Jo'otsuuk

Jo'otsuuk, later called Tihosuco, was a Maya centre of Cochuah on the route between Valladolid and Bacalar. Around 1544 Francisco de Montejo the Nephew conquered the district, bringing it into the encomienda system of tribute and service. Franciscans arrived in 1579 and made the town a religious teaching centre for neighbouring communities. By then Indigenous builders had already provided a masonry church.

During the later seventeenth century the town lay along a colonial frontier, with unconquered Maya settlements to the southeast. Its position and prosperity also attracted raiders. In 1686 the privateers Lorencillo and Agramont plundered and burned Tihosuco. By the middle eighteenth century it was the headquarters of Beneficios Altos and an important commercial centre. A historical study records 1,937 inhabitants in 1776 and identifies maize, beans, cotton, honey and livestock among its products. The town's colonial development therefore joined Maya labour and agricultural production to religious institutions, imposed obligations and the risks of a contested overland trading route.