Papantla

History

Totonac groups founded Papantla around 1200, some of them arriving after the decline of the nearby city of El Tajín. The town became a leading center of Totonacapan, living from vanilla, cotton, cacao, honey and forest products. Moctezuma II later conquered it, and Papantla paid tribute to the Aztec Empire in cloth, chiles and maize.

After the conquest the Spanish quickly saw the value of vanilla, refounded the town as Santa María de la Asunción de Papantla, and began shipping the pods to Europe. Franciscans started the main church in the 1500s. As an alcaldía mayor, Papantla governed a wide stretch of what is now northern Veracruz. In 1785 Diego Ruiz stumbled on the ruins of El Tajín while searching for illegal tobacco fields.

During the War of Independence the Totonac leader Serafín Olarte fought in these hills from 1813 until his capture and execution in 1820. Italian colonists arrived in 1858 and, after a hard start, prospered with cattle and vanilla. Papantla became a city in 1910 and took the name Papantla de Olarte; it has been the seat of a diocese since 1922. In the 20th century Teodoro Cano, a disciple of Diego Rivera, filled the city with art honoring its Totonac roots.