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'.";'1 ..,\ :.~j " ~f ~i Major Physical, Legal, and Institutional Characteristics B. A Brief History of Human Development in the Basin4 >:f~j ~_.. '.', }j The Rio Grande first provided for crop irrigation by the Pueblo Indians, who settled along the main river and its tributaries. The Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona are the surviving remnants of the once considerable population that in ancient time distributed over the valleys of the southwestern U.S. The Pueblos of New Mexico currently use some of the same ancient irrigation ditches that their ancestors used centuries ago. There is no documented history of how long these ditches were used, but some estimates suggest that they existed as far back as 1000 A.D. The Follett Report of 1896 (see below), listed 52 ancient irrigation ditches that, in normal-flow years, could have irrigated over 34,500 acres. During the time of Coronado, much like today, the Pueblo Tribes cultivated maize, beans, gourds, and tobacco. Spanish exploration and colonization centered around Santa Fe for about 75 years after Coronado first reached the Basin, then were stalled by the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and the 12-year retirement of the Spaniards to EI Paso del Norte. In 1692 the revolt was quashed and the Spanish returned to Santa Fe and all parts of the Rio Grande Valley. Spanish colonization, from present-day Ft. Quitman, Texas, to Espanola, New Mexico, continued into the 1800s and was accompanied by the expansion of irrigation development. ;. After the Mexican Independence of 1821, the U.S. took portions of Mexico, resulting in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo and the subsequent Gadsden Purchase, in which New Mexico and Colorado-as well as most of the present day southwestern U.S.-became territory of the U.S. In the middle 1800s the San Luis Valley of Colorado-above which lie the headwaters of the Rio Grande-experienced a population boom as new settlers arrived from the south and east. Large areas of the fertile valley floor were plowed and miles of irrigation ditches were constructed. By the late 1800s, extensive irrigation development in the San Luis Valley of Colorado-along with new water users in New Mexico and Texas-resulted in water shortages in the Mesilla and EI Paso Valleys of southern New Mexico, west Texas, and northern Mexico. Complaints by the citizens around Juarez led the Mexican government to file a claim for damages against the U.S. As a result, the U.S. Department of State instituted an investigation through its International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC). .~, ..~. r · A more detailed history is available in (Clark 1987; Horgan 1954a; Horgan 1954b). 9 '-;I)~Q,) '. ',,/ ""... l./ ;'.J ~