Namiquipa

Namiquipa lies in the upland country of Chihuahua, east of the Sierra Madre Occidental. Concho and Tarahumara communities lived in the region before Spanish missionaries gathered people into a mission settlement there in the 1660s. The town stood near routes between the mountain communities and the plains, in a frontier where Spanish ranches, missions and Indigenous lands increasingly overlapped.

In 1653 Conchos from Namiquipa sent word to the Tarahumara proposing an alliance against the Spaniards. Later, refugees from the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 moved south into the district, increasing the Spanish presence. A new cycle of uprisings began in 1690 during a drought, involving Tarahumara, Concho and other communities. Namiquipa remained a place where the ambitions of colonial authorities met the resistance and alliances of the peoples around it.