San Juan Guelavía is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico.

[1] San Juan Guelavia is on the river and one of the few communities in the valley that had historically set up irrigation canals.

[3] In 1539, Bartolome Sanchez was granted an estancia de granado mayor (permanent land holding rights) near what is now San Juan Guelavía.

[3] Guelavia's sixteenth century church has a large number of colonial-era santos, statues of Roman Catholic saints.

[5] After the war, Brito spent time in a prison in the Federal District of Mexico City before returning to San Juan Guelavia, where he established himself as a businessman running a store and also the local jefe strong man controlling the local communities through force of his armed followers.