Diverting the Gila: The Pima Indians and the Florence Casa Grande Project, 1916–1928 by David H. DeJong

Abstract

Reviewed by: Diverting the Gila: The Pima Indians and the Florence Casa Grande Project, 1916–1928 by David H. DeJong Charles Porter Diverting the Gila: The Pima Indians and the Florence Casa Grande Project, 1916–1928. By David H. DeJong. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2021. Pp. 336. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index.) For generations, before White settlers arrived along the Gila River, Pima Indian growers successfully used the water to create a thriving and sustainable agricultural community. David H. DeJong's Diverting the Gila: The Pima Indians and the Florence Casa Grande Project, 1916–1928, tells the sad story of the Pimas' struggle to keep their irrigation community alive after the arrival of new White American settlers. Upstream diversions by immigrants to the Gila River valleys from the Civil War to 1890 depleted the river's flow to downstream Pima fields resulting in the collapse of the tribal community. The Pimas were experts in sustainably using the limited water resources of the Gila River to allow life to flourish in arid southern Arizona. Not only did the Pimas create the physical infrastructure to divert and use the water for irrigation, but they also created a system allowing fair, transparent, and equitable sharing of water, the essence of the life of their entire community. Across North America, settlers from the United States used complex government processes to cheat Native peoples out of their traditional lands, including their rights to use water. The simple way to control any society is to take away their water. The general surface water policy west of the Mississippi River under the American form of government holds that first in time equals first in right: whoever can prove the earliest use of surface water beneficially becomes first in line to use that water. There is no dispute that Pima communities were first to put the water of the Gila to beneficial use. Yet, as usual, the Americans found ways to exercise their [End Page 510] legal and political expertise to justify the diminution of the prior water rights of the Pimas. Just as other Native peoples experienced across the West, the Pimas had little chance to prevail in a legal system that they did not understand or in many cases had no desire to understand. When it comes to land and water acquisition by Anglo Americans, it seems that unethical behavior is exercised as a matter of course and sanctioned by legal action. Due to political maneuvering in the most despicable manner by Anglo Americans, the Pimas' water allocations were reduced by two-thirds, eliminating 60 percent of the growing capacity of their fields. Yet the Pima courageously adapted their growing practices by eliminating their least productive lands, planting less water-intensive crops, and stubbornly remaining committed to farming even though their economy was devastated in favor of upper Gila Valley White growers. The intense drought being experienced in the West today is putting existing water policies under extreme duress. Diverting the Gila should be read by any water policymaker seeking fairness in water rights for all people or trying to find a way through the current water crisis while treating everyone fairly. The book explains the consequences of water policies manipulated to favor the powerful. Further, DeJong uses his excellent academic training, tempered with real-world irrigation system experience, to provide readers with the historical facts of the consequences of unfair water policies. The Pimas were first in time to use the water. The Pimas put the Gila River water to beneficial use. Why then did they have to endure the devastation of their agricultural economy by newcomers? DeJong illuminates their struggle, a struggle that is as much about respect for dignity as it is about irrigation systems. Charles Porter St. Edwards University Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association