Exhacienda el Hospital

The village of El Hospital, about five kilometres from the centre of Cuautla, grew around a hacienda and took its name from it. In 1581 Viceroy Lorenzo Suárez de Mendoza granted land to the Brothers of San Hipólito to pay for the hospital at Oaxtepec, and the estate of Purísima Concepción has been known as "El Hospital" ever since. Part of those lands held a sugar mill that ran for roughly three centuries. In his history of Zapata, John Womack counts it among the harshest estates in Morelos even though it was smaller than its neighbours; around 1870 it grew at the expense of villages such as Anenecuilco, a land grab that fed the agrarian disputes of the Revolution. Later the main buildings were a piloncillo and alcohol works, a pigment plant and finally a BASF Mexicana factory. A resident of more than 80, interviewed by the Diario de Morelos, remembers the mill closing in the 1950s.

Today it is a village of some 2,400 people (2020 census), settled by families from Jantetelco, Tlayecac, Huichila and Ocuituco. What remains of the compound is the perimeter wall, a 17th-century chapel, bullet scars from the Revolution and the brick chimney (chacuaco) beside the entrance, 40 to 50 metres tall, partly collapsed so that the letters "CONC" show. The aqueduct is the most notable survivor: an INAH bulletin of 2025 gives its length as about 1,500 metres, says the Hippolytan brothers asked to build it in 1680, and dates the visible extensions to between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. It no longer carries water; the ENAH has been recording it since 2024, and the association AMVIAC has been restoring it with volunteer camps since 2019.

The hacienda is not a museum. Its closed areas are structurally unsafe, only the open grounds are used, and they are rented out for weddings and events. The village feast is on 8 December.