Indigenous defense of community rights centering on water resources has had a long and contested presence in Mexico, and in fact, in much of the Global South. In this study, James V. Mestaz discusses how Mayo peoples mobilized against non-Mayo appropriation of water, utilizing diverse technologies or hydraulic tools including canals and irrigation as well as more traditional measures, in an effort to resist and negotiate the Mexican state's evolving policies in the Fuerte River Valley from the late nineteenth century. For many Mayo communities, whose culture and everyday life revolved around water, settlement by non-Mayo peoples proved to be contentious, especially as postrevolutionary policies accelerated development. Mestaz's analysis is not only a story of long-term survival, but also a dynamic environmental history that illustrates indigenous perseverance.
As many scholars and students know, the 1910 Mexican Revolution appeared in many different forms in Mexico's distinct regions and communities. In Sinaloa's Fuerte River Valley, the conflict manifested partly as a battle over resources, a crucial ingredient for Mexico's developing economy. Those seeds were sown in the late nineteenth century, as Mestaz indicates, by developers such as Benjamin Francis Johnson, whose United Sugar Companies took advantage of the Fuerte Valley's ample water resources to grow sugarcane. Subsequently, Mayo farmers lost access to river water as outsiders arrived during the revolutionary period. The 1926 Irrigation Act expanded access for some farming communities, but under Lázaro Cárdenas a growing split emerged that favored ejidal landowners—Mayo or not—over individual farmers, and local institutions such as the Sociedad de Interés Colectivo Agrícola Ejidal (SICAE) emerged as powerful arbiters in local politics.
Was the SICAE corrupt as Mestaz argues? Possibly. However, all local, state, and national agencies acted in their own best interests during this formative period in Mexican history, and indigenous communities certainly paid the price. What is true is that Mayo farmers adapted modern agricultural technologies when they could although this was a tricky business, as the Mexican state and its local representatives could leverage access to canals and other tools. Partnerships with non-Mayo farmers certainly helped. Nevertheless, Mayo peoples had to cope with an evolving modern state, whose presence in the water use of regional Mexico took on increasingly sophisticated forms such as the Secretaría de Recursos Hidráulicos (SRH) and later the Comisión del Río Fuerte, or CRF. These institutions emerged as arms of a developmentalist state and their interaction with Mayo peoples provides a valuable history in this volume.
Of particular interest are the actions of the CRF. How exactly did the interaction between this agency and the local communities play out on the ground? In other words, how did engineers interact with local representatives and Mayo leaders? The professionalization of engineering in Mexico has deep roots, stretching back into the nineteenth century, and with the country's developmentalist turn, Mexican engineers prided themselves on their training and adherence to la patria. There is no doubt there were tensions, and a deeper look may be warranted.
The actions and beliefs of the Mayo form the heart of this study. Mestaz provides a powerful environmental history, detailing how indigenous peoples negotiated and resisted through spiritual actions such as rituals and millenarian movements. Regional environmental history, especially when it respectfully includes an indigenous viewpoint, can provide a valuable window into the “other Mexico” not often approached in standard environmental histories. For example, Mayo opinions about climate offer a rich and unique perspective, and their inclusion in this volume is welcome.
Future studies on the Fuerte River Valley are needed and should include other perspectives, including those of non-Mayo peoples; Mexico's regional environmental history is not yet complete. However, as indigenous peoples disproportionately continue to feel the impact of climate change in Mexico and throughout the world, this study provides a valuable look at a crucial period.
