Xi'oi

The Xi'oi, better known to the Spanish as the Pame, are an Oto-Pamean people of the Sierra Gorda and the eastern Bajío, in what is now San Luis Potosí. Before the conquest they were semi-nomadic hunters and traders who lived among Nahua, Otomi and Purépecha villages on the Mesoamerican frontier, adopting some settled farming.

In 1522 they joined neighbouring groups in resisting the Spanish but were defeated and drawn into mission life. They took only a small part in the Chichimeca War of 1550 to 1590, limiting themselves to raids on cattle ranches in the Bajío.

The rugged Sierra Gorda held out longest: not until 1742 did soldiers and Franciscans subdue it, and mission towns founded in the eighteenth century settled the Xi'oi as Christian farmers.