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Rh had to be undertaken against Indian rebels in Durango. This region was frequently disturbed by one tribe or another, abused as the natives were by miners, and favored by the physical features of their country, which on one side presented rugged ranges, and on the other plains and deserts. The private explorations of Francisco de Ibarra in this direction had revealed vast agricultural and mineral resources, and aided by his influence with the viceroy he had secured a commission as governor and captain-general to conquer and rule the still unsubdued country to the north. He entered with a strong force, and laid claim to all the region beyond the line now dividing Jalisco and Zacatecas from Sinaloa and Durango, applying to it the name of Nueva Vizcaya, a term which soon became confined to the district east of the Sierra Madre range, embracing, for a while, a part of Coahuila. In 1563 he formally established the still existing settlement of Nombre de Dios as a villa, and beyond, in Guadiana Valley, he founded as his capital Durango, known also by the name of the valley. In 1621 this was made a city and the seat of a new diocese extending over all of Ibarra's government. He pursued his discoveries as far as San Bartolomé Valley, in southern Chihuahua, and thence westward into northern Sinaloa, where he founded San Juan de Sinaloa, laying claim also to the two southern districts of Culiacan, with the settlement of San Miguel, and to Chametla, with San Sebastian, which had maintained a precarious existence since Guzman's time.

The tribes of Sinaloa proved very hostile, and San Juan had to be abandoned. It was refounded in 1583 under the name of San Felipe, but only after 1596, when it became a presidio, was the