Warriors of the Zacatecas silver country — 'the best archers,' per contemporary accounts — who opened the Chichimeca War in 1550 and were devastated by war, enslavement, and starvation before the 1590 peace.
Population sharply reduced by 'la guerra, la esclavitud y la inanición' (war, slavery, and starvation) during the Chichimeca War; children were sent to Mexico City for Christian indoctrination and many adults enslaved. Survivors were absorbed into the Spanish/mixed mining-town economy of Zacatecas and neighboring settlements after the 1590 peace, ceasing to exist as a militarily/politically distinct nation within a few decades of pacification.
The standard scholarly monograph on the Chichimeca War, including the Zacateco role in triggering it in 1550, OL18510443W). Cited as the key source in the English Wikipedia Zacateco bibliography.
Primary 16th-century Spanish source on the Chichimeca peoples including the Zacateco. Verified to exist via Open Library (OL43870278W)
Stanford University Press monograph tracing the indigenous population of Zacatecas — Zacateco survivors and other native laborers drawn to the mines — from the exact 1546 founding date through the colonial period; directly covers the Zacateco's post-conquest fate.).