[2][4] The Pames, along with the Chichimeca-Jonaz of the Sierra Gorda in eastern Guanajuato, are the only two intact cultural groups "of all the peoples known collectively as Chichimecas" who have survived colonization.

[3] Prior to colonization, the Pame were traditionally traders who established relationships "with and even speaking the dialects of many other Indigenous groups" in the region.

"[3] In the early eighteenth century, Gerónimo de Labra, "a military man of the eighteenth century" who was assigned by the Spanish to be the "captain protector of the Indians of the Sierra Gorda," described the Ximpece, Pame, and Chichimeca Jonaz, described "the Ximpeces... of so docile nature that there is no tradition that persuades its conquest... the Pames are similar to the Ximpeces and more applied to the work and commerce with the Spanish and opposed to the Jonaces... the untameable rebellious Jonaces..."[5] Pame territory in the more rugged Sierra Gorda remained relatively "unreduced" in comparison, "til a belated conquest, by soldiers and Franciscans, in 1742.

As early as 1735, Escandón "undertook military campaigns against the Jonace and other Indians of the Sierra Gorda" for which he was awarded with the rank "colonel."

Escandón then "forced the Pame living in these areas to congregate near the missions by occasionally sending soldiers out to burn as many indigenous dwellings as they could find in the mountains.

Following what had now been decades of indoctrination attempts by missionaries and ongoing violence by Spanish military officers, Soriano confessed that "the Pame were still 'inclined to idolatry' and that virtually all of them still followed their own religious leaders and still practiced their traditional dances.

"[6] Francisco Palóu's account of the eighteenth century missionary period presents an image "in which the missionization of the Sierra Gorda was an unbridled success."

Palóu claimed that "there remained not a single pagan in that entire district, for all its inhabitants were baptized by my Venerable Padre [Juniper Serra] and his associates, and civilized, living in towns by the sound of the bell."

Finally, in 1770, "saying that it needed to devote all its available manpower to support the missions in the Californias," the colegio missionaries left the Sierra Gorda.

The migration of our brothers, due to lack of water and bad soils, has meant a rapid advance in the loss of our culture and in our uprooting."

The earliest Pame grammar was "composed by Juan Guadalupe Soriano" and dates from the 1760s, which was "well after Serra had left the Sierra Gorda.