The transfer of the city of Guatemala after the earthquake of 1773

After the earthquake of 29 July 1773 the capital of the kingdom of Guatemala was surveyed, argued over in open assembly, and moved to another valley at royal expense — one of the earliest documented cases of a state relocating a capital as seismic risk management. The dissenting party is on the record too, and so is the proclamation that ordered the old ground left empty — which seven or eight thousand people, mostly mulatos, did not obey.