Our Water, Our Identity: Indigenous Combatants in the CNC and CTM "Water War"

In 1958 the indigenous Mayo leaders of the El Teroque ejido wrote a letter to the Agrarian Department stating that, “there are antagonistic tendencies that the first group [CTM members] are white farmers or ‘Yoris,’ and the second group [CNC members] are purely indigenous ‘Mayos.” El Teroque was in the middle of a two-decade struggle over access to irrigation water that tore its village (and others) in two. These local struggles in Sinaloa’s Fuerte Valley were part of a larger battle between the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) and the National Confederation of Campesinos (CNC) for rights to organize peasants and workers throughout Mexico. Scholars such as Moisés González Navarro have documented the CNC’s struggle against the CTM’s recruitment tactics. María Muñoz delves into the CNC’s sometimes paternalistic tactics of organizing indigenous communities. Yet, few scholars mention how in some regions, such as the Fuerte Valley, the contention between the CNC and CTM turned into a quasi-war over irrigation water, a conflict in which sides were largely determined based on ethnicity. The CTM, with mostly mestizo members, wielded extensive power in the Fuerte Valley in the 1940s and 1950s, while the CNC relied heavily on indigenous members to fill its ranks. Possession of irrigated land gave peasants power and influence that in turn afforded the CNC and the CTM more local political control. This project uses an environmental approach, in which water takes center stage, to uncover the crucial role that indigenous peasants played in this struggle between the CNC and CTM in the Fuerte Valley. Such an approach will unlock future inquiries into the importance of water in indigenous peoples’ struggles to become vital participants in Post WWII Mexican state formation.