Caxcan

Caxcan
Cazcan

Caxcan warriors battling against the Spaniards
Total population
(Unknown)
Regions with significant populations
Mexico (Zacatecas and Jalisco)
Languages
Caxcan and Spanish
Religion
Roman Catholic
Related ethnic groups
Other Chichimecas

The Caxcan were a partly nomadic indigenous people of Mexico. Under their leader, Francisco Tenamaztle, the Caxcan were allied with the Zacatecos against the Spaniards during the Mixtón Rebellion. During the rebellion, they were described as "the heart and the center of the Indian Rebellion". They were famously led by Tenamaxtli. After the rebellion, they were a constant target of the Zacatecos and Guachichiles due to their ceasefire agreement with the Spaniards. Their principal religious and population centers were at Teul, Tlaltenango, Juchipila, and Teocaltiche.

Over time, the Caxcans lost their culture due to warfare, disease, and marriage to non-Caxcans. Also, most of the Caxcans were sent into slavery by the Spanish to work in the mines. During the colonial period many Spanish and, some Basque settlers, had intermarried, or had relations, with the Caxcans making many Caxcan descendants Mestizos. The allied tribes and Mestizos settled the Caxcan lands in Zacatecas and Jalisco.

Their language was part of the Uto-Aztecan language family.

Their elected rulers were called tlatoani. Caxcan society was divided up into several different city-states.

The Chichimeca War (1550–1590) was a military conflict waged between Spanish colonizers and their Indian allies against a confederation of Chichimeca Indians. It was the longest and most expensive conflict between Spaniards and the indigenous peoples of New Spain in the history of the colony.

The Chichimeca wars began eight years after the Mixtón Rebellion (1540–1542). It can be considered as a continuation of that rebellion as the fighting did not come to a halt in the intervening years. Unlike in the Mixtón rebellion, the Caxcanes were now allied with the Spanish. The war was fought in the Bajío region known as La Gran Chichimeca, specifically in the Mexican states of Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Jalisco, and San Luis Potosi.