Gossypium hirsutum, the most widely planted cotton species, is a native Mexican shrub, cultivated in pre-Columbian time. Cotton, serape-like "tilma" aprons were woven on "backstrap looms," with one end tied around the weaver and the other hanging from a tree. Tilmas were bedding worn as a coat by the poor. Sixteenth-century colonists established a wool industry in Mexico, encouraging wool serapes, but in 19th century Spanish California, embroidered and velvet trimmed black cotton broadcloth serapes were a display of wealth.
Before the Conquistadors, the Tlaxcaltec were continuously warring with the Aztec, so they joined Cortez to overthrown Moctezuma. As Spanish allies and Catholic converts, Tlaxcaltec were awarded land as the Spanish conquered. Saltillo, at the southern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, was the northernmost outpost of New Spain in 1577. In 1591, 400 families of Tlaxcaltecs relocated to Saltillo, bringing Spanish sheep and the colonial weaving industry with them.
The Spanish introduced wool weaving in framed, rectangular horizontal looms that could produce a fine, tight, waterproof fabric, both soft and rugged. Just as medieval Spain prohibited export of its sheep breeds, the wool weaving secrets of Saltillo were also guarded. A serape required as much as two years to weave, and was an expensive purchase. The unique workmanship of hand-woven serapes preserved their high value past the mechanization of wool weaving. They were made by traditional craft as late as 1850.
Early Saltillo serapes featured central medallions in a diamond shape formed by two triangles joined when the two blankets of the serape were sewn together. Typical 19th-century designs were more complicated, and based on bright stripes of color on a neutral background, with the stripes criss-crossed by zigzags of stepped (stair step) color. Saltillo serapes were made of brightly colored vegetable dyes, but did not resemble the super-saturated hues of synthetic aniline dyes now used for the fabrics of mass produced souvenir serapes.
In 1910, the serape and the sombrero were rallying symbols of the Mexican Revolution, but in 1531, the "tilma" serape became a hybrid icon of colonialism and resistance. In December, a native Mexican baptized as Juan Diego reported that the Virgin asked him to build a church on Tepeyac Hill, now in metro Mexico City. When the stubborn bishop did not credit this report, the Virgin gave Juan Diego a bouquet of Spanish roses for the bishop in mid-winter. When Juan Diego opened his tilma to reveal the roses, the Virgin's image was among them.
