Morelos

Morelos, officially called the Free and Sovereign State of Morelos, is a landlocked state in south-central Mexico. It is one of the country’s 32 federal entities. The state is divided into 36 municipalities, with Cuernavaca serving as its capital. It is the second-smallest state in Mexico, only larger than Tlaxcala. Morelos shares borders with Mexico City to the north, the State of México to the northeast and northwest, Puebla to the east, and Guerrero to the southwest.

Until 1869, Morelos was part of the much larger State of Mexico. That year, President Benito Juárez ordered its separation, naming it after José María Morelos y Pavón, who defended Cuautla from royalist forces during the Mexican War of Independence. Most of the state enjoys a warm climate year-round, which supports crops like sugar cane. Since Aztec times, people from the Valley of Mexico have visited Morelos. The state is known for the Chinelos, costumed dancers who appear at festivals, especially Carnival in several communities. It also contains the Monasteries on the slopes of Popocatépetl, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

**History**

**Pre-Hispanic period**

Historian Ward Barrett argued that the region now called Morelos has a physical unity that sets it apart from other parts of Mexico. Much of this comes from its geography: a basin where abundant water flows. When the Spanish arrived, they shifted local agriculture from subsistence maize and cotton to sugar cane and sugar refining in nearby mills. This system largely stayed in place until the Mexican Revolution.

The first human evidence in what is now Morelos dates to around 6000 B.C., showing nomadic hunters and gatherers in Yautepec and Chimalacatlan. Other early finds include clay jars and figures in Cuernavaca’s Gualupita neighborhood, plus three mounds in Santa María Ahuacatitlán that likely were house remains.

Francisco Plancarte y Navarrete, Cuernavaca’s second bishop (1898–1911), wrote *Tamoanchan—El Estado de Morelos y El Principio de la Civilizacion en Mexico* in 1911. He proposed that the first agriculturally based settlements in Mexico appeared around 1500 B.C. in a place called Tamoanchan, which he linked to Morelos. He wrote that Tamoanchan was not far from Teotihuacan, that travelers passed through Xumiltepec to get there, and that Tepuztecal and his companions discovered pulque in the Tamoanchan region. He insisted Tamoanchan was a real, not mythological, place.

The earliest identified culture in the area is the Olmec, dominant from 200 B.C. to about A.D. 500. Evidence appears in reliefs on Cantera Mountain in Chalcatzingo and in clay figures. After the Olmec period, several waves of migration came from the Valley of Mexico to the north. The Toltecs founded Mazatepec in A.D. 603. A second Toltec wave established the city-state of Xochicalco (City of Flowers). Their influence shows at Teotihuacan’s temple of Quetzalcoatl, with signs of Mayan, Mixtec, and Zapotec influences too. The last Toltec wave arrived in the 12th century, with two groups. First came the Xochimilcas, settling in Tetela, Hueyapan, Tepoztlán, and Xumiltepec. Shortly after, the Tlahuicas arrived and settled around Cuauhnáhuac (Cuernavaca) by 1250. Evidence suggests the Tlahuicas might have been expelled by the Xochimilcas if not protected by Xólotl, lord of Acolhua, who granted territory to Tochintecutli, the first lord of Cuauhnáhuac. The Tlahuicas are thought to be an offshoot of the Toltec-Chichimec Nahuatl-speaking group that had occupied the area since the seventh century.

The Tlahuica eventually became the dominant ethnic group in Morelos. They organized into about fifty small city-states, each with a hereditary ruler (tlatoani). Each city-state had a central town with a temple, plaza, palace, and surrounding countryside and villages. The largest were Cuauhnáhuac and Huaxtepec (Oaxtepec). These people had advanced astronomy and a highly developed agricultural system. They were known for growing cotton wherever land could be irrigated. Tlahuica women spun and wove cloth, which became important for exchange and tribute.

The Mexica (Aztecs) began arriving as early as 1398, but efforts to dominate the area started in the 1420s. In the 1420s and 1430s, Itzcoatl conquered Cuauhnáhuac and Xiutepec (Jiutepec). In the mid-15th century, other Morelos city-states attacked Aztec-held Cuauhnahuac, giving the Aztecs an excuse to conquer Yautepec, Tetlama, and other locations, eventually dominating the whole state. The area’s inclusion into the Aztec Empire was sealed when Aztec emperor Huitzilihuitl married Miahuaxochitl, daughter of Cuauhnáhuac’s lord. Their son became emperor Moctezuma Ilhuicamina. Conquered areas kept local political structures as long as they paid tribute, mostly in cotton items. However, in 1487 the Mexica replaced the rulers of Cuauhnahuac, Xochitepec, Tepoztlan, and Oaxtepec. The territory was divided into two tributary provinces, one centered on Cuauhnáhuac.