. He spent some time in prison and died in Spain about 1558.

 

The Mixtón Rebellion (1540-1541)

In the spring of 1540, the indigenous population of western Mexico launched a fierce rebellion against Spanish rule. Indigenous tribes living along the current Tres Dedos border region between Jalisco and Zacatecas led the fomentation of the insurrection. In the hills near Teul and Nochistlán, the Indians attacked Spanish settlers and soldiers and destroyed churches.

 

In April 1541, the Cazcanes of southern Zacatecas and northern Jalisco were waging a full-scale revolt against all symbols of Spanish rule. The map on the next page shows the location of areas where First Nations rebelled within a three-state region.

“Map of the Towns of Nayarit, Zacatecas and Jalisco That Rose Up in Arms During the Mixtón War (March 16, 2009).]

 

It took the better part of two years to contain the Mixtón Rebellion.

 

Antonio de Mendoza, who had become the first viceroy of New Spain in 1535, quickly assembled a force of 450 Spaniards and 30,000 Aztec and Tlaxcalan warriors. In a series of brief sieges and raids, Mendoza gradually put down the uprising. By December 1541, native resistance had been completely crushed. The aftermath of this defeat, according to Peter Gerhard, led to thousands of deaths. In addition, he writes, "thousands were driven out in chains into the mines, and many of the survivors (mostly women and children) were transported from their home countries to work on Spanish farms and haciendas." Fortunately, some of these people were allowed to return home a decade later.

 

Decrease of the indigenous population in the region due to Epidemic Disease

 

The physical isolation of the Indians in the Americas is the main reason why diseases wreaked such havoc on Native American populations. This physical isolation resulted in a natural quarantine from the rest of the planet and from a wide variety of communicable diseases. When smallpox first struck Mexico in 1520, no Indian was immune to the disease.

From the Florentine Codex Book 12, 1520 (Acquired by the Medici and retained in Florence).

 

During the first century of the conquest, the Mexican Indians suffered 19 major epidemics. They were exposed to smallpox, chickenpox, diphtheria, influenza, scarlet fever, measles, typhoid, mumps, influenza, and cocoliztli (a bleeding disease). Peter Gerhard has estimated the total native population of Nueva Galicia in 1520 at 855,000 people. By 1550 this number had dwindled to 220,000.

 

In two decades, the populous coastal region north of Banderas Bay witnessed the largest population decline. By the late 1530s, the population of the Pacific coastal plain and foothills from Acaponeta to Purificación had been reduced by more than half. Subsequently, the Indians from the highlands were transported to work on the cocoa plantations. When their numbers dwindled, the Spanish turned to African slaves. Despite the epidemics, various areas of Jalisco were less affected by contagious diseases.

 

the hearts

The Coras inhabited an area that is now in present-day Nayarit, as well as the northwestern fringe of Jalisco, where San Sebastián del Oeste is now located. The Cora call themselves Nayarit or Nayariti, a tribe belonging to the Taracahitian division of the Uto-Aztec linguistic family. The Cora developed agricultural methods that included the construction of terraces to control erosion. Today, the Coras, who number more than 20,000 people, continue to survive, mainly in Nayarit and to a lesser extent in Jalisco. The Cora Indians have been studied by various historians and archaeologists. One of the most interesting works on the Cora is Catherine Palmer Finerty's " In a Town Far From Home: My Life Among the Cora Indians of the Sierra Madre"(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000).

 

The Cuyutecos or “Tecos”

 

The Cuyutecos, who spoke the Nahua language of the Aztecs, settled in the southwest of Jalisco, inhabiting Atenquillo, Talpa, Mascota, Mixtlán, Atengo and Tecolotlán. The population of this area, largely depleted by the epidemics of the 16th century, was partially repopulated by Spaniards and Indians from Guadalajara and other parts of Mexico. It is believed that the Cuyuteco language may have been a late introduction to Jalisco.

Brad Morris Biglow of the University of Florida noted that while the Cora Indians fought aggressively to resist acculturation, the Huichol response was primarily to "flee" to more remote locations in the Sierra Madres. According to Aguirre Beltrán, the retreat of the Huichols in the Sierra created a "refuge region" and allowed the Huichols to "resist the pressures of acculturation around them."

 

After Mixton's rebellion was crushed, the roads were safe from Indian raids. This resulted in the expansion of mining in the region. The mayor's office of the Real de Minas de San Sebastián was integrated under the jurisdiction of Hostotipac in 1542. (Now it is called Real Alto de Oxtotipac, it is a nearby mining town of around 800 inhabitants). of Mining.

By 1608, the town of San Sebastián grew in support of the many small mining towns in the hills and the parish was dedicated in the name of San Sebastián. (Saint Sebastian is a saint from Milan who was executed twice by Emperor Maximian of the Roman Empire in 250 CE. First killed by arrows and then again by flogging; which eventually did the job.) The original church was built with large stone blocks that can still be seen today.

 

Between 1774 and 1779 the streets of the town were laid out, which retain the same current configuration, which accounts for its narrow roads built for the passage of carts and horse-drawn carriages and not cars, trucks and quadricycles.

 

By 1785, ten gold and silver reduction haciendas and about 30 mines had been established in the area.

 

In 1812 the town of San Sebastián was officially incorporated.

 

Independence from Spain (1823)

 

At the beginning of the 19th century, very few people living in Jalisco still spoke indigenous languages. In fact, a large part of the original languages ​​spoken in Jalisco had disappeared from the face of the earth. However, the descendants of the original indigenous people still lived in Jalisco, and many of them still felt a spiritual, cultural, and physical bond with their indigenous ancestors. On June 23, 1823, the Department of Guadalajara was proclaimed as "The Free and Sovereign State of Jalisco". It was around this time that the Hacienda Jalisco was built in its current form.

 

By 1825 the town of Real de San Sebastián had a council and belonged to the department of Mascota in Canton VI of Autlán. The police stations included were: Real de Hostotipac, Real Santiago and Real de Avilas; as well as the ranches of Colesio and Santa Ana. The city had around several thousand inhabitants.

Indian discontent (1825-1885)

 

Unfortunately, independence did not bring stability to Jalisco, nor did it bring economic reforms to the descendants of Jalisco's indigenous peoples. Historian Dawn Fogle Deaton writes that in the sixty-year period from 1825 to 1885, Jalisco witnessed twenty-seven (mainly indigenous) peasant rebellions.. Seventeen of these uprisings occurred in one decade, 1855-64, and the year 1857 saw ten separate revolts. According to Ms Deaton, the cause of these “waves of unrest, popular protest and outright rebellion” arose “from inter-class and inter-class political and social struggles”. She further explained that the “commercialization of the economy”, especially in agriculture, had led to fundamental changes in the lifestyles of peasants and thus brought “the seeds of discontent”.

In 1821 Independence from Spain was won by Agustín de Iturbide 's Army of the Three Guarantees , which would make Iturbide the first emperor of Mexico and make Jalisco one of several "departments" answering directly to Mexico City . This act broke the tradition of relative independence of Nueva Galicia and provoked support for federalism.  

 

In Guadalajara a proposal circulated for a "Republic of the United States of Anahuac" that called for a federation of states to allow for the best political union in Mexico. A large part of these principles appeared with the Constitution of 1824, promulgated after the overthrow of Iturbide. Under this Constitution, Colima, Aguascalientes and Nayarit continued to be part of Jalisco. Its first governor was Prisciliano Sánchez. The new state was divided into eight cantons: Autlán, Colotlán, Etzatlán, Guadalajara, La Barca, Lagos, Sayula and Tepic.

 

The construction of the present church of the town began after a fire burned down the old temple in 1871. You can still see the first stones of the old church in its construction. At that time, the city's population had grown to nearly 20,000.

 

In 1888 there was a miners' strike led by Felipe Preciado and Francisco Ochoa. Terms to end the strike were reached locally here in San Sebastián, but the owners of the mining company in New York did not approve the wage increases and job changes proposed by their own representative, Mr. Becker, so they shut down the mines. They reopened only to close again a few decades later during the revolution.

During this period, the state's indigenous-speaking population declined considerably. The 1895 census showed that only 4,510 people spoke any indigenous language, which represented 0.38% of the total population of the state.  

However, as described in the chronicle, "Leyendas de la Paroquia de San Sebastian del Oeste, Jalisco", Jose Duran, states that " the Indians of Zapotlan attacked San Sebastian with frequency".  And that the tower at Pabellon was constructed to defend the town from their attacks.  Meaning that despite the diminishment of Indian influence and culture in the area the people of certain communities, even as late as the late 1800's, still rebelled in class struggles against the ethnic Spaniards who saw them as Native Americans separate from themselves. 

At the national level, opposition to the Díaz regime was not organized in the state, only isolated groups of miners, students, and professionals held strikes and protests. Presidential challenger Francisco I. Madero visited Guadalajara twice, once in 1909 to campaign and the other in 1910 to organize resistance to the Díaz regime.