Mazatlpilli

Mazatlpilli, later known as Mazapil, lies in a dry valley among the mountains of northern Zacatecas. Its Nahuatl name has been interpreted as “little deer.” The valley was part of a broad Indigenous frontier before the arrival of Spanish miners, who called their settlement San Gregorio de Mazapil. Its ores drew the mining frontier northeastward from the older mines around Zacatecas.

In 1568 Francisco Cano's expedition reached the mineral deposits of Mazapil, extending the claims of Nueva Galicia into the northern country. Soldiers accompanied the advance, and the taking and sale of Indigenous captives accompanied the expansion of colonial power. The mining settlement became a center of Spanish administration on a frontier where the roads and mines remained exposed to resistance from neighboring Indigenous peoples.