Los Otates  Los Otates is a Mexican city in the Actopan municipality, in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. The town of Los Otates, is located in the town of Actopan, in the central Veracruz state, its coordinates are 19° 31' 13.36" north of latitude and 96° 42' 54.87" west, and is at 540 meters above sea level. It has 1174 inhabitants (2006 census), of which 94% of the population is Catholic, 4% other religions and 2% belongs to none. Los Otates has all public services, drinking water, street lighting, garbage collection, paving, health center, church, library, cellular telephone service, public transport, schools and recreation areas. In ancient times, Los Otates was inhabited by a group of Totonacas. Archaeological remains have been found in la Capilla. Many of these archaeological pieces are made of ceramic (pottery) and obsidian stone (spears). In colonial times, in 1579 Xalapa neighbor Sebastian Diaz requested of the viceroy to acquire a ranch for beef cattle in the region of Chicu, Actopan and Atexcan. In 1600 this ranch was donated to Paul Gutierrez, Tecamachalco neighbor and later power passed to Don Roque de Cevallos Gutierrez, owner of Trapiche de la Concepcion (La Concha). Roque's heirs brought the ranch into bankruptcy as a result of loans from the church, drought, diseases and death of slaves and cattle. In 1692 the Holy Inquisition court recovered all assets of the mill of the Conception and it passed into the hands of the nuns of the convent of San Jeronimo in the city of Puebla. That same year Don Francisco Dominguez Muniz acquired this property, among others, to be used as a site for livestock called Cañada de los Otates. The Dominguez family retained the property until the grandchildren of Francisco Dominguez divided up their inheritance and each sold his share, except Catarina de la Oliva Dominguez who is left her part of about half site to the people who worked on the Otates estate. People with the surnames Palmeros, Barradas, Ortiz and others who disappeared from the area, were Spanish descendants. Later other surnames entered the area: Salazar, Rodriguez, Ávila, Lopez, Callejas, among others. All of these are surnames of families that currently make up the Otates population.