In the sense that a European culture bordered and penetrated a region of primitive Indian culture, the first significant frontier on this continent was Mexico's “Gran Chichimeca,” during the second half of the sixteenth century. In the plateau between the Mother Sierras, from Querétaro to Durango and from Guadalajara to Saltillo, a Spanish way of life, closely allied with the sedentary peoples subjugated by Cortés, first faced and solved many of the knotty problems in amalgamating civilization and barbarism. In the process, Spanish pioneers, ordinary colonists as well as frontier magnates, found spacious areńas in which to exhibit civilization's manners and techniques before an interested audience of heathen.