After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and the subjugation of the local Chiapan people in 1528, the Dominicans constructed a monastery in nearby Tecpatán. There is no official founding date for Tuxtla, but it is known that the Dominican monks gathered dispersed Zoques into communities organized around churches in the 16th Century. A church dedicated to San Marcos (Saint Mark) was founded by the Dominicans for one of these communities in 1560.