Capulálpam de Méndez

History

The town's Zapotec name, Lachigahui, is read as plain of the nine guavas; Capulálpam is the Nahuatl name imposed under Mexica rule and refers to the capulín, the wild cherry tree common in these mountains. Accounts from the region say its people, together with those of Yahuiche, Ixtlán, and Lachatao, resisted the Spanish conquerors, and that a representative of Capulálpam took part in a first marking of land boundaries in 1521.

By the mid-17th century the town was an encomienda held by Juan Muñoz Cañedo and was made up of four neighborhoods that each paid tribute separately, a four-part structure that survives today. In 1775 the Dolores mine was discovered and the first hacienda for processing gold and silver in the district was set up. Spaniards began to move in, and mining became part of the town's identity, remembered today in its Monument to the Miner.

In colonial times the town was called San Mateo Capulálpam. In 1936 the state legislature renamed it for Miguel Méndez Hernández, a Oaxacan liberal born here who worked with Benito Juárez. The community still governs itself, its land, and its businesses through usos y costumbres. Its forests earned recognition from the World Wide Fund for Nature in 2002, Zapotec traditional healers organized here in 1995, and the town joined the Pueblos Mágicos program in 2007.