Chapter 3 Extreme weather in New Spain and Guatemala: the Great Drought (1768–73)

The climate and its adverse effects

Both in Guatemala and New Spain between 1530 and 1819, we find hydrometeorological events (frosts, torrential rains, droughts, snowfalls) and agricultural threats (plagues of locusts), especially in the periods 1665–1700, 1730–50 and 1760–1807. The period with the most frequent and damaging occurrences was between 1760 and 1810,³ coinciding with the Maldá and Dalton oscillations (1790–1830).⁴ It is known that ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) is linked to climate behaviour and that, in its wet phase, it was reduced in different parts of the American continent between 1730 and 1850.⁵ The low-humidity phase reached a higher frequency, especially in 1760–69, 1780–89 and 1800–09, when the most extreme episodes of ENSO were recorded in Central America. Álvaro Guevara, Caroline A. Williams, Erica J. Hendy, Pablo Imbach (for Guatemala) and Galindo (for Mexico) show the existence of this link between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. However, their studies are limited to restricted areas such as San Cristobal de las Casas and Antigua Guatemala, Yucatan, Veracruz and Oaxaca (Map 3.1).⁶

Between 1750 and 1798, volcanic eruptions of magnitude 1–3 in Guatemala (Volcan de Fuego, 1750–51, 1799; Cerro Quemado and Tajumulco, 1765; Pacaya, 1757, 1775), San Salvador (Ilopango, 1765; Izalco, 1770, 1783, 1798; San Miguel, 1787) and Nicaragua (Momotombo, 1764; Masaya, 1772) also contributed to the emergence of droughts, agricultural plagues, epizootics and metabolic disruptions in the environment, since aerosols in the atmosphere altered solar luminosity and plant growth.⁷ Guatemala and New Spain had different connections between climates and economies, but neither region was exempt from storms and water shortages, which caused hardships among the population, epizootics and health problems. In 1768, José Antonio de Alzate said that the ‘slightest movement of the sky’ – referring to droughts and frosts – was the cause of agricultural and livestock decline, hunger, disease and economic ruin in New Spain.⁸ Found in New Spain and Guatemalan chronicles, stories and periodicals, this kind of statement warned that the climate was a changing phenomenon. Its most apparent manifestations were water scarcity during the farming season, frost and cold during harvest time, droughts and random storms, and the formation of agricultural pests with adverse effects on plants and other living beings.⁹

During the eighteenth century, the inhabitants of Guatemala and New Spain depended primarily on corn and beans to survive. Its pre-eminence stemmed from the ease with which it was cultivated in different latitudes, as read in a report from the province of Yucatan: ‘Maize is the maintenance of the country, which is produced with very little work. This is reduced to opening a small hole with a stick and pouring in the grain, proceeding to sow the burning of the firewood or grass that the milpa grows’.¹⁰ In Guatemala, Indigenous families allocated two ropes of land annually (i.e., 800 m²) to grow corn and beans and satisfy their needs, as well as generate certain reserves.¹¹ In New Spain, ‘each Indian is more than supported with 4 bushels of corn each week which, reduced to loads made up of 12 each, comprise 17 loads and 4 bushels a year’.¹² However, in adverse weather conditions, crops failed, food problems emerged and diseases reached unprecedented proportions.

The ‘mother of all evils’

Reconstructing the meteorological conditions in Guatemala and New Spain in the second half of the eighteenth century implies referring to the constant occurrence of low humidity or drought. Also called the ‘silent elephant’, the ‘scourge of the poor’ or the ‘mother of all evils’, it damaged the life cycle of numerous animal and plant species and directly influenced agricultural activities. For the people of the eighteenth century, there were more than six words to refer to this phenomenon: sequía, seca, sequedad, secura, sed and sequeral. It is striking that all these terms conjure up an image of the effects of low humidity on the physical environment and human beings. For example, Don Vicente Calvo y Julián’s Discurso Político, Rústico y Legal defined drought as a long season in which ‘the crops fail … without water and with hot air … and where the farmers cannot find wages …’.¹³ Several treatises and memorials linked the droughts with their economic and social effects: ‘the disease of animals and plants is caused by a great drought or a great heat that dries up the grass on which the animals take their sustenance and deprives plants of their nutrients …; ‘drought makes people fear the lack of bread … and it is known that the lack of bread is the sign of restlessness of miserable people …’; ‘drought is a problem that affects, mainly, the fields, the jaws and the mouth …’.¹⁴

These notions about moisture scarcity bore a direct relationship with the agricultural cycle of the settlements. In Guatemala, people considered the temporada de lluvias (rainy season) or humedad (humidity) an ideal time for crops to grow and germinate, which was directly related to the época invernal or inverno (winter), which started in May and ended in October. In this regard, a note published in the Gazeta de Guatemala in 1802 pointed out that ‘if, in the province of Verapaz, the winter continues to be favourable, the harvest will be very abundant …’. For its part, a testimonial from the province of León warned that ‘there is some shortage of maise because although the plantings were copious, many were rendered useless by the waters and winter winds …’.¹⁵ In contrast, the temporada seca (dry season) or poco fecunda (unfertile) was perceived as a time for people to till the land and prepare their crops and was linked to verano (summer): a cycle that began in November and ended in April. Regarding the latter, the alcalde of Quetzaltenango wrote in 1801 that in ‘summer the rains are scarce … so the cobs cannot be of good or regular size … the only thing left to do is to cut those that are called mulquito, which because of their smallness they have endured the dry summer …’. Years later, the alcalde of Totonicapan recommended that all repairs to the Zacapulas bridge be carried out ‘in the dry season, also known as summer, so that the work can be perfected … and take advantage of the fact that the river runs down almost without water …’.¹⁶

In New Spain, the agricultural cycle was subject to the rainy season between May and October, and a dry season from November to April. In this regard, Ignacio Galindo observes that the dry season could become an outright drought.¹⁷ In Yucatan, during the rainy season – which in the Mayan language is known as akyaabil – there were intra-summer droughts or heat waves, which in the Mayan language is called kinlan, meaning ‘great heat’.¹⁸ Therefore, knowing these propitious times for rainfed agriculture, farmers began to prepare the land for sowing in April. However, the dry season occasionally lasted up to thirty days, which aroused fear among the population. It was well known that these lags could make the difference between a good or bad harvest and complete loss in the worst-case scenario. When the dry season prolonged in time and space, discussions about drought emerged among the population, leading to speeches, demonstrations and omens related to hunger, disease, famine and misfortune.

In this regard, the works by Álvaro Guevara, Caroline A. Williams, Erica J. Hendy and Pablo Imbach suggest that the bulk of the droughts that impacted the captaincy of Guatemala between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries have to do with the presence of ENSO and atmospheric oscillations. These studies have been formulated based on mathematical projections and historical observations. Although proposing novel interpretative horizons, these works address limited spaces, such as San Cristóbal de las Casas and Antigua Guatemala. Thus, it is necessary to broaden the scope of research, complementing the drought index with documents deposited in civil and ecclesiastical archives of Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. For New Spain, Ignacio Galindo also uses quantitative variables and historical sources to demonstrate that droughts occurred during the ENSO seasons, as well as a lag and increase in torrential rains in regions with deficient rainfall. Specifically, for Yucatán, Veracruz and Oaxaca, he shows that the intra-summer droughts resulted from global climatic dynamics.¹⁹

To produce more accurate knowledge of the droughts in the captaincy of Guatemala and the viceroyalty of New Spain, we examined written sources for each of these regions. For Guatemala, we took up the Álvaro Guevara Index and the records made by Robert Claxton and other documentary research. For New Spain, our primary source was the historical catalogue of agricultural disasters in Mexico by Virginia García Acosta, Manuel Pérez Zevallos and América Molina del Villar. This compilation of historical records provides a panoramic view of the climatic conditions in the different regions of that vast colonial territory. The preceding sources made it possible to form a database of drought episodes from 1640 to 1819. We established this timeframe based on the possibilities offered by documentary records, as well as our interest in examining meteorological phenomena in one of the most troubled periods of the late LIA. Next, we systematised the quali-quantitative data according to temporal sequences and content categories. At the same time, we created an index to classify the intensity of each drought episode, taking climatic, agricultural, economic and religious factors, among others, into account. The index values are (1) episodes with dry conditions; (2) episodes with very dry conditions; (3) episodes with extremely dry conditions (Table 3.1).

Graph 3.1 shows fifty-two droughts in the captaincy of Guatemala. Not a single decade escaped their effects. One can also note an increase during the eighteenth century. There was a higher concentration of droughts in Guatemala in 1660–69, 1690–99, 1720–29, 1730–39, 1760–69, 1770–79 and 1780–89. Graph 3.2 shows 110 droughts in New Spain, most of them occurring in 1640–49, 1660–69, 1720–29, 1740–49, 1750–59, 1760–69, 1770–79, 1780–89, 1790–99 and 1800–09. Here we argue that these numbers indicate not only a greater incidence of droughts but also a greater concern of the authorities to document their emergence and the damage generated in the environment and the economy.

These results suggest a correlation between the number of droughts and the global climatic effects of the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715) and the Maldá and Dalton Oscillations (1790–1830) in Guatemala in 1670–99 and 1780–89, and in New Spain in 1640–49, 1660–69 and 1760–1809. They also confirm that the eighteenth century began with low temperatures and a proliferation of droughts but, over time, attained a certain stability in its atmospheric conditions. Finally, our figures show that the last four decades of the eighteenth century were a period of cold, snowfall, heat, drought and storms, both in Guatemala and New Spain. From the early nineteenth century, there was a reduction in drought occurrences, biological threats and atmospheric disturbances.

Graph 3.3 represents the 162 droughts (combining Guatemala and New Spain), classifying them according to intensity. It shows a similarity between the most severe occurrences in the two regions: in Guatemala, the decades of 1640–49, 1650–59, 1660–69, 1760–69 and 1790–99; and in New Spain, 1640–49, 1650–59, 1660–69, 1760–69, 1780–89, 1790–99 and 1800–09. Combined with the numbers in Graph 3.1, these results reveal that in Guatemala, between 1640 and 1659, there were three extremely catastrophic droughts. On the other hand, between 1710 and 1729, the eight episodes barely reached minimum values of affectation, such as crop deterioration, seed shortage or reduction of streams of water, on regional and local scales. A unique period was between 1760 and 1779, with fifteen very dry and extremely dry droughts. In New Spain, between 1640 and 1669, eighteen droughts were recorded, most of them intense, indicating that the Maunder pulsation was felt very intensely. In the eighteenth century, 1760–99 and 1800–09 stand out with forty-two droughts, most of them of high intensity. These latest droughts coincide temporally with those in the viceroyalties of Perú, Río de la Plata and New Granada and the territories of Louisiana and Florida, signs of an anomalous and uneven climate that caused significant food problems.²¹

Graph 3.3 shows that 27 per cent of the droughts were extremely dry, 33 per cent were very dry and 38 per cent had minimal effects. Often accompanied by biological hazards, the droughts of maximum intensity impacted agriculture and the regional economy of several provinces.²² They disrupted the life cycle of plant and animal species – some of which were vital to containing soil erosion – triggering the emergence of insect pests, causing suffering to human groups from diseases due to changes in diet and immune system. To ponder the scope of these phenomena, we will now zoom in on the drought of 1768–73, one of the most severe of the eighteenth century.

Drought and crisis

Between 1768 and 1773, the captaincy of Guatemala experienced low levels of moisture in the eastern and central parts of Chiapas, the west and the highlands of Guatemala, as well as in the western portion of the province of San Salvador.²³ The first meteorological disturbances were felt between June and December 1768, with complaints from several towns in the Chiapas districts of Guardanía de Huitiupan, Zoques and Llanos about the lack of rainfall and excessive heat. At the same time, the authorities received reports of outbreaks of hunger, disease and human displacement in the mountains. The records of the alcaldía mayor of Ciudad Real and the death records of 1769 show the effects of ‘great drought, poverty and disease’ in the Cañada de Chilón. Some pueblos recorded the population shrinking: in Yajalón and Bachajón, around 30 and 46 per cent, respectively; in the Chol zone, 37 per cent in Petalcingo and 24 per cent in Tila.²⁴ Between 1769 and 1771, the alcaldías mayores of Tuxtla and Ciudad Real reported a reduction of about 4,401 taxpayers due to drought-related death or migration. In the Tuxtla alone, the numbers of dead and absent inhabitants amounted to 1,433 taxpayers, with the most affected pueblos being Tapalapa, Pantepeque, Coapilla, Copainala, Ocotepeque, Chicoazintepeque, Tuxtla, Chiapa, Zayula, Ystapanjoya and Sunuapa. Ciudad Real saw an increase of 2,965 taxpayers, the most affected pueblos being Acatepeque, Huistan, Ystacolcot, Totolapa, Acala, San Bartolomé, Socoltenango, Chiquimuzelo, Teopisca, Amatenango, Tumbala, Tila, Palenque, Petalcingo and Amatan.²⁵

In New Spain, the southeastern region comprising Yucatán (provinces of Yucatán, Tabasco and Campeche), Veracruz and Oaxaca felt intense impacts of the great drought. Oaxaca (1766) and Yucatán (1767) were the first provinces to report scarce rains. In 1768, a ‘considerable drought’ in the district caused epizootics.²⁶ The milpas did not suffer from the phenomenon, as they had already matured; in fact, it was so copious that no one among the inhabitants had seen such successful harvests.²⁷ In Oaxaca, the reports on the common-use resources of the towns located in the Mixteca Baja and in the jurisdictions of Teposcolula, Coixtlahuaca, Yanhuitlán and Tetitepeque warn of the adverse effects of droughts and frosts.²⁸

However, these events were just the prelude to a great calamity, as 1769 proved to be a catastrophic year for the governorate of Yucatán and Oaxaca. Heat waves – explained by some as ‘a punishment of burning suns’ – and locust plagues combined with drought to destroy spontaneous vegetation and crops. Between 1770 and 1773, there were episodes of drought in Yucatán (1770 and 1773), Oaxaca (1770 and 1771) and Veracruz (1770, 1771 and 1773).²⁹ The great drought of 1770 caused – along with the locusts – the ruin of crops, food shortage, migration, hunger, disease and death in Yucatan. In Oaxaca, most of the province suffered from drought, even in the central valleys, the most fertile lands in the region and the least likely to suffer from it. However, the jurisdictions of Teposcolula, Yanhuitlán, Juxtlahuaca and Nochixlán were the ones that suffered the most extreme impacts of the drought, as stated by some of the alcaldes mayores: ‘in the last three years [1769, 1770 and 1771] one has experienced such a great dryness due to lack of rain that the crops have been completely lost’.³⁰ This forced some inhabitants to abandon their pueblos to not die of hunger. As far as Veracruz is concerned, however, the drought barely impacted the harvests.

The civil and religious authorities observed the lack of rain with great concern, as they were aware of its effects on agriculture, the tributes derived from it, and the general social behaviour. Following Enlightenment principles, civil officials and religious ministers took several measures to alert the population about the drought and provide means to alleviate it. In the captaincy of Guatemala, the bishop of Chiapas, Juan Manuel García de Vargas de Rivera, issued two cordilleras (letters) between 1769 and 1770: one intended to promote small-scale agriculture, meet the needs of the parishioners and mitigate food shortages, the other asked the parish priests to prepare population counts, record the havoc and seek mitigating measures.³¹ Archbishop Pedro Cortés y Larraz insisted on attending parish emergencies and evaluating the drought’s consequences in tithes. In places such as Santa Ana Malactán (Huehuetenango), as well as in the province of Sacatepequez, maize harvests were affected, cattle herds declined, and parishioners and inhabitants fled – some even went to Tabasco, in New Spain.³²

The death records of various parishes in western and central Guatemala corroborate the drought’s ravages during the 1768–70 period. In the town of Santiago Atitlan, district of Sololá, the sources show that for every 100 infants born in 1769, 83 died; meanwhile, the tax records reveal that of every 100 taxpayers, 25 died, and 10 were absent. To this must be added the death of ten widowers and five retired. One observed an equally harrowing panorama in San Cristóbal Totonicapan, district of Totonicapan, where records show that hunger and disease caused the death of 129 children, 72 taxpayers, 12 retired and two widowers in 1769. In San Cristóbal Palín, district of Escuintla, 1769 was a particularly chaotic year as it experienced a very high mortality rate: 94 children and 60 taxpayers. This situation was so anomalous that the Republic of Indians did not hesitate to contact the archbishop of Guatemala to request a deduction in tithes because of hunger, poverty and disease.³³ In 1770, the government of the captaincy requested reports from the alcaldes of Chiapas, Totonicapan, Suchitepeques, Chimaltenango, Sololá, Escuintla and Chiquimula, urging them to take steps against the hoarding of seeds, food shortage and inflation.³⁴ The meteorological conditions of 1770–71 were once again extremely dry and harmed the economy of the mitra and the Royal Appellate Court. The situation worsened and the drought-affected area was ever larger, being particularly intense in the provinces of Chiapas, Totonicapan, Quetzaltenango and Chiquimula; so much so that the 1769–71 triennium was referred to as the ‘period of hunger, disease and remnant’.³⁵

In the viceroyalty of New Spain, the droughts were also a matter of interest for civil and religious authorities. However, the New Spanish clergy was not as informed by enlightened principles as in the kingdom of Guatemala. As far as the sources show it, the intervention of New Spanish ecclesiastics was limited to the spiritual realm, that is, prayers, processions and novenas; and sometimes to charity.³⁶ On the other hand, the alcaldes and governors of Indian pueblos acted to restore order, encourage agriculture and sort the shortage of seeds by buying and storing grain, prohibiting the hoarding of grain by middlemen, promoting extemporaneous planting and punishing thieves. In Yucatan, Governor Antonio de Olivier stored 8,000 loads of maize – rationing its sale in the alhóndiga – requested agricultural reports, punished rustlers and thieves, and controlled food prices. Undoubtedly, the most effective measure – later emulated by the alcaldes of Tabasco and Campeche – was the obligation of extemporaneous planting imposed on Indians, creoles, mulattoes and mestizos, who were ordered to plant sixty mecates of milpas each, on pain of being accused of vagrancy and expelled from the province.³⁷ In January 1770, the alcalde of Teposcolula (Oaxaca) issued an edict establishing economic and physical punishments for those who ‘extracted’ seeds:

Due to the fact that the harvest last year and this year was very scarce, for which the price has increased every day and that the extraction of said seeds outside this jurisdiction, both by some neighbours and by foreigners, can be a cause that all the public of it suffer greater detriment, prejudice and total scarcity, I order that no person dares to extract or remove seeds of wheat and maise […]. Prohibiting that they sell to the merchants under the penalties imposed on the offenders, being of Spanish quality, that of three times the value of what they sold or extracted. And to the mestizos, mulattoes and Indians, that of two months in prison and fifty whippings in the pillory that, inevitably, they will experience for the first time, and for the second time, the sentence doubled in one and the other.³⁸

Although the severity of the drought was extensively recorded through these legal instruments, it was also documented in prayers, as well as documents about forced migration and food shortages. The prayers for rain were acts of public faith in which parishioners and religious and political authorities participated to implore divine help. From a spiritual point of view, ‘turning to God in great need, invoking his help in the midst of tribulation, trusting in his omnipotence and begging him to look mercifully on our misfortunes is prescribed by religion, mandated by morality, and demanded by Christian character’.³⁹ For this reason, one finds masses, sermons, public processions and novenas dedicated to Our Lady of Socorro, in Guatemala, and to the Virgin Mary and that of Izamal, in New Spain.⁴⁰ These prayers intended to make the congregation aware of the divine character of droughts, finding their causes and amendments, requiring ‘acknowledging sins, confessing crimes, asking for mercy and trusting in obtaining it. This is the end of prayers and sermons: turn to mercy and wait for the wrath of God to appease’.⁴¹

Population displacements were another consequence of the drought. In the short span of three years, pueblos in Chiapas and Guatemala experienced remarkable decreases in tax registrars. Between 1769 and 1772, San Juan Chamula, San Andrés Ixtacolcot, Santa María Tolotepeque, Santiago Huistan, San Miguel Pinula, San Andrés Yagaguita, San Francisco de Moyos, Chiquimula and Chicumuselo saw their populations decrease, either due to death or migration caused by hunger and misery. Unable to go after those who had left due to a lack of resources and, especially, food to support them if they returned, the Spanish and Indigenous authorities recognised that the situation stemmed from the ‘great drought that has come from 1769 to today … and that has caused much hunger, disease and poverty … to the extent that the pueblos do not have utensils or beasts since they have sold all their necessities’.⁴² In 1771, it was impossible to collect the tribute in the alcalde mayor of Chiquimula in 1770 and the province of Suchitepequez. In this context, civil and ecclesiastical authorities urged the people to restore agricultural work to mitigate the ‘hunger that causes serious illnesses’ and avoid migration, using common-use resources and feeding the sick.⁴³

In the Guatemalan provinces, the aftermath of the drought also brought death, fear and hunger. In the ‘Quadrant of the parish of the Holy Spirit of Quetzaltenango and its four annexes’, in the years of ‘hunger and disease’, around 800 individuals – among ‘infants, taxpayers and ladinos’ – died without being able to cover burial expenses and the ringing of bells. Fear of drought drove the powerful men of Quetzaltenango to pay for masses to be sung to protect their properties from the threat. Ignacio de Urbina, for example, paid two pastures and ten pieces of farmland for twenty-three sung masses in favour of his haciendas (Porras and Tzalamcoch) between the months of September and December in 1770, 1771 and 1772.⁴⁴

In New Spain, the drought also caused population displacement, health problems and death, as well as the collapse of agricultural, economic and social structures. In Yucatán, Campeche, Tabasco and Oaxaca, migration began in 1769, escalating to a massive exodus to pueblos, haciendas and other provinces the following year. Stopping these migrations and restoring order implied repatriation and encouraging agriculture with the support of the Church. In the governorate of Yucatán, vagrant and beggar Indians were assigned personal services in cities, fields and haciendas. However, sending the Indians back to their villages and reactivating agriculture was impossible as they were not always found or refused to return due to the lack of maize.⁴⁵

Other evidence of the drought’s severity was the news about food shortages and requests from towns to be exempt from paying taxes. The experience in the province of Chiapas in 1772 is very revealing. Despite the government’s promotion of additional plantings and measures to regulate the seed trade, hunger and disease continued to take their toll. In some places, plantings were made in marginal, unsuitable land, which resulted in wasted seed. Moreover, the drought (indirectly) prevented the growth of grasses and herbs, which directly impacted some animal species. Several reports from Yajalón reveal that, given the scarcity of grains and stubble, the natives stopped ‘maintaining their usual trade of raising pigs and chickens …’. Something similar happened in Ocosingo, Tumbala and Palenque, where justice officials reported that there were neither horseshoe nor farm beasts, as they had died due to lack of pasture or because the natives ate them to satisfy their hunger.⁴⁶

This intense drought affected the interests of all social and economic sectors, including the most powerful. Several of the wealthiest men in the province of Chiapas suffered from the lack of humidity. For example, Manuel Esponda y Olaechea, captain of the second company of militias and commander of the arms of Chiapas, stressed that during ‘the years of hunger … of 69, 70 and 71 …’, his grandfather lost numerous crops and interests in the haciendas Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria and San Antonio, located in the district of Ixtacomitan, a situation for which ‘the Tuxtla district was afflicted … and its wealth sacrificed to Christian charity, maintaining more than a thousand beggars daily, without which he expended in healing and assisting the sick. And he was charged with the subsistence and life of innumerable vassals who had inevitably perished …’.⁴⁷ The Church also experienced problems. The archbishopric of Guatemala detected a considerable reduction in tithes as the drought progressed. In the district of Suchitepequez, the tithe contractor reported the loss of 75 per cent of agricultural production. This situation directly affected the contract: while in 1768, it had been assessed at 1,900 pesos, in 1772, it did not exceed the expectations of collecting the minimum amount of 500 pesos in fruits and cattle. The ravages of the drought reached the point that several parish priests from the vicarage of Huehuetenango requested the archbishop of Guatemala that the alcaldes suspend for several years the repartimientos and deals they carried out in the Indian pueblos due to the misfortunes faced by the parishioners due to the ‘dry conditions and diseases that have affected them in recent years …’.⁴⁸

These testimonies show how officials, religious authorities and landowners coped with the drought’s ravages. However, the most significant damages were felt in the Indian pueblos, with the loss of grain, lack of food supplies and epizootics, while the towns and cities demanded the provision of seeds, price reductions and punishments for the hoarders. To contain this social outcry, in 1770, Bishop García de Vargas requested the prosecution of landowners who withheld maize to make gains with inflated prices. He also encouraged parish priests and parishioners to denounce the haciendas and pueblos that hid their surpluses so one could distribute this food among those most in need. For its part, Guatemala’s Audiencia asked the priests not to demand contributions and services from the pueblos, given their extreme poverty. According to the experience of 1769–70, ‘a drought had left these miserable people unable to do the bare minimum because of the deplorable state in which the few that have remained find themselves, since they can barely look to maintain their lives, as they have absolutely nothing left … For which one asks in favour of the miserable Indians of this province, who always and today more than ever are worthy of greater compassion …’. In the curate of Zacapa, due to the ‘deep scarcity’, people suffered the drought’s impact on their communal economy. They stopped delivering to the church a weekly dieta comprising four bushels of maize, two dozen chickens, two dozen eggs, a hundredweight of cocoa, a bunch of bananas, three bushels of beans, three loads of grass, two loads of firewood, twenty slabs of chocolate, thirty pitchers of water and two Indians millers.⁴⁹

In New Spain, food shortages were no less severe. Not surprisingly, 1770 was labelled ‘the year of hunger’ – the worst of the eighteenth century,⁵⁰ as shown by evidence for Yucatan, Campeche and Tabasco. Curates such as Maxcanu (Camino Real), Octún (Beneficios), Temax (La Costa), Chemaco (Valladolid), Muna (Sierra) and Guadalupe (Mérida) experienced famine. The population was forced to consume all kinds of plants, roots and tree bark (some poisonous) that left them ill. The bodies of those deceased were left to putrefy in fields and mountains, where they were devoured by dogs and owls. Considered unclean by the Church, the meat of donkeys, horses, dogs and other animals were also eaten. But the most shocking was the practice of cannibalism, especially when infants and suckling children became food for their mothers. Some confessors were imprisoned. Many of the hungry, sick and needy arrived in the cities, begging for help in the churches. However, the number exceeded the capacities of the parish priests, who closed the doors, so most of the beggars expired without help. The corpses lay in the streets and were taken in carts to the ditches that served as cemeteries. This panorama explains why the number of dead men, women and children reached 70,000, a figure that contrasts with that of Mexico’s Audiencia in 1774, which reported 23,830 (considering taxpayers only).⁵¹

In this context of famine, the countryside and the city saw their peace disturbed. In rural areas, the drought exacerbated banditry, cattle rustling, food theft and the destruction of maize fields in haciendas. In the city, vagrancy, begging and robbery from private homes prevailed, acts that demanded quick solutions from the authorities. To restore order, there were discussions about the penalties and punishments for ‘criminals’. While some recommended issuing a single general proclamation, the typology of crimes made this proposal unfeasible, so various kinds of punishment were applied: whipping, public shaming, galleys or mines and, in the case of recidivism, hanging.⁵²

Even the most privileged social groups – Crown officials, clerics, landowners, ranchers and encomenderos – felt the impact of the drought. The clergy stopped receiving the payment of parish perquisites as well as all kinds of emoluments, and the parish priests saw themselves deprived of the personal services performed by the natives. The ranchers – some of whom acted as royal officials or encomenderos – experienced economic ruin, as the province’s total cattle herd was reduced from 150,000 to 200,000 in 1770 to 32,000 in 1773.⁵³ The same fate befell the encomenderos, whose income relied on Indigenous labour. In 1774, they were part of a delegation requesting the king’s forgiveness of their fiscal obligations, arguing absolute poverty caused by the flight of their encomendados.⁵⁴ But without a doubt, the most impacted sector was made up primarily of Indians, but also some Spaniards, castas, mestizos and blacks. They were forced to put up goods such as land and even their clothes for sale to buy food; they tore down their humble homes to harness the wood as fuel; and, in the worst cases, they lost their lives.

Among the most striking evidence of the ravages wreaked by the drought are the tribute-exemption pleas of the pueblos of Guatemala and New Spain to the Crown. Demographic decline, disruption of crops and common-use areas, and the debts accumulated during the drought were all claimed as justification. In 1772, the Royal Audiencia of Guatemala informed the alcalde of Ciudad Real that, due to the ‘sterility, lack of food and mortality that the Chiapas province’ was experiencing, it was fair and reasonable to extend a pardon of ‘two-thirds of tributes for the 36 towns of that Alcalde Mayor’.⁵⁵ In New Spain, Yucatán, Tabasco, Campeche, Oaxaca and Veracruz experienced a drastic decrease in tribute collection after 1769, and the pueblos appealed to the Royal Audience requesting extensions, deductions, or exemptions from paying their tributes. In the Yucatan governorate, tribute collection was a resounding failure, as no town or neighbourhood was able to fully cover their obligations between 1768 and 1774. There was no collection in 1770 whatsoever and, in 1771, barely 1,363 pesos 1 real were collected, despite the hiring of special collectors for the Indian escapees. In Campeche, 259 pesos 3 tomines were collected in 1770, and only 190 pesos 5 tomines in 1771. This was due to ‘the few taxpayers that have been known to exist, after the famine and plague suffered, and many died and others who have gone to the mountains as refugees’.⁵⁶ In Tabasco, a debt of 3,575 pesos 12 reales 3 tomines was recorded in 1770, while in the alcalde mayor of Xalapa (Veracruz), 6,861 pesos 2-and-a-half tomines were forgiven between 1767 and 1771. In 1774, the disaster forced the Crown to forgive the tribute debt – corresponding to four years (1769–74) – amounting to almost 70,000 pesos. Even in these tragic circumstances and with the pardon approved, Diego de Lanz, an official royal accountant based in Campeche, demanded that the natives of the province pay 50,000 pesos.

These measures were unprecedented in the history of the Hispanic monarchy and can only be explained in the context of a severe environmental crisis. The effects of the drought of 1768–73 materialised through numerous physical, social and economic events resulting from the meteorological pulsations conjoined with the attitudes and actions of royal authorities, landowners and the pueblos to face the contingencies. Parallel to the drought, other natural phenomena fell on these spaces and contributed to the misfortune, such as the locust plague that wreaked havoc in the rural areas, deteriorating agroecosystems and triggering economic and social crises.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have outlined a panoramic vision of the climatic conditions in the captaincy of Guatemala and the viceroyalty of New Spain throughout the eighteenth century, as well as in the shorter period between 1768 and 1773. Zooming in on this particular period allowed us to document and analyse one of the most adverse climatic anomalies ever occurring in the regions studied – more intense even than the one recorded in the 1780s. The great drought of 1768–73 resulted from complex atmospheric processes, including the drop in global temperatures and the cooling of air currents that were becoming less and less intense. We have shown that the drought unfolded in a particular geography, including the central and western highlands of Guatemala, the eastern and central portions of Chiapas and the western part of the province of San Salvador, while, in New Spain, the southeastern fringe was the most affected region – the provinces of Yucatán, Campeche, Tabasco, Veracruz and Oaxaca. The drought was characterised by specific temporalities and dynamics, as well as a particularly severe intensity, disrupting agricultural cycles and food production chains, accelerating soil erosion, and upsetting the interests of all social groups. The evidence indicates that the drought impacted the material base of the wealthy and the poor alike, even though the latter – most prominently the Indian pueblos and ladino settlements – bore the most devastating effects, such as food scarcity, desolation, disease, migration and death. Meanwhile, the towns and cities suffered the drought’s ravages in the form of shortages, famine, begging, disease and social discontent.

If this chapter contributes anything, this is the attempt to document and analyse an atmospheric phenomenon that conditioned the life of various provinces of Guatemala and New Spain during the second half of the eighteenth century. The 1768–73 drought demands further research, especially in Central American archives, relying on the methods and techniques of historical climatology and the explanatory arguments from the field of history. Thus, a joint research horizon can be envisioned at the intersection between the social and the environmental sciences, a cooperation that will undoubtedly augment the possibilities of better understanding the historical processes connecting the natural world and human social groups and institutions. The droughts that occurred in the kingdom of Guatemala and the viceroyalty of New Spain during the second half of the eighteenth century reveal the complex relations between humans and climate. People’s central task was to adapt and survive in the face of environmental transformations, with the climate displaying its physical complexities and imposing itself as a natural-historical element in the human world.

Notes

1. 1. Climatic fluctuation recorded in the Mediterranean was ‘a prolonged period of time in which climatic conditions are accentuated and acquire a simultaneous frequency in different types of phenomena not experienced in equal intensity in the last 500 years’, see Mariano Barriendos & Carmen Llasat, ‘El caso de la anomalía “Maldá” en la cuenca mediterránea occidental (1760–1800). Un ejemplo de fuerte variabilidad climática’. In: Armando Alberola Romá & Jorge Olcina Cantos (eds.) Desastre natural, vida cotidiana y religiosidad popular en la España moderna y contemporánea. Alicante, Universidad de Alicante, 2009, 253–86.

2. 2. Murdo MacLeod, J., Historia socio-económica de la América Central Española, 1520–1720, second edition, Guatemala, Piedra Santa, 1990; Enrique Florescano (ed.), Breve historia de las sequías en México. Mexico, CONACULTA, 2000.

3. 3. Robert H. Claxton & Alan D. Hecht, ‘Climatic and human history in Europe and Latin America: an opportunity for comparative study’, Climatic Change 1 (1978), 195–203; Robert H. Claxton, ‘Weather-based hazards in Guatemala’, West Georgia College Studies in the Social Sciences 25 (1986), 139–63; Christopher H. Lutz, Santiago de Guatemala, 1541–1773 city, caste and colonial experience. Norman, OK, University of Oklahoma, 1994, 243–50.

4. 4. The Dalton Oscillation is the period of sunspot decline, the last cold period of the LIA, which is usually dated between 1790 and 1830; see Jürg Luterbacher & Gerard van der Scrier, ‘Circulation dynamics and its influence on European and Mediterranean January-April climate over the past half millennium: results and insights from instrumental data, documentary evidence and coupled climate models’, Climate Change 101, no. 1 (2010), 201–34.

5. 5. Joëlle L. Gergis & Anthony M. Fowler, ‘A history of ENSO events since A.D. 1525: implications for future climate change’, Climatic Change 92 (2009), 343–87.

6. 6. Ignacio Galindo, ‘La oscilación del sur, El Niño: el caso de México’. In: Enrique Florescano (ed.) Breve historia de las sequías en México. Mexico, CONACULTA, 2000, 128–9. Appendix.

7. 7. Richardson B. Gill & Jerome P. Keating, ‘Volcanism and Mesoamerican archaelogy’, Ancient Mesoamerica 13, no. 1 (2002), 125–40; Bertrand Cédric, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele & André Berger, ‘Volcanic and solar impacts on climate since 1700’, Climate Dynamics 15 (1999), 355–67.

8. 8. José Antonio de Alzate, Gacetas de literatura de México, volume IV, Puebla, Impresas en la oficina del Hospital de San Pedro, 1831, 30.

9. 9. Domingo Juarros, Maury A. Bromsen, Alberto Parreño & Francisco de Beltranena, Compendio de la historia de la ciudad de Guatemala. Guatemala, Ignacio Beteta, 1808; Pedro Cortés y Larráz, Descripción geográfico-moral de la Diócesis de Goathemala. Madrid, Corpus Hispanorum de Pace, Segunda serie, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, [1700] 2001.

10. 10. Informe sobre Campeche y Yucatán, 1766, Archivo del Museo Naval (hereafter AMN), Virreinato de México, Volume IV, Manuscript 570, Document 13, fs. 362f–362v.

11. 11. Francisco de Solano, Tierra y sociedad en el reino de Guatemala. Ciudad de Guatemala, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, 1977, 24–40.

12. 12. Informe, 1766, f. 361v.

13. 13. Discurso político, rústico y legal sobre labores, ganados y plantíos en el cual se intentan persuadir los considerables beneficios que resultarán a esta Monarquía de la unión y concordia de aquellos tres hermanos donde conviene o disconviene su aumento y dilatación, las causas supuestas y verdaderas de su decadencia, los medios para lograr su restablecimiento y los abusos que lo detienen. Compuesto por el doctor don Vicente Calvo y Julián, noble de Aragón, abogado de los reales Consejos, presidente y fiscal de la Academia de Abogados de Zaragoza y opositor a prebendas doctorales. Madrid, en la oficina de Antonio Marín, 1770, ff. 17, 68.

14. 14. ‘Veterinaria o albeiteria, (1782)’, Hemeroteca Digital de la Biblioteca Nacional de España (hereafter HDBNE), Correo literario de la Europa, no. 53; Biblioteca Nacional de España (hereafter BNE), Fondo Biblioteca Digital Hispánica, Memoria sobre la policía y régimen de los abastos de la ciudad de Santiago, 1786, f. 44; Manual para entender y hablar el castellano por el padre fray Francisco Guijarro, 1796, f. 95.

15. 15. ‘Estado de las siembras y precios de granos, (1802)’, Biblioteca Nettie Lee Benson (hereafter BNLB), Benson Latin American Collection, LAC-Z Rare Books, GZ 972.81 G258, Gazeta de Guatemala, no. 267.

16. 16. Informe del alcalde mayor de Quetzaltenango sobre el estado de las cosechas, (1801), Archivo General de Centroamerica (hereafter AGCA), A1.11, leg. 2450, exp. 18878; Informe del alcalde mayor de Totonicapan sobre los daños en el puente de Zacapulas, (1807), AGCA, A1, leg, 5910, exp. 50545.

17. 17. Galindo, 2000, 126.

18. 18. Paola Peniche Moreno, Tiempos aciagos. Las calamidades y el cambio social del siglo XVIII entre los mayas de Yucatán. Mexico, CIESAS/Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 2010, 53.

19. 19. Galindo, 2000, 128–9.

20. 20. Elaboration by Luis Alberto Arrioja Díaz Viruell based on historical sources, Álvaro Guevara-Murua, Caroline A. Williams, Erica J. Hendy & Pablo Imbach, ‘300 years of hydrological records and societal responses to droughts floods on the Pacific Coast of Central America’, Climate of the Past 14 (2018), 175–91, DOI:10.5194/cp-14-175-2018,2018; Robert H. Claxton, ‘Weather-based hazards in Guatemala’, West Georgia College Studies in the Social Sciences 25 (1986), 139–63; Virginia García Acosta, Juan Manuel Pérez Zevallos & América Molina del Villar, Desastres agrícolas en México. Catálogo histórico: Épocas prehispánica y colonial (958–1822), Volume I, Mexico DF, CIESAS, 2003; Compendio de la historia de Guatemala, Volume I, Ciudad de Guatemala, Imprenta de Ignacio Beteta, 1808; Pedro Cortés y Larráz, Descripción geográfico-moral de la Diócesis de Goathemala. San Salvador, El Salvador, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2000.

21. 21. Papeles de la Luisiana, Vol. III, BNE, Fondo Biblioteca Digital Hispánica, Manuscripts, 19248, ff. 113–17, 130–33.

22. 22. Florescano, 2000, 28–31.

23. 23. See the balance sheet and drought analysis in Guevara-Murua et al., 2018, 175–91.

24. 24. Relación de pueblos en la provincia de Chiapas, 1769, AGCA, A3, leg. 300, exp. 4058-5; Libro de defunciones de Santiago Apostol Yajalón, 1720–1818, Family Search, Mexico, Chiapas, Registros parroquiales y diocesanos, 1557–1978; Libro de defunciones de San Jerónimo Bachajón, 1768–1823, Family Search, Mexico, Chiapas, Registros parroquiales y diocesanos, 1557–1978; Libro de defunciones de Tila, 1747–1796, Family Search, Mexico, Chiapas, Registros parroquiales y diocesanos, 1557–1978; Libro de defunciones de Petalcingo, 1741–1808, Family Search, Mexico, Chiapas, Registros parroquiales y diocesanos, 1557–1978.

25. 25. Tadashi Obara-Saeki & Juan Pedro Viqueira Alban, El arte de contar tributarios, 1560–1821. Mexico City, El Colegio de México, 2017, 496–504, 584–98.

26. 26. Carta de Pedro de Urriola, 27 de Diciembre de 1768, Archivo General de Indias (hereafter AGI), Mexico 3054.

27. 27. Carta de Cristóbal de Zayas sobre la carestía en Yucatán, 11 de agosto de 1767, AGI, Mexico, 3054.

28. 28. Libro de cuentas de los bienes de comunidad del pueblo de Santa María Tataltepec, 1721–82, Archivo Histórico del Poder Judicial de Oaxaca (hereafter AHPJO), Teposcolula, Civil, leg. 23, exp. 18, Libro de cuentas de cargo y descargo de San Miguel Adeque, 1762–83, AHPJO, Teposcolula, Civil, leg. 38, exp. 9.

29. 29. Deuda de pesos a favor de Cristóbal de San Andrés Sinastla, 1770, AHPJO, Teposcolula, Civil, Deuda de pesos, leg. 37, exp. 23, fs. 1–7; Libro de cuentas de cargo y descargo de San Miguel Adeque, 1771, AHPJO, Teposcolula, Civil, leg. 38, exp. 9; Carta de Pedro Gorrindo sobre siembra de tabaco y escasez de maíz, 26 de abril de 1770, Archivo General de la Nación (hereafter AGN), Alcaldes mayores, volume 1, exp. 265, fs. 380–82.

30. 30. Relación de méritos de Jacinto Pérez de Arroyo, alcalde mayor de Juxtlahuaca, 1771, AGN, Alcaldes mayores, volume 13, exp. 20, fs. 199f, 238v; Carta del cabildo de Antequera para el virrey Croix sobre la escasez de semillas en la alhóndiga por la falta de lluvias, 1769, AGN, Indiferente virreinal, caja 6151, exp. 61.

31. 31. Los nativos de Yajalon piden providencias para la destrucción de las plagas de langosta, 1769–70, AGCA, A1.22.8, leg. 1, exp. 10; Cordillera para que los curas animen a los feligreses a fomentar sus sementeras, 1770–71, Archivo Histórico Diocesano de San Cristóbal (hereafter AHDSC), Fondo diocesano, carpeta 3690, exp. 9; Informe de Marcos Novelo sobre el hambre y peste que sufre Palenque, 1770–71, AHDSC, Fondo diocesano, carpeta 1678, exp. 1.

32. 32. Pedro Cortés y Larráz, Descripción geográfico-moral de la diócesis de Goathemala. Madrid, Corpus Hispanorum de Pace. Segunda Serie. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, [1770] 2001, 367–8, 371, 409–10; Archivo Histórico de Arzobispado de Guatemala (hereafter AHAG), Archivo Parroquial de Nuestra Señora de Candelaria, Libro de la cofradía de Nuestra Señora del Carmen de la Ermita, f. 12.

33. 33. Libro de defunciones de San Cristóbal Palín, (1743–1846), Family Search, Guatemala, Registros parroquiales y diocesanos (1581–1977), Escuintla, Palín, Defunciones, 1743–1846. Una experiencia muy semejante ocurrió en los pueblos de Jilotepeque, San Antonio de Padua, Momostenango y Sololá; Libro de defunciones de San Martín Jilotepeque, (1681–1776), Family Search, Guatemala, Registros parroquiales y diocesanos (1581–1977), Chimaltenango, Jilotepeque, San Martín Obispo, Defunciones, 1681–1776.

34. 34. Informe sobre la situación que se vive en los pueblos de Chiapa, 1770–71, AHDSC, Fondo diocesano, carpeta 3965, exp. 31.

35. 35. Informe del cura de Copainala sobre los decesos causados entre 1769–71, Family Search, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Cofradías y Cordilleras, 1702–71, leg. 2. One mecate was the equivalent to 400 square metres.

36. 36. Solicitud de exención de tributos por esterilidad de los tiempos en la Mixteca Baja, 1780, AGN, Tributos, volume 48, exp. 4.

37. 37. Informe de Antonio de Oliver sobre el estado de la provincia de Yucatán y las medidas para reactivar la agricultura (1773), AGI, Mexico 3018.

38. 38. Bando de Joseph Mariano Cárdenas, alcalde mayor de Teposcolula, 1771, AHPJO, Teposcolula, Civil, leg. 38, exp. 7. f. 1.

39. 39. Armando Alberola Romá, ‘La cultura de la supervivencia: carencias y excesos hídricos en la Huerta de Alicante (siglos XV-XVIII)’. In: Carles Sanchis-Ibor, Guillermo Palau Salvador, Ignasi Mangue Alféres & Luis Pablo Martínez Sanmartin (eds.) Proceedings irrigation, society, landscape: international conference tribute to Thomas V. Glick. Valencia, Universitat Politécnica de Valencia, 2014, 362–76.

40. 40. Testimonio sobre la falta de tributarios en la provincia de Yucatán, 1774, AGI, Mexico, 3057.

41. 41. Novena de la Gloriosa Virgen y Mártir Santa Irene. Ciudad de Guatemala, Imprenta de Joaquín de Arévalo, 1772.

42. 42. Informes sobre la situación de los pueblos de Chiapas, 1772, AGCA, AI.I0, 648.42; Solicitud de la Real Audiencia de Guatemala para que el obispo de Chiapas no visite a su diócesis, 1770, Family Search, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Cofradías y cordilleras, 1702–71, leg. 2.

43. 43. Informe del alcalde mayor de Chiquimula sobre colecta de tributos, 1769, AGCA, A3, leg. 2843, s/e; Cuaderno de circulares giradas por el ayuntamiento de la ciudad de Guatemala sobre el exterminio de la plaga de langosta, 1771, AGCA, A1.2, leg. 2820, exp. 24984; Comunicación del cura de Jutiapa a los pueblos de su vicaria, 1769, AHAG, Diocesano, Secretaria de gobierno, Providencias, no. 103.

44. 44. Libro del cuadrante del gasto y recibo de este curato del Espíritu Santo de Quetzaltenango y sus cuatro anexos, 1770–84, AGCA, A4.21. The Ladino Indians were an Indigenous sector that learned to speak, read and write in Spanish; some of them were cultural intermediaries and political negotiators. See Yanna Yannakakis, El arte de estar en medio. Intermediarios indígenas, identidad india y régimen local en la Oaxaca Colonial, Mexico, El Colegio de Michoacán, 2012.

45. 45. Autos sobre suspensión de cobro de tributos en pueblos de Teposcolula, 1772, AGN, Tributos, volume 52, exp. 14.

46. 46. Informe de la situación de los pueblos de Ocosingo y Tumbala, 1771–72, AHDSC, Fondo diocesano, carpeta 3695, exp. 31.

47. 47. Composición de los señores Esponda por capitales piadosos, 1806, AHDSC, Fondo diocesano, carpeta 3339 expediente 3; Expediente sobre el embargo de una hacienda en Ixtacomitan, 1774, Family Search, Chiapas, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Cofradías y cordilleras, 1743–1812, leg. 1.

48. 48. Misivas de varios curas de la vicaría de Huehuetenango, 1771, AHAG, Diocesano, Secretaria de gobierno, curatos Huehuetenango, exp. 116, s/f.

49. 49. Cordillera del obispo García de Vargas sobre los problemas que se enfrentan en la diócesis, 1770, AHDSC, Fondo diocesano, carpeta 3965, exp. 3; Solicitud de la Real Audiencia de Guatemala para que el obispo de Chiapas no realice la visita a su diócesis, 1770, Family Search, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Cofradías y cordilleras, 1702–71, leg. 2; Misivas de varios curas de la vicaría de Huehuetenango, 1771, AHAG, Diocesano, Secretaria de gobierno, Vicaria de Zacapa, s/e.

50. 50. Peniche Moreno, 2010, 171.

51. 51. Testimonio de los autos de la falta de tributarios en Yucatán, 1770, AGI, Mexico, 3057; Informe del Ayuntamiento de Mérida sobre la mortandad de tributarios a causa de la langosta, 1774, AGI, Mexico, 3057.

52. 52. Documentos pertenecientes al expediente de escasez de granos en Yucatán, 1770, AGN, Indiferente virreinal, caja 5989, exp. 16.

53. 53. Informe del Ayuntamiento sobre la provincia de Yucatán, 1770, AGI, Mexico, 3018; Respuesta del Ayuntamiento de Mérida al Consejo de Indias sobre el estado de la provincia, 1774, Biblioteca del Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia (hereafter BMNAH), Archivo de Microfilm, ‘Antonio Pompa y Pompa’, Yucatán, rollo 2, s/f.

54. 54. Informe de Antonio de Oliver sobre el estado de la provincia de Yucatán y las medidas para reactivar la agricultura, (1775), AGI, Mexico, 3057.

55. 55. Sobre el perdón de tributos en los pueblos de Ciudad Real, 1772–74, AGCA, A1.10, leg. 62, exp. 648.

56. 56. Cuentas de las Cajas Reales de Tabasco y Mérida, 1769–75, AGI, Mexico, 3120, s/f.; Corte de la Caja Real de Tabasco, 1770, AGN, Alcaldes mayores, vol. 1, exp. 152; Pueblos exentos del pago de tributo en la alcaldía mayor de Xalapa, 1776, BMNAH, Serie Córdova, rollo 10, s/f; Carta de Juan Josef Zarabia, teniente oficial mayor de la Real Audiencia al Consejo de Indias, 19 de agosto de 1777, AGI, Mexico, 2103, s/f.

References

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• Barriendos, Mariano & Carmen Llasat, ‘El caso de la anomalía “Maldá” en la cuenca mediterránea occidental (1760–1800). Un ejemplo de fuerte variabilidad climática’. In: Armando Alberola Romá & Jorge Olcina Cantos (eds.) Desastre natural, vida cotidiana y religiosidad popular en la España moderna y contemporánea. Alicante, Universidad de Alicante, 2009, 253–86.
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