Querétaro (City)

Querétaro (City), capital of the modern state of Querétaro in Mexico. The town was founded in 1531 by combined Spanish and Indian forces, led by Hernán Pérez de Bocanegra and Hernando de Tapia. Querétaro achieved the status of a city in 1656, and by 1810 it was one of the largest cities of the realm, with an estimated population of 58,000. The population climbed to 88,424 by 1910 and was estimated at 734,139 in 2005.

The city of Querétaro was the commercial center for an active trade in cereals and wool products, which were shipped to the emerging mining towns of the north and the established cities of the south. Obrajes and the smaller trapiches were the typical sites of production for textiles. By the end of the eighteenth century, the city was one of the leading producers of textiles in the Americas. Cotton production increased in the nineteenth century, but overall textile production occupied a less prominent position in the local economy. In addition to textiles, the city contained a large royal tobacco factory in the eighteenth century. The modern period of industrial growth began after World War II, and by the 1960s Querétaro was producing automobile parts, farm implements, and food products for national and international markets.

With its size and wealth during the colonial period, the city supported the construction of many chapels, convents, and churches. Missionary efforts in the rugged northeastern mountains of the state, as well as in Texas and the Californias, relied on the religious institutions of the city for support. Junípero Serra and Francisco Palóu, both later to achieve fame in California, labored in the mission fields of northern Querétaro in the 1750s.

Querétaro has figured prominently in the political history of Mexico, beginning with the independence movement of 1808. It was the capital of Mexico in 1847 and 1848 during the Mexican-American War, the headquarters of Benito Juárez during La Reforma (the War of the Reform), the location of the capture and execution of Maximilian in 1867, and the site for the writing of the Mexican Constitution of 1917.

See alsoMexico: The Colonial Period; Mexico: 1810–1910; Mexico, Wars and Revolutions: The Reform.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For the early history of the city, see John C. Super, La vida en Querétaro durante la Colonia, 1531–1810. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1983. Andrew Hunter Whiteford analyzes social change in Querétaro in Two Cities of Latin America: A Comparative Description of Social Classes. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964.

Additional Bibliography

Couturier, Edith Boorstein. The Silver King: The Remarkable Life of the Count of Regla in Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003.

García Ugarte, Marta Eugenia. Breve historia de Querétaro. México: Colegio de México: Fideicomismo Historia de las Américas: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999.

García Ugarte, Marta Eugenia. Génesis del porvenir: Sociedad y política en Querétaro (1913–1940.) México: Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales/UNAM: Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1997.

Gunnarsdóttir, Ellen. Mexican Karismata: The Baroque Vocation of Francisca de Los Angeles, 1674–1744. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.

                                             John C. Super