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 Isla Mujeres has been inhabited for hundreds of years, as it was for the Mayas a sacred place where they went on pilgrimage to ask for the blessings of fertility godess Ixchel, so that women could become pregnant.
In that order of ideas they had adoratories for the godess and in them they would place small clay figurines representing pregnant women. This small figures are world famous and it is believed by arqueologists that they were portraits of the women themselves.
Mayans of the Post Classic Period came up into the north of the Yucatan Peninsula and built enormous cities that became City States and were ruled by kings and queens and at times developed long lasting dynasties, the ones that the Spaniards found when they-began conquering The Yucatan, were the Itzaes and the Cocomes, up to this very day you will find this last names on the people of the descendants of the Maya Civilization in the Yucatan.
 At time the enormous City States of Tikal, Palenque and Calakmul south in the Guatemalan and Campeche Jungles had collapsed, and trade by sea became the most important manner of exchanging exotic goods from one part of Meso America to another, jade, obsidian, gold objects, textiles cacao beans and such were transported in enormous canoes and they ventured as far as the southern reigns of Honduras, and even to some of the nearby Caribeean Islands, Cristopher Colombus did encounter such canoes and left a precise description on his memories.
The Spanish Conquest
After having conquered the islands in the Caribeean the Spaniards in Cuba began organizing exploring expeditions to look for new territories, in 1517, one of them Hernandez de Cordoba landed for the first time in Isla Mujeres, and actually from the temples and feminine idols he found, he baptized it with its actual name The Island of Women, or La Isla de Mujeres.
From here the Spaniards carried out more expeditions that led to the conquer and victory over the Aztec Empire in 1521.
The Island kept on being inhabited because it had good drinking water and it also had productive salt flats where salt was gathered each summer and traded for other goods, also Isla Mujeres has the b est and safest harbor in all the Yucatan Peninsula so over the years it was the home of traders and even those called pirates like Jean Laffite who spent his last years attacking the Spanish vessels in the Yucatan Channel, and had his ships moored in Isla Mujeres.
Afterwards, during the Spanish domain of Mexico and up to very recent years, 1940 - 1950 the Island became a prosperous fishing colony and from the years 1950 - 60 in the hight of the Hippie backpackers movement they are those who found and fell in love with the island it has been steadily visited first by travelers and now by tourists.
The Island was modernized in its educational facilities and public services like electricity and water and sewage plants in the 1970 and 1980 and is now a prosperous fishing village and tourist destination.
Learn more about our Isla Mujeres Diving Packages
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