This was the space for informal gatherings with friends and relatives, where afternoons unfolded for families in New Spain. Mothers and daughters would embroider and perhaps decorate a miniature house resembling their own. As a pastime, they might play the guitar, vihuela, mandolin, or harpsichord, read aloud, and engage in the art of conversation.

This was the most luxurious room in the house, where the most distinguished guests were welcomed and honored. Its name comes from the wooden platforms—estrados—that were placed on the floor.

Women would gather here to embroider and enjoy chocolate, while men entertained themselves with card games, accompanied by snacks, aguardiente, and cigars. It was in a room like this where a meeting of the secret junta of San Miguel is believed to have taken place.

In 18th-century New Spain, few homes had a designated dining room. Meals were typically shared in the kitchen, bedrooms, antechamber, or any other convenient space in the house.

It wasn’t until the 1740s that a specific dining area became common. The Allende family’s antechamber may have hosted folding tables where meals were served during festive occasions and social gatherings. The fare could include dishes like chickens stuffed with almonds and fruits, roasted lamb, pork loin, olives, cheeses, empanadas, baked fruits, "huevos reales", pine nut paste, and flavored ices, accompanied by lemon or guava waters, Bordeaux wines, and other liquors.

Custom dictated that children were born in this room, which is why the bed was topped with a canopy that would be closed during childbirth and opened once the baby was born.

Cradles for the children and a bed for the nursemaid or nanny were also part of the furnishings.

Due to its location in the house, this room is likely to have been the bedroom of Doña María Ana Josefa de Unzaga, where she may have given birth to six of her children. As there are no parish records of her death in San Miguel nor a baptismal record for Mariana, the youngest of the Allende children, it is believed that Doña María Ana may have died in 1771 or 1772 in a nearby town, during or shortly after childbirth.

This room was most likely that of the head of the household, as it overlooks the central patio, the main entrance gate, and the principal staircase. As in the other bedrooms, the furnishings were limited to the essentials.

Unlike the kitchens in modest homes—where cooking was done over a hearth in the only room or out in the courtyard—the Allende household had a separate kitchen.

Here, the family enjoyed exquisite dishes such as "guisado prieto", Portuguese-style hens, or "turco" made from heirloom corn (cacahuazintle), along with countless sweets savored by Don Domingo, Doña María Ana, and their children.

The workday began at dawn, when servants cleaned the hearth and discarded the ashes. Duties of cooks, maids, and kitchen helpers included stoking the fire and filling clay pitchers or copper pots with water for the day’s cooking.
For a chicken stew, a hen would be selected from the house’s own coop, a cauldron used for butchering would be brought out, and small knives would be used to pluck the feathers. Ingredients for sauces and stews were ground using "metates", mortars, and "molcajetes". Aromatic cloves, spicy cinnamon, or exotic saffron were blended with cacao, chile, and tomatoes in delicate or daring combinations.

In the afternoon, chocolate was prepared and served with sweet breads and pastries arranged on serving trays.

This section explains the reasons why Allende and his allies began organizing secret meetings as early as 1809 and planning an armed uprising. It highlights Allende’s central role in the early stages of the War of Independence.

This gallery presents a collection of pre-Hispanic objects that reveal the ancient history of San Miguel de Allende. Its name comes from the Nahuatl word "Izcuinapan", meaning "water of dogs," the name given to the area’s first Indigenous settlement in the 16th century.

The exhibit includes 135 pieces—luxury items, hunting tools, and everyday objects—dating from 600 BCE to 1050 CE. This permanent exhibition offers insight into the daily life and cultural evolution of the groups that inhabited the Laja River basin, a crossroads for exchange among different ethnic groups in the Bajío region.
Among the pieces are ceramic objects, obsidian and green-blue stone tools, shell necklaces, and hunting instruments from archaeological sites such as Cruz del Palmar, Tierra Blanca, and Cañada de la Virgen. Two thousand artifacts were recovered by the Museo Histórico Casa de Allende, collected by local cultural promoter Miguel Malo Zozaya.

The gallery's curatorial script was developed by archaeologist Gabriela Zepeda García-Moreno of the INAH Guanajuato Center, and historian Alberto Aveleyra Talamantres. Exhibition design was by Marco Barrera Bassols, with support from the National Coordination of Museums and Exhibitions of INAH.