page_title: Teotlalpan
section_title: Subsequent Uses
hierarchical_section_title: Teotlalpan / Subsequent Uses
caption_attribution_description: Español: Principales poblaciones al norte del Valle de México en la época prehispánica. Con triángulos se representan las cabeceras de las provincias tributarias, con círculos los dependientes; Metztitlan (con rombo) era un señorío independiente de la Excan Tlahtoloyan. Se hace la diferenciación con color; en negro las poblaciones que Sherburne Cook considera pertenecen a Teotlalpan (por espacio se pusieron solo 37 de 42), en rojo poblaciones consideradas por otros autores, en café poblaciones consideradas fuera de la región.
context_page_description: Teotlalpan was the pre-Columbian name of a region in the north of Valley of Mexico comprising what is today the Mezquital Valley in the state of Hidalgo and adjacent areas in the State of Mexico. The region was one of two regions settled by Otomí people, the other being the region around Jilotepec and Tula, Hidalgo. In the 18th century the name of the main part of the region came to be known as Mezquital.
context_section_description: When the viceregal authorities within its changing and varied choice to name the Mexican territory (encomienda, mayorazgo, alcaldía mayor, corregimiento, capitanía,  Etc.) are commissioned by the Spanish crown to develop a description of the territory, first from the clerical order with Archbishop Alonso de Montufar in 1570, who compiled from his friars the "Descripción del Arzobizpado de México" (see references below), then under the ordinance of King Philip II to develop the "Geographic relations" (Relaciones Geográficas) 1579 (some written in 1580 and 1582, the last until 1583), in both documents resorted to create the notion of "comarcas" (Term of use not clear during the 16th century) to designate small jurisdictions that showed some relationship (no historical support, rather was a criterion of neighborhood or proximity). Thus, in the absence of a better term, they used by simple logic the word Teotlalpan to demarcate indigenous towns inside north of the Valley of Mexico that showed more insulation populations and a drier environment.
  After these two works it is rare that we find authors using the word Teotlalpan which were completely fell into disuse before the mid-seventeenth century. In the early twentieth century Francisco del Paso y Troncoso republished the "Relaciones geográficas" he guess in his personal point of view (and actually without any analysis) that Teotlalpan existed as a well-constituted province. This approach is taken up in 1949 by Sherburne F. Cook who without being totally accurate considers that the Mezquital Valley is the "Teotlalpan".
  That ambiguity lasts and again in our days, for example, some authors  insist on using the term without delving into its basis and development, being actually only a geographical framework for describing the archaeological development in the area of Teotihuacan, Tula Xicocotitlan, Chupicuaro and Xajay cultures unrelated to the term Teotlalpan and Mezquital Valley.; mostly because the remains seem to have cultural relationship with the Otomi, dominant population in the region since time immemorial and it don't have relationship with nahuas. 
  Then so talk about a "Province Teotlalpan" in ancient times it is a fiction. The real tributary provinces formed during the Mexica expansion in the north were Hueypochtlan,  Axocopan, Xilotepec, Atotonilco. During the colonial period was named minor province to Teotlalpan until middle XVIII century, a big part of this land is known until now by the name of Valle del Mezquital.
  This demarcation was diluted in three decades after the Conquest of Mexico and it turned in the Colonial divisions. No one Indigenous document draw the demarcation of a region or province called Teotlalpan, just as there is no record of armed uprisings of the peoples from north of the central lakes, its population either by trade agreement or quick submission, they produced huge amounts of quicklime and textile fibers since Teotihuacan times.
  We should understand that the north was not important or priority for the Mexica state, hence the late consolidation; it wasn't also a threat because the people in the region did not form a unit or were part of some sort of confederation, another important factor is that the otomi people had maintained its independence through trade agreements and being allies of central power as well.
caption: Main towns in the north of the Valley of Mexico in pre-Hispanic times. With triangles, the headers of the tributary provinces are represented, with circles the dependents; Metztitlán (with rhombus) was an independent state (tlahtohcayotl) of the Excan Tlahtoloyan.
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