Atolinga
Encyclopedia
| Municipio de Atolinga |
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Atolinga is the seat of Atolinga Municipality in the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
state of Zacatecas
Zacatecas
Zacatecas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Zacatecas is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is Zacatecas....
, located in its southwestern portion.
The coordinates of the municipal seat of Atolinga are 21° 44’ 15” north and 103° 28’ 30” west. The town is located at 2,250 meters above sea level and the municipality covers an area of 280 square kilometers.
The municipality rests on a mesa that is the western border of the Tlaltenango Valley. The Atolinga River, which runs through the municipal seat is a tributary of the Bolaños
Bolaños
The municipality of Bolaños is located in the north of the Mexican state of Jalisco.The municipality shares its border on the north with the municipalities of Mezquitic and Villa Guerrero and to the southeast with the municipality of Chimaltitán...
River.
History
Prior to the arrival of the Spanish to the area, the region around Atolinga was inhabited by indigenous people of the CaxcanCaxcan
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...
and Tepecan
Tepehuán
The Tepehuán are a Native American ethnic group in northwest Mexico, whose villages at the time of Spanish conquest spanned a large territory along the Sierra Madre Occidental from Chihuahua and Durango in the north to Jalisco in the south...
ethnic groups. The first Spanish contact with these people must have been in 1530 when Pedro Almíndez Chirino
Pedro Almíndez Chirino
Pedro Almíndez Chirino was a conquistador and member of several councils that governed New Spain while Hernán Cortés was traveling to Honduras, in 1525-26...
went through the Valley of Tlaltenango
Tlaltenango
Tlaltenango, Mexican toponym, may mean:*Tlaltenango de Sánchez Román, Zacatecas*Tlaltenango, Puebla*Tlaltenango, Morelos...
on a northbound expedition.
The first land grantee of the area was Pedro Sernosa, who later sold his land to Juan Fernández de Jara Quemada.
The town formed part of the jurisdiction of Tlaltenango for both ecclesiastical purposes and governmental purposes until the beginning of the 1800s. In 1814, a plea was made by the citizenry that the community be granted its own town council and status as a municipality due to the long distance from the municipal seat and the ascending local population. The plea spells out that the town counted with nearly 700 "souls" and that within a radius of two leagues lived more than 3,700 people.
In recent decades, Atolinga's population has decreased due to emigration. Migrants from Atolinga can be found throughout the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, especially in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Atlanta, and the San Gabriel Valley
San Gabriel Valley
The San Gabriel Valley is one of the principal valleys of Southern California, United States. It lies to the east of Los Angeles, to the north of the Puente Hills, to the south of the San Gabriel Mountains, and west of the Inland Empire. It derives its name from the San Gabriel River that flows...
region of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Journalist Sam Quinones has written about such migrants in his book Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration.