Pedro Meoqui is a city Named after General Pedro Meoqui and is the seat of the municipality of Meoqui, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. As of 2010, the municipality had a total population of 22,574, up from 21,306 as of 2005. History The community of Meoqui was founded as a Franciscan mission town in the mid-seventeenth century. Was Fray Andrés Ramírez, a franciscan missionary, the recognized founder of Meoqui, arrived from San Antonio de Julimes as part of a larger effort to Christianize the Indians along the San Pedro River and began the development of the area along the San Pedro River, then inhabited by indigenous Conchos, Julimes, Navichames and Mezquites. The region was subject to the rule of the regional military presidios from the end of the 17th Century until 1773, when the Military Presidio of San Pablo was established. In 1771, Irish soldier and commander Hugo O'Conor, who had served in the Spanish Royal Army since 1750 and had distinguished himself as a military strategist in several of the Spanish colonies, was appointed Captain and assigned to the northern frontier of New Spain. On January 20, 1773, he was promoted to Colonel and appointed Commandant Inspector of Presidios for all of Nueva Viscaya. In 1773, Colonel O'Conor established the home base of his garrison, the 4th Flying Company, in the area, establishing the Presidio of San Pablo. From there, he led multiple campaigns further north in 1775 and 1776 to establish Spanish control over the area and pushing the Apaches further west. O’Conor and the Presidio commanders who followed him ruled the area politically until 1826, when the Presidio came under the political jurisdiction of San Jerónimo and began to function as an Ayuntamiento (town). In 1837 the town became part of the Rosales Subprefecture, ten years after the Rosales Canton was established. In 1886, the town was integrated into the Canton of Meoqui, and from 1887 to 1911 was part of the Camargo District. The name of the community and the surrounding municipality, adopted in 1866, is in honor of General Pedro Meoqui Mañon, a military leader from the city of Mexico. He participated in the Puebla campaign in Nueva México with Ignacio Comonfort; during the War of Reform he was active in the conservative ranks and participated in their Intervention. In 1864, when Meoqui Mañon was a colonel, he escorted Benito Juárez from Monterrey