Zaachila

Zaachila, which the Mexica called Teotzapotlan, was the last great capital of the Zapotec after Monte Albán fell, and in its final centuries a place where Zapotec and Mixtec lords met and intermarried. Its rulers took their dynastic name from Zaachila Yoo, a king of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. Mixtec nobles took control of the valley before the Spanish arrived, and the stucco-adorned tombs found under its central mound, with their polychrome pottery, are believed to be those of Mixtec lords. Zaachila's lands sold salt, goldwork and cochineal dye, and it fought wars with Tututepec and Tlaxiaco.

Cosijoeza (c. 1450–1529), who took the throne in 1487, built the fortress of Guiengola on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec after the Aztec tlatoani Ahuitzotl marched on the Zapotec in the 1490s. The Mixtec king Dzahuindanda sent warriors to join Zaachila's army, and Guiengola withstood a seven-month siege. Peace was sealed with the marriage of Ahuitzotl's daughter to Cosijoeza, though some accounts say Zaachila itself was conquered in 1495 and paid tribute. Cosijoeza was buried in Zaachila, as Zapotec rulers were. His son Cosijopii, the last king, allied with Pedro de Alvarado after 1521 and moved his court to Guiengola.