Diverting the Gila
368 pages, 6 x 9
41 b&w illustrations, 7 maps, 14 tables
Paperback
Release Date:19 Sep 2023
ISBN:9780816553259
GO TO CART

Diverting the Gila

The Pima Indians and the Florence-Casa Grande Project, 1916–1928

The University of Arizona Press
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Americans assumed the land and water resources of the West were endless. Water was as vital to newcomers to Arizona’s Florence and Casa Grande valleys as it had always been to the Pima Indians, who had been successfully growing crops along the Gila River for generations when the white settlers moved in.

Diverting the Gila explores the complex web of tension, distrust, and political maneuvering to divide and divert the scarce waters of the Gila River. Residents of Florence, Casa Grande, and the Pima Reservation fought for vital access to water rights. Into this political foray stepped Arizona’s freshman congressman Carl Hayden, who not only united the farming communities but also used Pima water deprivation to the advantage of Florence-Casa Grande and Upper Gila Valley growers. The result was the federal Florence-Casa Grande Project that, as legislated, was intended to benefit Pima growers on the Gila River Indian Reservation first and foremost. As was often the case in the West, well-heeled, nontribal political interests manipulated the laws at the expense of the Indigenous community.

Diverting the Gila is the sequel to David H. DeJong’s 2009 Stealing the Gila, and it continues to tell the story of the forerunner to the San Carlos Irrigation Project and the Gila River Indian Community’s struggle to regain access to their water.
 
The author provides a detailed study of good intentions, betrayal, and compromise to resolve the use of the Gila River by the Pima and white farmers in central Arizona. It also is the story of greed with an underlying foundation of racism on the part of white landowners against the Pima. In Arizona and the West, water is power—economic, social, and political. Its use is not neutral, and the Pima did not have it.’—R. Douglas Hurt, author of The Green Revolution in the Global South: Science, Politics, and Unintended Consequences

 

David H. DeJong is the author of seven books, including Stealing the Gila. He is director of the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project, a construction project funded by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and designed to deliver settlement water to the Gila River Indian Reservation.

Find what you’re looking for...
Stay Informed

Receive the latest UBC Press news, including events, catalogues, and announcements.


Read past newsletters

Free shipping on online orders over $40

Publishers Represented
UBC Press is the Canadian agent for several international publishers. Visit our Publishers Represented page to learn more.