In late 1535 Jujuy was the site of a confrontation between a party of
Diego de Almagro's expedition to Chile and local indigenous men. As the expedition's forces were concentrated in
Tupiza a small party was sent to
forage to Jujuy, a few expeditionaries were then killed which prompted
Diego de Almagro to dispatch a 80-men strong punitive expedition that dislodged hostile forces that had fortified in a
pucará in the Jujuy area. After previous attempts in 1565 and 1592, the current city was founded as
San Salvador de Velazco en el Valle de Jujuy on April 19, 1593, by Francisco de Argañarás y Murguía. The settlement initially developed as a strategic site on the mule trade route between
San Miguel de Tucumán and the silver mines in
Potosí,
Bolivia. Reaching its peak importance during the colonial period, San Salvador de Jujuy declined to the status of a remote provincial capital after the
Argentine Declaration of Independence in 1816. The town became the capital of Jujuy Province when the latter separated from
Salta Province in 1834. The
1863 Jujuy earthquake leveled the town, and it recovered slowly in the following decades. Jujuy began to grow following the arrival of the
Northern Central Railway in 1900. Its first institution of higher learning, the Economic Sciences Institute, was established in 1959, and was incorporated into the new
National University of Jujuy in 1973. The city was the location of a number of
Argentine films, including
Veronico Cruz (1988) and
Una estrella y dos cafés (2005). The city's impoverished Lower Azopardo neighborhood would later give rise to
Milagro Sala's
Indigenist Tupac Amaru Neighborhood Association. == Climate ==