New explorers have ventured out to conquer Northern Mexico, with the province of New Spain established in the rest of the country.
One such is Francisco de Ibarra, born about 1539 (or perhaps earlier) in Eibar, Guipúzcoa, in the Basque Country of Spain.
Settlements begin to move north into the interior of the continent after the discovery of silver around Zacatecas, especially under the leadership of Ibarra.
Ibarra had gone to Mexico as a teenager, and upon the recommendation and financing of his uncle, conquistador and wealthy mine owner Diego de Ibarra, had been placed at the head of an expedition to explore northwest from Zacatecas in 1554.
The young Ibarra notes silver in the vicinity of present-day Fresnillo, but passes it by.
In the same year, however, other Spanish prospectors establish the silver-mining center of Guanajuato in one of the richest silver mining areas of Mexico, located in present Guanajuato state in central Mexico about one hundred and seventy-five miles (two hundred and eighty kilometers) northwest of Mexico City.
These mines are to prove so rich that the city will grow to be one of the most influential during the colonial period.
One of the mines, La Valenciana, will account for two-thirds of the world’s silver production at its height.
