page_title: Cholula, Puebla
section_title: Colonial period
hierarchical_section_title: Cholula, Puebla / History / Colonial period
caption_attribution_description: English: The Cholula Codex from the mid 17th century on display at the Cholula pyramid site museum, Puebla, Mexico
context_page_description: Cholula, officially Cholula de Rivadavia is a city and district located in the center west of the state of Puebla, near Puebla City, in central Mexico. Cholula is best known for its Great Pyramid, with the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios sanctuary on top, as well as its numerous churches. The city and district are divided into two, San Pedro Cholula and San Andrés Cholula, which together are officially called the Distrito Cholula de Rivadavia. Surrounding the city proper is a number of more rural communities which belong to the municipalities of San Andrés and San Pedro. The city itself is divided into eighteen neighborhoods or barrios, each with a patron saint. This division has pre-Hispanic origins as does the division into two municipalities. The city is unified by a complicated system of shared religious responsibilities, called cargas, which function mostly to support a very busy calendar of saints' days and other festivals which occur in one part or another almost all year round. The most important of these festivals is that dedicated to the Virgin of the Remedies, the patron of the city in its entirety, which occurs at the beginning of September.
context_section_description: By the time the Spanish arrived, Cholula was a major religious and mercantile center, with the Quetzalcoatl Temple one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the central Mexican highlands. Hernán Cortés estimated that the city had 430 temples and about 20,000 homes in the center of the city with another 20,000 on the periphery. Cortés was attracted to the pastureland of the valley area, but while there was a great deal of irrigated farms, the city had a population of about 100,000 and overpopulation meant that many poor people often lacked food.
  Cortés had arrived to Cholula after the Spanish victory of the Tlaxcalans, and he was supposed to meet Moctezuma II here. Since Cholula was allied with the Aztecs, the Spanish and their new Tlaxcalan allies were suspicious of this arrangement. There are two accounts of what happened next. Spanish accounts tell of Cortés being warned through La Malinche of a plot to attack the Spanish. Cortés called the leaders of the city to the central square of the city where the Spanish were with their weapons.  On signal, the Spanish charged and killed as many as six thousand Chololtecs. However, the Aztec record states that the Spanish attack was unprovoked and there was no plot against them. The event is called the  Cholula Massacre, and it resulted in many deaths and destruction of much of the city.
  However, unlike many other pre-Hispanic cities, which were abandoned or destroyed before or immediately after the Conquest, Cholula has remained to this day. Nearby in the same valley the Spanish built the city of Puebla, which grew to prominence rapidly. Between this and an epidemic, which claimed much of its indigenous population, Cholula never recovered its former importance. The area was first divided into encomiendas, such as that of Andrés de Tapia who held the San Andrés portion. In 1531, the entire city became a "corregimiento" or area under direct control of the Spanish Crown.
  Cholula was given the status of a city in 1535, and granted a coat of arms in 1540 by Charles V. Over the colonial period, forty seven churches were constructed in the city. However, the division of the city along ethnic lines, would impact itself again. In 1714, the San Andrés sector of the city, where most of the indigenous people lived, petitioned to be separated from the San Pedro sector to become an "Indian republic," and it was granted. This gave this part of the city limited autonomy.
caption: Cholula Codex on display at the Pyramid site museum.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D60", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2011:01:23 13:41:38", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2314", "Image XPComment": "[32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, ... ]", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "21/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "320", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:01:23 13:41:38", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:01:23 13:41:38", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "24", "EXIF SubSecTime": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "30", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3872", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "36", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Hard", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4180"}