History
It was the crown’s search for silver and slaves, and the church’s desire to proselytize, that brought the Spanish to this arid region.
The first explorers marched through the northeast as early as 1535, but the harsh conditions and incessant attacks by indigenous Chichimecs and, later, Apaches meant settlement and development came very slowly. Saltillo, the oldest town in northeast Mexico, was founded in 1577, and a few others took root before the end of the century, but widespread settlement didn’t come until the early 1800s. Ranching was the main economic activity, and a few large landowners, some commanding private cavalries, dominated affairs here.
Though the northeast played little part in early Mexican history, it was a key area of conflict with the US, and several important battles (all Mexican defeats) of the Mexican-American War (1846–48) were fought here. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war established the Río Bravo del Norte as the frontier between the two nations.
The discovery of petroleum, coal and natural gas and the arrival of the railroad accelerated development, and the region emerged as an industrial leader in the late 19th century.
Today this area is the most Americanized part of the country, with money and resources surging back and forth across the border. The Texas economy is particularly dependent on Mexican workers, while American investment was behind most of the maquiladoras (foreign-owned assembly-plant operations) that mushroomed here in the 1990s. Though cheap Asian labor has slowed the maquiladora march, the northeast’s cities continue to thrive.
