Acaxee

Last updated
Acaxee
Acaxee map.svg
Acaxee territory circa 1500
Total population
Extinct
Regions with significant populations
Mexico (Sinaloa and Durango)
Languages
Acaxee Language and Spanish
Religion
Acaxee Mythology and Animism
Related ethnic groups
Xiximec, Achires, Tarahumara, Tepehuanes, and Cahita

The Acaxee or Acaxees were a tribe or group of tribes in the Sierra Madre Occidental in eastern Sinaloa and NW Durango. They spoke a Taracahitic language in the Southern Uto-Aztecan language family. Their culture was based on horticulture and the exploitation of wild animal and plant life. They are now extinct as an identifiable ethnic group. [1]

Contents

History

In December 1601, the Acaxees, under the direction of an elder named Perico, began an uprising against Spanish rule. This revolt was called the Acaxee Rebellion. They are said to have been converted to the Catholic faith by the society of Jesuits in 1602. Early accounts by Jesuit missionaries allege continual warfare and cannibalism among the Tepehuan, Acaxee, and Xixime who inhabited Nueva Vizcaya. [2] Ethnographer Ralph Beals reported in the early 1930s that the Acaxee tribe from western Mexico played a ball game called "vatey [or] batey" on "a small plaza, very flat, with walls at the sides". [3]

Subdivisions

Notes

  1. "Indians.org :: Indian Population of Mexico". Archived from the original on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 2011-02-01., accessed 1 Feb 2011
  2. Jose Gabriel Martinez-Serna (2009). Vineyards in the Desert: The Jesuits and the Rise and Decline of an Indian Town in New Spain's Northeastern Borderlands. Southern Methodist University. pp. 25–. ISBN   978-1-109-16040-6 . Retrieved 28 October 2012.
  3. Kelley, J. Charles. "The Known Archaeological Ballcourts of Durange and Zacatecas, Mexico" in Vernon Scarborough, David R. Wilcox (Eds.): The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press. ISBN   0-8165-1360-0, 1991, p. 98. Kelley quotes Beals: Beals, Ralph J. The Acaxe, A Mountain Tribe of Durango and Sinaloa (Iberoamerican 6) University of California Press, Berkeley: 1933.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Durango</span> State of Mexico

Durango, officially named Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango, is one of the 31 states which make up the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, situated in the northwest portion of the country. With a population of 1,832,650, the 8th lowest of Mexico's states, Durango has Mexico's second-lowest population density, after Baja California Sur. The capital city, Victoria de Durango, is named after the first President of Mexico, Guadalupe Victoria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sinaloa</span> State of Mexico

Sinaloa, officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaqui</span> Indigenous group in Mexico and the United States

The Yaqui, Hiaki, or Yoeme, are an Indigenous people of Mexico and Native American tribe, who speak the Yaqui language, a Uto-Aztecan language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pimería Alta</span> Viceroyalty of New Spain area now called Pimeria Alta

The Pimería Alta was an area of the 18th century Sonora y Sinaloa Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, that encompassed parts of what are today southern Arizona in the United States and northern Sonora in Mexico.

Batéy was the name given to a special plaza around which the Caribbean Taino built their settlements. It was usually a rectangular area surrounded by stones with carved symbols (petroglyphs).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tepehuán</span> Indigenous people of Mexico

The Tepehuán are an indigenous people of Mexico. They live in Northwestern, Western, and some parts of North-Central Mexico. The indigenous Tepehuán language has three branches: Northern Tepehuan, Southeastern Tepehuan, Southwestern Tepehuan. The heart of the Tepehuan territory is in the Valley of Guadiana in Durango, but they eventually expanded into southern Chihuahua, eastern Sinaloa, and northern Jalisco, Nayarit, and Zacatecas. By the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Tepehuan lands spanned a large territory along the Sierra Madre Occidental. Tepehuán groups are divided into the Ódami, Audam, and O'dam, each with their own language, culture, and beliefs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nueva Vizcaya, New Spain</span>

Nueva Vizcaya was the first province in the north of New Spain to be explored and settled by the Spanish. It consisted mostly of the area which is today the states of Chihuahua and Durango and the southwest of Coahuila in Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert</span> 17th to 19th-century Catholic religious outposts

The Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert are a series of Jesuit Catholic religious outposts established by the Spanish Catholic Jesuits and other orders for religious conversions of the Pima and Tohono O'odham indigenous peoples residing in the Sonoran Desert. An added goal was giving Spain a colonial presence in their frontier territory of the Sonora y Sinaloa Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and relocating by Indian Reductions settlements and encomiendas for agricultural, ranching, and mining labor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mayo people</span> Indigenous group in Mexico

The Mayo or Yoreme are an indigenous group in Mexico, living in the northern states of southern Sonora, northern Sinaloa and small settlements in Durango.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arizpe</span> Place in Sonora, Mexico

Arizpe is a small town and the municipal seat of the Arizpe Municipality in the north of the Mexican state of Sonora. It is located at 30°20'"N 110°09'"W. The area of the municipality is 2,806.78 sq.km. The population in 2005 was 2,959 of which 1,743 lived in the municipal seat as of the 2000 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francisco de Ibarra</span>

Francisco de Ibarra was a Spanish-Basque explorer, founder of the city of Durango, and governor of the Spanish province of Nueva Vizcaya, in present-day Durango and Chihuahua.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bolsón de Mapimí</span> Basin in the center-north of the Mexican Plateau

The Bolsón de Mapimí is an endorheic, or internal drainage, basin in which no rivers or streams drain to the sea, but rather toward the center of the basin, often terminating in swamps and ephemeral lakes. It is located in the center-north of the Mexican Plateau. The basin is shared by the states of Durango, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Zacatecas. It takes its name from Mapimí, a town in Durango.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tepehuán Revolt</span>

The Tepehuán Revolt broke out in New Spain in 1616 when the indigenous Tepehuán attempted to break free from Spanish rule. The revolt was crushed by 1620 after a large loss of life on both sides.

Andrés Pérez De Ribas was a Spanish Jesuit missionary, and historian of north-western Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Provincias Internas</span> Administrative district of the Spanish Empire

The Provincias Internas, also known as the Comandancia y Capitanía General de las Provincias Internas, was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire created in 1776 to provide more autonomy for the frontier provinces of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, present-day northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States. The goal of its creation was to establish a unified government in political, military and fiscal affairs. Nevertheless, the Commandancy General experienced significant changes in its administration because of experimentation to find the best government for the frontier region as well as bureaucratic in-fighting. Its creation was part of the Bourbon Reforms and was part of an effort to invigorate economic and population growth in the region to stave off encroachment on the region by foreign powers. During its existence, the Commandancy General encompassed the provinces of Nueva Navarre, Nueva Vizcaya, Las Californias, Nuevo México, Nuevo Santander, Nuevo Reyno de León, Coahuila and Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">La Ferrería</span> Archaeological site in Durango, Mexico

La Ferrería is an archaeological site located 7 kilometers south of the city of Durango, in the Mexican state of Durango, at the “Cerro de La Ferrería”, on the side of the Tunal River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acaxee Rebellion</span>

The Acaxee Rebellion was an insurrection against Spanish rule in Mexico by Acaxee Indians, in 1601. The Acaxee attempted to expel the Spanish from their lands, regain their independence, and retain their traditional culture which was threatened by forced labor and Jesuit missionaries imposed upon them by the Spanish. They killed about 50 Spaniards and shut down silver mining operations in their territory for two years. In 1603, a Spanish army with Indian allies defeated the Acaxee and captured and executed most of their leaders. Subsequent smallpox epidemics killed most of the surviving Acaxee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Mexico</span> Cultural region of Mexico

Northern Mexico, commonly referred as El Norte, is an informal term for the northern cultural and geographical area in Mexico. Depending on the source, it contains some or all of the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Sonora and Tamaulipas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xiximes</span>

The Xixime were an indigenous people who inhabited a portion of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains in the present day states of Durango and Sinaloa, Mexico. The Xixime are noted for their reported practice of cannibalism and resistance to Spanish colonization in the form of the Xixime Rebellion of 1610.

References

Further reading