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762 Dios soon became a leading settlement. The records concerning the population and yield of the Zacatecas region are meagre, but it appears that while it at one time drew settlers away from the Guadalajara districts, and became the most populous settlement in New Spain, next to Mexico, the more northern discoveries of Ibarra created a reaction, as did the new foundations to the south, such as Aguascalientes, so named after its springs, and the mining districts eastward, centring round Guanajuato and San Luis Potosí.

With the conquest of Querétaro and the founding of Zacatecas the regions intermediate and eastward were soon occupied. Silao was settled in 1553 by seven Spaniards, attended by a number of Otomís, and to the following year is ascribed the founding of Guanajuato, the most famous of mining towns. San Miguel el Grande, the later Allende, rose six years afterward, and in 1562 San Felipe was founded by the brother of Viceroy Velasco, as a frontier presidio or advance post against the Chichimecs, the adjoining