Drought institutions of colonial Mexico: water turns, water judges and the public granary

Colonial Mexico met an unreliable climate with institutions. Water was divided among landowners by the tanda, a system of turns counted in days, with water judges to adjudicate; grain was held against failed harvests in the posito and the Real alhondiga; disputes over water and flood damage went to court, and indigenous communities used those courts. The archives show the arrangements holding against ordinary variability, failing against sustained crisis, and they show who paid.