Realities of Images: Imperial Brazil and the Great Drought, Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 91, part 1)

In Feb. 1877, a letter from the county council of Telha, a town of 600 people located in the Serra da Mattos in Brazil reported that people were dying from starvation. The previous year's rainy season had been sparse, and the harvest, poor. Now, this season's rains still had not appeared. This was the Great Drought — three years of failed rains enshrined in Brazilian memory as the worst drought ever to hit Brazil's northeast. Drought had visited the region throughout its history, with the e...