Rebelión Sierra Gorda

During the U.S. intervention in Mexico (1847–1848), Eleuterio Quiroz led an indigenous uprising in Sierra Gorda, a region in the state of Querétaro.

In 1847 and 1848 members of the Mexican military critical of how the government was conducting the war against the United States hid out in the Sierra Gorda mountains, where they organized and trained indigenous people and some hacienda owners to help fight their cause. The indigenous people joined the struggle because the dissident military leaders Tomás Mejía (1820–1867) and Mariano Paredes (1797–1849) suspended the government's unpopular wartime measures—a military draft, special taxes, and expropriation of community lands. The indigenous Jonase and Pame of the region had an economy complemented by the cultivation of leased lands and access to forest resources (firewood, coal, hunting, gathering), and the hacienda owners' restrictions on those resources threatened their way of life The Nahuatl and Otomi Indians joined the uprising because they opposed the government's expropriation of their community lands to pay the costs of the war.

In late 1848 and early 1849, indigenous rebels led by Quiroz waged a guerrilla war against the hacienda owners and towns in the region until they formed an army that threatened the towns of Río Verde and San Luis Potosí. They were inspired by the Sierra Gorda Political and Regeneration Plan of March 4, 1849, which opposed the peace treaties between Mexico and the United States, and also sought to reestablish the rights of indigenous peasants to the forests, distribute fallow lands, abolish the perquisites of churches, and eliminate forced labor. The uprising ended with the capture of Quiroz on October 3, 1849 and his execution in December of the same year.

See alsoChalco Agrarian Rebellion of 1868; Guanajuato; Mexico, Wars and Revolutions: Mexican-American War; Mexico, Wars and Revolutions: Mexican Revolution; Movimiento Chamula 1869; Querétaro (State); Rebelión de San Martín Texmelucan, Puebla 1879; San Luis Potosí; Tomochic Rebellion.

                                  JosÉ R. Pantoja Reyes