Mellon Forum // Drought, Water Management, and American Colonialism in the Tohono

This talk will explain the impact of drought in the Tohono (Tohono O’odham territory) during the mid-twentieth century and how American colonialism influenced water management methods. Historical materials relating to how American settlers understood and responded to drought in the Tohono show that drought was widely understood as an ever-pressing environmental threat capable of spreading to other regions, such as the Midwest and the Southern United States, during the mid-twentieth century. This imposed understanding of drought gave American settlers an economic and political apparatus to develop and extend water conservation projects in Central and Southern Arizona, including on reservation lands. On the contrary, O’odham leaders and civilians largely refused settler colonial narratives of drought while also struggling to manage water infrastructure previously instituted and neglected by the United States federal government.