To Defend our Water with the Blood of our Veins: The Struggle for Resources in Colonial Puebla (review)

In this understated and well written book, author Lipsett-Rivera examines a topic that has received limited attention from scholars. Her topic is the supply of water in colonial Puebla, and disputes and conflicts over the control of this precious resource. This study falls into the category of environmental history, a subject that is important but that in this day of trendy topics such as the so-called subaltern studies or gender receives little attention.

This is not to say that the author does not place her study in a strong theoretical context. Lipsett-Rivera examines different models that link the development of irrigation to the rise of states with bureaucracies that helped regulate water. Two major theories are hydraulic and centralization. Lipsett-Rivera carefully examines both to test their applicability to the case of colonial Puebla, and argues for decentralization-centralization. The author contends that a decentralized regime developed in Puebla during the colonial period. The colonial government sanctioned water rights, but did not have the ability to enforce those rights. Much of the social conflict in rural colonial Puebla revolved around individuals stealing and others defending rights to water necessary to irrigate their crops. The Spanish legal system proved ineffective in enforcing its will once the courts had rendered decisions in disputes over water rights. Toward the end of the colonial period the winners in the war over water rights, generally Spanish hacienda owners, moved towards a more centralized regime with a supporting bureaucracy and water guards to protect the monopolies that they had won. Individuals or groups upstream generally deprived those downstream of water, and particularly during the dry season many had to go without water thus losing their crops.

Lipsett-Rivera first explores the history of water rights in Spain and in central Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest of the region. Iberian water law came from different influences, including from Muslim society in eastern (Valencia) and southern Iberia. Water rights were not necessarily directly linked to land ownership, and two forms of water rights evolved. Riparian rights evolved in areas of abundant water, and prior appropriation (first use) in areas of less abundant water. Prior appropriation was the legal principle that applied to Pueblo. Irrigation technology also came from different sources, especially Muslim technology brought to Iberia from North Africa and the Middle East.

Puebla was one of the first regions in colonial Mexico to develop commercial agriculture, in this case wheat followed by some sugar. The indigenous communities continued to grow corn and cotton as the staple, but also branched off into wheat and livestock grazing. An important part of the pattern of disputes over water is the requirements of different crops planted at different parts of the year. Ecological degradation and population growth were also important factors in disputes over water rights. Spanish-style agriculture and over-grazing by introduced livestock caused erosion and a lowering of the water table. Water became more of a problem at the end of the eighteenth-century, while at the same time the population, particularly the indigenous population, grew. It was at this point that Spanish owners of large estates moved toward a more centralized system of regulation of water after having benefited from a more decentralized system.

The failure of the Spanish legal system to enforce court rulings resulted in conflict to control water. The axis of conflict was not clearly defined. It could be Spanish estate owner versus indigenous community, indigenous community versus indigenous community, Spaniard versus Spaniard, or town versus farmers. Conflicts developed as a form of guerrilla war: destruction of dams that impounded water, diversion of water for irrigation canals, and assertion of control by force over certain sources of water. There were even small skirmishes between contending parties, or often their surrogates such as estate workers. And the goals were very clear. Spanish...