Marcelino Rodríguez

Until 1932 this village was called San Ignacio, after the sugar hacienda built on the banks of the Amatzinac River. The main building dates to around 1724, when it made panela, piloncillo and sugar; the Jesuits owned it until their expulsion in 1767, after which it passed to a hacendado from Tenango and then the García Icazbalceta family. Cane fields were set alight several times during the Revolution, and on 18 November 1913 the priest Prisciliano Espíritu was arrested with 26 others on charges of complicity. Afterwards the hacienda became a village and received ejido land.

The present name comes from Decree 58 of Governor Vicente Estrada Cajigal, published on 18 December 1932, which banned religious names for municipal auxiliary offices; about fifty Morelos communities were renamed. The village took the name of Marcelino Rodríguez, a Revolution-era officer who fought in the region, though many people still say San Ignacio.

Today it is known for figs, grown here and exported mainly to the United States and Canada. Morelos has about 600 hectares of fig trees, roughly 100 of them in Axochiapan. The patron feast of San Ignacio de Loyola falls on 31 July, with horse races, visits to the orchards and fig sweets.

North of the village lie mounds that Kenneth Hirth's 1974 survey ties to the largest pre-Hispanic city on the Amatzinac, about 40 hectares, which traded with Teotihuacan. Treat these as a study area, not a site open to visitors.

INEGI counted 2,223 people in 2020 (1,868 in 2010), at about 1,102 metres above sea level.