Ayoxuxtla

The Plan of Ayala was signed here, not in Ayala. Zapata meant to draft it in the Morelos town that gave it its name, but pressure from federal troops pushed his forces into the Mixteca highlands of Puebla, and he picked this village because hills shelter it and few natural routes lead in. From 26 to 28 November 1911, Zapata, Otilio Montaño and the leaders of the Liberation Army of the South debated and wrote the document, which demanded that land be returned to the peasants and broke with Madero. It was signed on the afternoon of the 27th and read out publicly the next morning; after the celebrations Zapata rode off towards Jolalpan.

The Nahuatl name means place where squash flowers abound. Before the Spanish conquest the area belonged to the Tlahuicas and later paid tribute to the Triple Alliance. A 1975 decree renamed it Ayoxuxtla de Zapata. On 28 November 1979, the plan's 68th anniversary, the church of San Marcos Evangelista was inaugurated, and that same year, the centenary of Zapata's birth, the area was declared a zone of historic monuments. It has been twinned with Ciudad Ayala since 2011.

The village has belonged to Huehuetlán el Chico since 1926, yet it is cut off from the rest of that municipality, hemmed in by Chiautla, Cohetzala and Jolalpan. It sits at about 1,000 m, had 562 residents in the 2020 census, and is reached by a single state road from Santa María Cohetzala; that isolation weighs on local living standards.

The earthquake of 19 September 2017 flattened most of the village, including homes, the church, the school and the community museum. INAH repaired the church, and in 2021-2022 the federal agency SEDATU had the Colectivo C733 build a new square joined to the main plaza under a 20 by 36 m roof, with six primary classrooms, a library and media room, a community dining hall and the restored museum, using 45 cm walls of local clay to keep out the heat. The museum holds a wooden table and a log on which, locals say, Zapata sat to dictate, along with musical instruments, rifles and photographs.