Contentious Waters: The Dispute Over the Colorado River (1904-1961)

Abstract

Since 1848, when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, resulting in the loss of half of Mexico’s national territory, the Colorado River has been the subject of countless international conflicts motivated by competing claims over the control of its waters. At 2,300 kilometers in length, the river is the longest waterway of the Pacific coast and a crucial element of the water supply needs of the western United States. In fact, since the late nineteenth century, the Colorado River played a key role in the expansion of the U.S. agricultural frontier that extends to its western continental confines. Therefore, despite the river’s immense basin, Mexico enjoys only a fraction of it. That tiny portion was disputed by U.S. companies and irrigation agencies, which did not hesitate to violate an international treaty of limits and waters in order to gain total control of its hydraulic currents and thereby ensure the opening of commercial lands in the American southwest.