Protective town of San Miguel and the Sanctuary of Jesús Nazareno de Atotonilco
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How it came to be
San Miguel was set up in the 16th century to protect the royal road between Mexico City and the silver mines to the north. Amid the war with the Chichimeca, it was re-established in 1555 at a defensible site with fresh-water springs. Its name comes from the friar Juan de San Miguel.
Rich from supplying the mining towns, the town built large mansions and churches in the 18th century as Mexican Baroque gave way to Neoclassicism. At Atotonilco, 14 km away, Father Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro blessed the first stone of a sanctuary in 1740. Antonio Martinez de Pocasangre spent about thirty years covering its interior with murals.
On 16 September 1810 Miguel Hidalgo took a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe from Atotonilco and led the insurgent army into San Miguel, one of the first scenes of Mexico's independence movement. In 1826 the town added the name of Ignacio Allende, an independence leader born there. It was inscribed in 2008.
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