Living in a fluid landscape -- Dreaming of dry land -- The trench of misfortunes -- To serve the city in desagüe country -- All the king's men -- A show of patriotism at the end of the trench -- Toward waterless and dry ground -- Deep colonizing
Summary
Not long after the conquest, the City of Mexico's rise to become the crown jewel in the Spanish empire was compromised by the lakes that surrounded it. Their increasing propensity to overflow destroyed wealth and alarmed urban elites, who responded with what would become the most transformative and protracted drainage project in the early modern America-the Desagüe de Huehuetoca. Hundreds of technicians, thousands of indigenous workers, and millions of pesos were marshaled to realize a complex system of canals, tunnels, dams, floodgates, and reservoirs. Vera S. Candiani's Dream