HIST 100: Engineering The Past

Tohono O’odham

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The Tohono O’odham people resided in the desert region of Southern Arizona and Northern parts of Mexico for years and years. They are also known as the desert people, which is what Tohono O’odham means. The desert people were peaceful and kept with their traditions and beliefs and where not trying to start conflict by any means. Although things went a little south in 1853, this event is known as the Gadsen Purchase. This changed the borderlines, which basically split the Tohono people up. Meanwhile the Apache warriors were stealing the natives to use as slaves where they resided in Mexico.

 

Now to answer the question whether or not I think they were adequately compensated for their loses? In a way I could see why you can argue that they were compensated for their loses. Although they did get an education and degrees from the University of Arizona, they also volunteered for the military service during World War II. That to me isn’t compensation for their losses that is rewarding them for their service in World War II.To go with that the Tohono O’odham nation was granted much of the ground in the Santa Cruz River Valley. This was known as the Winters Doctrine. During this time where this forgotten doctrine was being ignored the Tohono O’odham could not compete with Tucson because Tucson was purchasing land to secure the water rights. As this kept happening the Tohono O’odham people started to lose out on their water, which resulted in their farmers going out of business.

 

On the other hand the Tohono O’odham people were able to establish the Papago Tribe of Arizona. On top of that they were able to govern them selves electing a legislative council with representatives and all. This is the part of me where I can understand they were compensated to an extent. They were doing their own thing on their reservation and not causing any trouble to the outside governments in Arizona.

 

All in all in the big picture, I think they should have been compensated a little more than what they got. Yes, they did attend churches and got degrees at universities. They were able to establish the Papago Tribe and have their own reservation. But I do not think that is efficient enough for their losses. We do live in a world where life can sometimes not be fair. When their farmers are going out of business because a doctrine was being ignored and Tucson was purchasing land and taking the water. If that were to happen to anyone of us now I can assure you that you wouldn’t feel like you were compensated enough. At least in my eyes I would feel that way. Even though they settled this altercation it still was wrong that the doctrine was ignored. Legally, I think the government should have helped to protect them during this time. Instead they came in to help a little bit after the Gadsen Purchase happened and the results were already set. Yes, the Tohono O’odham people are well off now with their way of life. I do think they should have been compensated more for their losses overall.

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In the past Syria knew of their high temperature climate, they might not have known how much hotter it was going to get over the years but it would have made sense to plan for a drought.  Irrigation at the time may have seemed liked a reasonable thing to do, but they needed to start adjusting when they noticed water supply decreasing.  Assuming there would be drought just focusing on water being used for citizens rather than agriculture reasons would have been wise.  It is not ideal to have to import foods and other things but sometimes it is needed for them to survive, in order to do this it would be important to keep good external and internal relationships in the country.  Irrigation takes up a lot of water that could be going to different people.  Many people established jobs as farmers because the country did not take into consideration that water might not be a supply in later years.  The country should have established a water system, close to what they have now with their underground water aquifers and made it strictly for bathing and drinking purposes.  I think if I tried to make the water sources mainly for consumption and hygiene, leaving food to be imported it would be hard to convince the leaders to do this.  I’m not sure how external relations were in the past but now it would be hard to convince them to rely on outside town and cities for their food.  Now that I think about it, that could be hard on the citizens that are oppressed in the country because their food not be accessible in the country.

 

If this topic were to be turned into a research paper I would need to know the following:

  • How Syria’s political climate was in the past
  • What kind of farming they were doing, and what kind of farming can be done in such climate
  • How the underground aquifers work in Syria

To learn about the past in Syria, I would take to some news sources along with peer reviewed articles that I would find on Albertson’s Library website.  I’m a visual person so finding pictures of how the aquifers and what kinds of farming Syria did it would help me have more of an understanding of what they are dealing with.

https://www.engineeringthepast.com/1228-2/

Module 8.2: Middle Eastern water woes

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History needed:

1) Knowing the culture that is using water along with their habits with water use. This is important since cultures are so different, there could be habits that might need to be addressed. The issue could be the habits are rooted in religion.

2) History that would also be needed would be the past to present political issue. If there is a conflict in the region I would recommend they build a water treatment I would prefer it not to get attack ever.

3) Lastly knowing where funds are going to will help decide what water system would be best for them.

If I could go back in time to the middle east I would worried based off of the time period. The reason for a bit of fear is if I jump back only ten years there wouldn’t be a decent solution due to the fact that conflicts have already been accuring.  To start off, I would be talking about Syria and the water solutions with why they would be best. The reason for this pick was due to what seems to be the country with the worst water distribution system. Secondly I feel that there is some frame work already in place with Syria’s water system but based off of what I have researched recently, along with some of the articles, its infrastructure is fragmented. So let’s get to it, I took the liberty to bring up a common method brought up in many years ago and why it didn’t work. The main plan was to take water from the Jordan, and pipe it down to Syria. Sounds perfect right? Well the issue is they already are doing this, the plan was to actually move the location farther north above where other major cities get water. Kind of confusing I know, Syria’s plan was to take water from all cities before they had the chance to get water from their water pumping location is more south of where Syria will move it to.

What I would recommend is a waste water treatment facility. This water structure would be somewhat of a fix since it would build off of existing water pipes and would provide a set amount of water for agriculture, without using more water to fuel agriculture.

My desired location to look up will be google scholar, Albertsons library and UN accredited websites. The reason for the last pick is the UN has a lot of information on almost all situations going on, surprisingly they release most of this information on websites and other mediums with little bias.