Axochiapan

Axochiapan was a Tlahuica community in the warm Amatzinac River valley of southeastern Morelos. Its Nahuatl name meant place of water flowers, after the white lilies in its ponds and streams. The Tlahuica were among the Nahua groups settling eastern Morelos from the early fourteenth century.

Axochiapan appeared in Mexica tribute rolls as a town of Tlalnahuac, a cotton-producing region subdued for the Aztec Empire under Moctezuma I around 1440. Spanish troops under Gonzalo de Sandoval overran the district in March 1521; Franciscan and later Augustinian friars built the first churches in the sixteenth century.