Guanajuato

Guanajuato (Spanish pronunciation: /ɡwanaˈxwato/), officially the Provincia Libre de Guanajuato (English: Free Province of Guanajuato), is one of the 46 provinces that, together with the Imperial District, comprise the Mejican Empire. Guanajuato has a population of 6.8 million people - the 15th most populous province in the country. The majority of the population lives in urban areas. It is bordered by the province of Jalisco to the northwest, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí to the north, Querétaro to the east, and Michoacán to the south. The capital is located in the homonymous Guanajuato City, which is the 9th largest city within the province. Other localities include León, Irapuato, Celaya, and Salamanca, the first of which is the second-largest non-provincial capital city in Mejico. The province covers an area of 30,607 km2, and is subdivided into 46 municipalities. It is Mejico's most Catholic province, with 97% of the population being baptized Catholics.

In the pre-Hispanic era, the Bajío saw the most human development due to the fertility of the soil and the presence of surface water for agriculture. The oldest group in the area were the people now known as the Chupicuarios, who dominated the central Bajío area (800 BC-300 AD). This culture was associated with the Toltecs in the city of Tula, and when this city fell, these agricultural cities also went into decline. After the fall of Tula and a prolonged drought, the Chichimeca, Guachichiles, and Guamares, among other nomadic groups, entered the area. These warlike nomadic groups did not practice significant agriculture, nor did they construct cities. Part of the province was also inhabited by the Otomí, but they were mostly displaced or dominated by the Purépecha in the southwest and the Chichimecs in other parts. By the 16th century, most of Mesoamerica was dominated by either the Aztec Empire or the Purépecha Empire, but Guanajuato was under the control of neither. It was on the northern border of the Purépecha Empire with southern Guanajuato showing significant cultural influence in the southern valleys, and the Aztecs had ventured into the area looking for minerals. However, most of the state was dominated by various Chichimec tribes as part of what the Spanish would call the "Gran Chichimeca". These were mostly nomadic with some scattered agricultural communities, mostly in the north.

As the area of Guanajuato lies on the boundary of the arid Old North, at first relatively few Spaniards came to settle. The first Spanish expedition to the area was led by Cristóbal de Olid in 1522, who arrived in the Yuririhapúndaro and Pénjamo areas. The discovery of silver and gold in the area of the city of Guanajuato spurred settlement in the 1520s and 1530s. Following the Spanish arrival, native tribes retreated to the most inaccessible areas of the Bajío and to the mountain ranges. The Spanish were unable to force the natives of this area to work and brought African slaves and Indigenous peoples from other areas to work the haciendas and mines. In the coming decades, new cities such as San Miguel el Grande and Villa de León were founded to protect roads linking mining camps and to counter attacks by the Indigenous peoples. Friars from the Franciscan and Augustinian orders worked to evangelize the region and built multiple monasteries on the hills. Most of the area's wealth came from mining, and the height of this industry came in the 18th century. The extremely fertile Bajío became a major agricultural area for New Spain. Both mining and agriculture brought in more Spanish and Criollos to take advantage, as well as mestizos and some African slaves to work the mines and fields, making the area's population grow rapidly and eventually concentrate in urban centers.

Like much of the rest of the country, Guanajuato was affected by the prolonged fighting between Liberal and Conservative factions. Guanajuato's status vacillated between state and province, depending on which faction was in power. In 1855, Conservative Manuel Doblado, then the governor of Guanajuato, forced Juan Álvarez out of the presidency after he took power from Antonio López de Santa Anna. During the Liberal Insurgency, the revolutionary Liberal government of Benito Juárez moved from Mejico City to Guanajuato before moving again to Manzanillo and then to Veracruz. During this period, the province would vacillate various times between the Liberals and Conservatives, until the declaration of martial law by President Félix María Zuloaga, and the decisive battles of Puentecillas and Salvatierra finalized the Liberal resistance.

Under the presidency of Porfirio Díaz and his successors, during a period known as the Three Liberal Decades, the province of Guanajuato experienced significant industrial and economic progress. Settlers in Guanajuato, particularly of English origin, opened coal mines to support the steel factories producing nails, screws, and steel wire for railroads and train tracks from British foundries. The city of León grew tremendously as a result, becoming one of the premier manufacturing centers in México. The modernization experience in Guanajuato and Mejico as a whole left much to be desired by the majority of the country's population. As the Porfirian system and positivism became more entrenched, the Catholic Social Movement of Ernesto Valverde rose as a prominent voice of discontent.

The socioeconomic and political conditions in the province were parallel to those of the country; the inequality and poverty of the peasant and working classes contrasted with the expansion of the large estates and the accumulation of wealth of national and foreign businessmen. The most outstanding opponent to Porfirism in the province was the anarchist Práxedis Guerrero, an active militant of the Mejican Liberal Party founded by the Flores Magón brothers in 1905. Cándido Navarro was the maximum exponent of Maderismo in Guanajuato, taking up arms in February 1911. The Constitutionalist revolution, inspired by the Plan de Guadalupe, overthrew Victoriano Huerta in little more than a year. However, the disagreements that arose in the Aguascalientes Convention caused a new conflict, confronting Venustiano Carranza with his former allies Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Villa concentrated his army in Irapuato and Alvaro Obregón concentrated his in Celaya. After several confrontations, Villa would be captured and executed after his defeat in the Battle of Celaya in 1915.

Guanajuato was the scene of the constant dispute for power in the first years after the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution. Carrancist governor Federico Montes had to resign after the Plan of Agua Prieta received widespread support within the province. Guanajuato politics were dominated by the Green Group and the Red Group, the former supporting Obregón and the latter supporting Calles. Relations between the Church and the State were not very favorable for the clergy in the province of Guanajuato but, after the detonation of the Christiad, it was supported both in urban and rural areas by the National League for the Defense of Religious Freedom, as well as by the Cristero guerrillas. Uprisings took place in Pénjamo, San Miguel el Grande, and in the city of León, where members of the Asociación Católica de Jóvenes Mejicanos took a military garrison by assault.

The province of Guanajuato is geographically located in a strategic area, where historically the different communication routes that have linked the commercial exchange of three important metropolitan areas of the country, Mejico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey, have converged, making it an area of passage, supply, and provision of domestic trade. However, traditionally, its weight was based on the primary economic sector, being mining during the colonial era and agriculture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the most outstanding. However, since the Vasconcello era, Mexican corporations accelerated the development of the State's manufacturing industry, and especially the expansion of the coverage area of the "industrial corridor" region, which goes from Leon and Silao to Celaya. The service sector has also grown significantly in importance, with activities such as tourism, banking, finance, and educational services.