Papantlan

Papantlan was a Totonac town in the northern Veracruz lowlands, in the region of Totonacapan. Founded around 1200, it belonged to a league of towns headed by Tuzapan, and its forests yielded vanilla.

Moctezuma II's armies conquered Papantlan and attached it to the Aztec tributary province of Tochpan. After the Spanish conquest it was refounded as an administrative centre. In 1785 Diego Ruiz found the nearby ruins of El Tajín while searching for illicit tobacco; from 1813 to 1820 Serafín Olarte and his guerrillas fought in the region before he was captured and executed.