|
Although Ojinaga is officially listed as having been founded in 1715, by Sergeant Major Antonio Trasviña y Retes, and official accounts have it that the first Spaniards to have visited the region were Fraile Agustín Rodríguez, a Franciscan Friar, in 1581, and his military escort under a Spanish officer known as "El Chamuscado", Juan Fernández de Mendoza "claiming the region for the Crown of Spain", the truth is that Ojinaga was founded by a race of Indians - the Uto-Aztecan "Chichimeca" groups, who were on their way towards the Valley of Mexico in order to found the great cities there later on, and these Indians had displaced and assimlaited an earlier group who were probably related linguistically and culturally to the older Otomi culture of central Mexico. Alvar Nuñez Caveza de Vaca actually visited Ojinaga in 1535, but he did not stay long, pressing on to Sinaloa and his rendezvous with the Spanish there.
Trasviña y Retes served under the command of the founder of the city of Chihuahua. Chihuahua was founded on October 12, 1709, by the Spanish explorer Deza y Ulloa, who dubbed it "Real de San Francisco de Cuellar". It was elevated to the status of "Villa" in 1718 and given the name San Felipe el Real de Chihuahua. So it is clear that this "founding of Ojinaga" by Trasviña y Retes was more a matter of placing it under the administration and organization of the new regime of Deza y Ulloa who had a mandate from the crown to operate mining activity for this personal profit, but also under the authority of the Spanish government, whose main concern was raising wealth for its ongoing wars with the Protestant nations of Northern Europe. Although Deza y Ulloa was responding to a plea from the Franciscan missionaries at Junta de Los Rios (Ojinaga) for protection and aid, he and Trasviña y Retes and others in his party were like most interested in the hope that some rich veins of silver or gold might be found in the area.
The "Chichimeca" groups left some of their members behind, or else some of their relatives caught up with them later on and stayed on, and they were part of large group of Indians who were to inhabit the whole general area of Chihuahua, New Mexico, and large stretches of Sonora, Texas, Arizona, and even Kansas, and this group is mainly identified as the so-called Pueblo Indians and their relatives the Kiowa and the Tarahumara. The Indians who were actually either settled in Ojinaga and the surrounding region (at the time of the arrival of the Spanish) were probably a Tanoan speaking people, whose dialect was actually a version of Tewa spoken at Pecos Pueblo, in New Mexico, among other places. There were two groups, in general terms, of Indians in the region. One was entirely sedentary and these people mainly farmed. They were probably either Julimes or Conchas Indians, although the various groups have been given a lot of different names, mainly by the Spanish, who entirely confused the issue of who these people really were. Some of the names that they gave them, like "Jediondos" or "Patarabueyes" were either Spanish words or contractions of Spanish words which they gave them in a derogatory sense, reflecting their scorn for these people. The other group was the celebrated Jumanos tribe.
The reason why it is important to reflect on the Indian character of the region is because it remained so up until very recent times, comparatively speaking. Because no major deposits of silver or gold were located in the region, and because any profitable exploitation of the agricultural resources was out of the question - because of the desert conditions, the isolation of the region, and the almost constant presence of marauding, hostile Indians, there was no attempt at serious settlement until practically the end of the Spanish period, when it was almost too late to formulate any effective plan. |
