Cuencame

Cuencamé stands in a broad valley surrounded by the dry mountains of eastern Durango. Streams from the surrounding country feed the Cuencamé watercourse, which joins the Nazas River. Indigenous communities occupied the valley before the arrival of missionaries and miners, whose settlements grew alongside one another near the local stream. The nearby ranges of San Lorenzo and Santa María contained valuable mineral deposits.

The Jesuit Jerónimo Ramírez worked in the region in 1594. Four years later, Captain Antón Martín Zapata formally granted land and water to an Indigenous settlement at Cuencamé, with the Jesuit Agustín de Espinoza present. In 1601 Pedro de Morcillo established the mining settlement of San Antonio de Cuencamé across the stream from the mission. By 1620 it had become an important mining center of Nueva Vizcaya; after the discovery of Parral's mines, a route linking them with Zacatecas passed through the area.