Benito Juárez

Benito Juárez is a hamlet of 310 people (2020) in the municipality of Chiconcuautla, in Puebla's Sierra Norte, at about 1,650 m and some 13 km from Huauchinango. The photo shows the Chiconcuautla landscape.

Chiconcuautla's first settlers were Otomí; later it paid tribute to Texcoco, and in 1522 the Spanish subdued it. In 1750 it depended on the Huauchinango parish, and in 1895 it became a free municipality. In 1911, during the Revolution, it was the headquarters of the Francisco I. Madero Brigade, under generals Esteban, Eliano and Gaspar Márquez and other sierra leaders, who set up a workshop here to strike copper coins and a die for making weapons.

The municipality covers about 114 km² and borders Tlaola, Zacatlán, Tlapacoya and Ahuacatlán. Rain runs 1,400 to 2,100 mm a year, the climate is temperate or semi-warm and humid, and almost half the land is forest; the Zempoala and Tlaxco flow all year. Farmers grow maize, beans and coffee, avocados, tomatoes and serrano chillies. More than 7,000 people speak an indigenous language, mostly Nahuatl. People make pottery and wicker baskets, eat broth, broad-bean tamales and smoked or pressed chicken, and drink sierra coffee and yolixpa and huquiño fruit wines. The parish church of María Santísima in the seat dates from the 16th century.