Earliest Maya and Spanish

Cozumel's history alternates bursts of activity and years of obscurity. During the Post-Classic period, Cozumel was a sacred island and important trading center. Artifacts, especially pottery remnants of the female figure made in distant parts of Mesoamerica, were left by women who traveled from all over Quintana Roo to worship Ixchel at shrines throughout the jungle. At one time during the Caste War, the Talking Cross cult was active on the island. After that era the island existed undisturbed until 1517, when it was briefly visited by Juan de Grijalva, on a slave-hunting expedition from Cuba.

He was soon followed by Spaniard Hernán Cortés, who embarked on his history-changing course in 1518. Cortés used Cozumel as a staging area for his ships when he launched his successful assault on mainland Indians. It was here that Cortés first heard of Geronimo de Aguilar, a Spanish shipwreck survivor of several years before. Aguilar had been living as a slave with his Indian captors. One story claims that when he heard of Cortés's arrival, he swam 19 km from the mainland to meet him. Because of Aguilar's fluency in the Maya tongue, he became a valuable accomplice in Cortés's takeover of the Indians. Francisco
de Montejo also used Cozumel as a base in his war on the mainland. With the influx of Spaniards and accompanying diseases, the Maya all but disappeared. By 1570 the population had dropped to less than 300.

Chicle

Cozumel again became a center of activity when the chewing gum industry began to grow in the U.S. For centuries, the Maya had been satisfying their thirst by chewing raw sap from the zapote tree, which grows on Cozumel and throughout most of Central America. In the early 1900s, the developed world was introduced to this new sweet, bringing an economic boom to the Quintana Roo coast. New
shipping routes included Cozumel, one of the best harbors along the coast suitable for large ships. Several big companies made fortunes on the nickel pack of chewing gum, while the Indians who cut their way through the rugged jungle to tap the trees managed only subsistence. Because of these gum companies, however, obscure but magnificent jungle-covered ruins hidden deep in the forests were discovered, fascinating the urban explorers. This was the beginning of a large-scale interest in the Maya ruins by outsiders that continues into the present. At one time the only route to Cozumel was by ship from the Gulf of Mexico port of Progreso. Cozumel's shipping income dwindled
gradually as airstrips and air freight became common on the Peninsula. In addition, synthetics replaced hard-to-get chicle and are now used almost exclusively in the manufacture of chewing gum.

WW II and Cousteau

In 1942, as part of their defense network guarding the American continent, the U.S. government made an agreement to protect the coastline of Mexico. The American Army Corps of Engineers built an airstrip on Cozumel where the Allies also maintained a submarine base. After the war, the island returned to relative obscurity until 1961, when a TV documentary produced by oceanographer Jacques Cousteau introduced the magnificent underwater world that exists in and
around its live reefs. Since statehood in 1974, Quintana Roo (including
Cozumel) has enjoyed a rebirth into the world of tourism.

The Mexican government is making progress developing its beautiful Caribbean coast. For years it was believed that Cozumel itself would always maintain its pleasant small-town ambience, with just a smattering of tourism to add spice to the small island, and would never grow into a high-rise city; the water supply cannot support an enormous increase of people, and goods must be shipped from the mainland. But now the word is out, and the historical "Land of the Swallow" has a new desalinization plant and several new hotels.