Cozumel

History

The oldest traces of people on the island date from the first centuries CE. The Maya who settled it turned Cozumel into a trading post and into the main sanctuary of Ixchel, goddess of the moon, weaving, fertility and childbirth. The Maya name, Cuzamil, means "land of the swallows".

On May 3, 1518, a Spanish expedition from Cuba under Juan de Grijalva reached the island and named it Santa Cruz. Days later its chaplain, Juan Díaz, said the first documented Catholic mass on what is now Mexican soil. Hernán Cortés stopped here in February 1519 on his way to the mainland. As the Conquest shifted power and trade toward central Mexico, the once thriving island declined until it was nearly deserted.

That changed in 1848, when families fleeing the Caste War on the Yucatán Peninsula took refuge on Cozumel and founded San Miguel. By 1850 the twenty-one founding families had a town council, a justice of the peace and a civic guard, and for a time theirs was the only permanent settlement in what is now Quintana Roo.

When traditional livelihoods faltered in the mid 20th century, the island turned to tourism. The first tourist hotel opened around 1960, and cruise ships began calling regularly in the 1970s. Hurricane Wilma hit hard in October 2005, and the island recovered within a year.