In the 16th century, according to the testimony of Spanish friar Alonso Ponce, it was allegedly spoken along much of the Chiapas coast, including Tonalá, Pijijiapan, Mapastepec, Huixtla, Huehuetán, and Ayutla.
Tapachultec seems to have been termed Vebetlateca by Palacio in 1576, which probably refers to Huehuetán given that it was the chief town of the region in that era.
However according to Otto Shuman, a researcher of linguistics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the language was lost in the 1930s, during the reign of Chiapan Governor Victorico Grajales.
Grajales banned the use of indigenous languages in order to attempt to create a stronger bond between Chiapas and the rest of Mexico.
Tapachultec thus is possibly descended from languages spoken by those cultures, and may have been related to extinct varieties of the Pacific coast of Guatemala.