<P> 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 Hernán Cortés and offered to the Spanish king Carlos V . According to the chronicles written by Bernal Díaz 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 Cerón . Only the Florida made it to the Asian islands, and neither the captain nor crew ever returned to Mexico . </P> <P> 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 they were in other parts of Mexico . These haciendas were generally owned by foreigners, such as the Inguarán company of France or by creoles . </P> <P> The town now known as Zihuatanejo was a fishing village, surrounded by large haciendas . Between 1680 and 1740 there are indications that the port was used for contraband trade; that is, for trade of arriving Asian products between New Spain and Peru, an interregional trade which had been forbidden . In the second half of the 16th century, the original Spanish shipyards at Zacatula burned . Unable to reconstruct them, new ones were built at Zihuatanejo . The surrounding haciendas occasionally used the bay as a port to ship wood and minerals . The bay was visited during the colonial period by many pirates . </P> <P> The municipality was spared involvement in the Mexican War of Independence, except for its use by José María Morelos y Pavón as a logistic port in 1811 . Morelos created the province of Tecpan, which included Zihuatanejo . </P>

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