Axocopan

Axocopan was an Otomi polity in Teotlalpan, the arid region of the Mezquital Valley. Its Nahuatl name meant place of bitter waters. After the fall of Tula, Otomi and Nahua groups settled the region and formed small kingdoms.

In the later fourteenth century the Tepanecs of Azcapotzalco conquered these states. Axocopan retained its own rulers until it submitted during Moctezuma I’s expansion in the mid-fifteenth century. It became a strategic Aztec province; imperial control of the north was fully consolidated under Ahuitzotl in 1488.