Apaseo el Grande is a city and municipality located in Guanajuato, Mexico. The municipality covers 415.26 square kilometres (160 sq mi). It is bordered on the north by Comonfort and San Miguel de Allende, on the east by Querétaro in the State of Querétaro on the south by Apaseo el Alto, and on the west by Celaya. The municipality had a population of 85,319 inhabitants according to the 2010 census.
In pre-Columbian times, the region was known as Andahe ("Close to the water") and Atlayahualco ("Place where water flows") by the Otomí and Nahua inhabitants. It was eventually known as Apatzeo ("Yellow flower") by the Purépecha. Following the Spanish conquest 1525, Apaseo was the first town founded in what is now the state of Guanajuato. It received its present name of Apaseo el Grande in 1957, to avoid confusion with the neighboring town of Apaseo el Alto.
Etymology
The initial name of the town and municipality was Apatzeo, first used by Hernán Pérez de Bocanegra y Córdoba, who was apparently influenced by the expression in the Purépecha language meaning "place of weasels".
Other names of the city of Apaseo el Grande were Andehe (in the Otomi language) which appears in an inscription that is in the choir of the parish church and means "by the water". Another name, used by the viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, was Atlayahualco, from the Nahuatl language, meaning "by the lake".
On February 22, 1957, the Legislature of the State of Guanajuato ordered the publication in the Official Gazette of the State of Guanajuato, Decree Number 64, by which the city and the municipality of Apaseo took the nickname 'Apaseo el Grande' ("greater" or "larger"). This change was intended to resolve conflicts caused by the use of the nickname 'Apaseo el Bajo' ("Lower Apaseo") by residents of the smaller neighboring town of Apaseo el Alto ("Upper Apaseo").
History
The location of Apaseo el Grande – probably along with other towns in the region such as Izcuinapan (San Miguel Viejo, near San Miguel de Allende) and Tlachco (the present city of Querétaro) – was inhabited by various indigenous groups of Nahuatl, Otomi and Guamar peoples from ancient times and as a place of refuge following the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
Spanish colonization
The territory was conquered by Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán 1530, but its formal incorporation into the Spanish empire did not occur until 1538, by act of congregation of Indian villages issued by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza. In 1537, Don Hernán Pérez de Bocanegra began buying properties from Don Fernando P. Motoci, lord of Xuaxo, and on October 11, 1564, entailed these under the system so the properties would be passed down in his family via primogeniture. This area became eastern Bajío, the name by which Spaniards, Creoles, Mestizos, Indians, blacks and mulattos called the property belonging to the principal landowner of the region.
By 1571, Apaseo had 50 Spanish families, 200 blacks, 150 mulattos, and 240 Otomi Indians who also spoke Nahuatl.
In 1547, silver deposits discovered in Zacatecas resulted in a steady stream of migration to the region, seen by the semi-nomadic Chichimecas as intrusions on their ancestral lands. Underpaid Spanish soldiers raided native villages to acquire slaves for the mines, and the Chichimicas made attacks against herders and traders on the border. Led by Bocanegra, the village of Apaseo defended itself against the Chichimecas, and the nearby town of Celaya was founded to bolster the region's defence. As the costly Chichimeca War entered its fourth decade, the colonial authorities reversed their aggressive treatment of the Chichimeca and introduced the "peace by purchase" policy, countering the insurgency by rewarding peaceful behavior while taking steps to settle them in villages and assimilate them.
Viceroyalty
During the 1640s, Apaseo embarked upon a period of economic expansion through ranching in Ixtla, el Peñón and Apaseo el Alto, and fabric manufacturing in Ixtla. The village was inhabited mostly by Indians, especially Otomi, who were already in the process of assimilating. Many had adopted Spanish surnames such as Valencia, Arrieta, Esparragoza, Sánchez, and González; others translated names like Águila (Eagle) or Conejo (Rabbit). Blacks and mulattos were employed as servants on farms centered around the village of Ixtla.