they went. Those left to provide tribute were known in the Mexican highlands for their cotton shawls and decorated conch shells. The oldest document with Zihuatanejo�s name is called the Matricula de Tributos (Record of Tribute). Today the local dialect has been lost and the only trace of the native population is a small archaeological site that was explored by INAH in the 1990s.
The Spanish used the bay as a point of departure to explore the Pacific coast as well as a port for the first ships to sail to the Philippines, the Florida, the Espiritu Santo and the Santiago. These ships were ordered built by Hern�n Cort�s and offered to the Spanish king Carlos V. According to the chronicles written by Bernal D�az del Castillo, the ships were constructed here using Spanish carpenters and local wood. They left Zihuatanejo Bay on 31 October 1527 with Captain Alvaro de Saavedra y Cer�n. Only the Florida made it to the Asian islands, and neither the captain nor crew ever returned to Mexico.
The Ixtapa area was given to Anton Sanchez as an encomienda, with nearby Pochutla and Tamaloca as part of this arrangement. With the disappearance of the native population, fields and forests were worked by Spaniards, leaving little in the way of the colonial system which was prevalent in other parts of Mexico. The Spanish raised chocolate, cotton, vanilla and corn here; however the main export was tropical woods such as cedar, oak, walnut and others. Much of this was exported to Europe. Some gold was found here, mostly in an area in the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains in an area called Real de Guadalupe and areas north of the current municipality. During the colonial period, the Spanish galleons of Manila brought coconut trees to the area, which still flourish. They were the basis of the economy of the coast for some time. Few, if any, vestiges of the haciendas of the area remain, mostly because lasting constructions such as stone mansions or aqueducts were never built, as
