Abstract

Each year, the inhabitants of the viceroyalty of New Spain anxiously waited for the day of the Holy Cross, Santa Cruz, to watch the first rains of the season fall. On May 3, 1785, however, not even a drop of rain appeared, nor was there a cloud in the sky. Days and weeks then passed with no sign of water, thus ushering in a drought that would bring devastation to much of the territory. The situation worsened with a freeze in September, which ended up destroying crops and leaving residents without their principal sustenance: maize. The scenario was characterized by colonists as the worst famine in the history of the realm.