[2] Pesqueira began his military career in the Texas Revolution under General José de Urrea[2] and participated in campaigns against the indigenous people of the north of Mexico, where he attracted the attention of the state government.

In 1856 an armed uprising was carried out commanded by Don Manuel Dávila in Ures against José de Aguilar Domínguez while Pesqueira was the Colonel Inspector of the National Guards as well as First Member and President of the Government Council.

[7] After Ignacio Comonfort announced the Plan of Tacubaya, trying to cancel the 1857 Mexican Constitution, he adopted the ideals of Benito Juárez who at that time was the incarnation of Law and the legitimate president of the country.

In addition to having suppressed a rebellion by Manuel María Gándara, he controlled the attacks of the rebellious tribes of Yaquis and Mayos and the Filibuster expeditions in Mexico [es].

Before continuing in the Reform War, in 1858, after a diplomatic conflict that varied in scale, the then American consul in Guaymas Don Roberto Rose had to leave the port, illegally appointing a vice-consul Fawelly Allden while the Sonoran authorities weren't informed about this.

As Ignacio Pesqueira and a handful of men began to mobilize and the Americans vice-versa, a letter from Richard S. Ewell and a last-minute decision settled matters between both countries.

[9] By 1860, he was once again in Sonora as he was forced by political and military events that demanded his presence, since his enemies had launched the indigenous tribes made up of the Yaquis, Mayos, Apaches, and Opatas into revolt and robbery.

At the beginning of 1861, tired of the revolts, he traveled again to Guaymas to the town of Tórim which was the epicenter of the Yaqui uprising, asking José Escalante y Moreno to take charge of the government.

Sonora, despite the immense distance from the theater where the initial events of the Second French intervention in Mexico took place, didn't want to participate without the honor of being represented in the Mexican Republican Army that was preparing to fight.

Pesqueira organized a contingent of a thousand men between two divisions, embarking in Guaymas in July 1862 to continue towards Mazatlán and from there join forces with the governor of Sinaloa bound for Mexico City.

Pesqueira managed to gather troops in Hermosillo but without financing, he had to go further into the state He then relocated to Ures, being attacked and defeated by pro-Imperialist forces and having to move to Tubac, Arizona.

Once restored, he returns to the fight and on September 4, 1866, defeated Edvard Emile Langberg at the Battle of Guadalupe and put an end to foreign intervention in Sonora.

The third constitutional Congress of the state was installed on November 28 and declared Pesqueira governor of Sonora and substitute for General Jesús García Morales.

Pesqueira resigned as governor to deal with another uprising of the Yaqui and Mayo peoples who, at the end of 1867, dissatisfied with the federal victory against the French, took up arms thinking that the Mexican Empire would return.

After some victories, in May 1868 the Revolution de los Ríos was believed to have ended, and the Military Commander, General Jesús García Morales, ordered the forces that were campaigning to withdraw in June.

By 1868, Pesqueira, already tired and wanting to attend to his personal business, retired from politics and left Manuel Monteverde Díaz in command, although on December 20 of that same year he had to take over the governorship again after several floods and disasters occurred in Álamos.

The fight between the candidacies of Benito Juárez and General Porfirio Díaz was very fierce throughout the country and even after it was over, it left a deep impression on the Republic and produced such discontent that it did not take long for the revolution to break out.

Due to revolts calling for General Porfirio Díaz's presidency having broken out in Mazatlán, the Sonora Legislature granted Pesqueira the power to help restore peace in Sinaloa on December 7.

The Sonora forces began their return march, Pesqueira went to Mazatlan and gave Rocha an account of his operations; on the 28th of the same month he landed in Guaymas and on June 6 he arrived in Ures.

This fact caused the citizen to lose faith in the institution as they had no hope of obtaining a path through suffrage and preferred to patiently resign themselves to undertaking a sterile struggle.

Since the rise of Conant in 1873, Pesqueira requested several and successive licenses to return to his permissions as it seems that he didn't want to govern and constantly left the position to substitute or provisional governors, especially to Joaquín M. Astiazarán.

Francisco Serna and Lizárraga, seeing the small forces that they had organized destroyed and losing their weapons and equipment and understanding the impossibility of recovering them on the border, fled to Tucson, Arizona, where they had allies to help them repair the losses suffered, making use of their own interests and their credit.

In the north, more and more people rose up in arms against the Sonoran government, so Don Francisco E. González took the city of Ures with men recruited in Rayón and Opodepe.

In December 1875, Ignacio Pesqueira marched towards Santa Cruz with about 300 men that he gathered in Arizpe to fight Francisco Serna and Juan Clímaco Escalante, who in view of that, both divided and withdrew.

Francisco Serna, knowing Pesqueira's intentions, took refuge in Arizona, however Escalante took the route south, participating in some minor battles and joining forces with local chiefs in Alamos .

Due to this contact, Don Antonio Palacio was given command of 200 men who took up arms in Hermosillo on December 1, 1876, and attacked General José V. Escalante who was in charge of only sixty which made the capture of the city quick.

Governor José J. Pesqueira asked the federal government for support to deal with said situation, so Jesús García Morales was assigned to defend the Guaymas plaza.

Pesqueira exercised absolute power for a period of 20 years in Sonora, for which his detractors considered him a dictator, however the great services he rendered to the liberal cause as a general more than legitimized his right to go down in history.