Teapa

History

According to the historian Manuel Gil y Sáenz, the first people of Teapa were Zoques, and the town is sometimes described as the Zoque capital. The Spanish called this region the Sierra de los Zoques. The name Teapa is usually read as 'river of stones', after one of the rivers that cross the town.

The first encomendero was the soldier and chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who is regarded as the founder. When he left for Guatemala the encomienda passed to Rodrigo de Grado, and a story says Díaz del Castillo later returned, found that Grado had been branding the native people, and fought him with swords. A formal town council dates from July 25, 1594. Fray Bartolomé de las Casas passed through in the 1540s on his way to Chiapas. Dominicans evangelized the area, and between 1715 and 1725 Franciscan missionaries built the churches of Santiago de Teapa and Tecomajiaca with stones from the river.

After independence Teapa stood out as a federalist stronghold. The government of Tabasco moved here when centralist forces held the capital, and in 1830 the state congress granted the title of Heroica Villa de Santiago de Teapa. It was provisional capital again in 1847 and in 1916, and it was from Teapa that congress renamed the state capital Villahermosa. Teapa became a Pueblo Mágico in 2023.