WSPC00493 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

002223 AltlZONA v. CALIFORNIA. 49 water necessary to sustain life is to be had, it must come from the Colorado River or its tributaries. It can be said without overstatement that when the Indians were put on these reservations they were not considered to be located in the most desirable area of the Nation. It is impossible to believe that when Congress created the great Colorado River Indian Reservation and when the Execu- tive Department of this Nation created the other reserva- tions they were unaware that most of the lands were of the desert kind-hot, scorching sands-and that water from the river would be essential to the life of the Indian people and to the animals they hunted and the crops they raisedll In the debate leading to approval of the first con- gressional appropriation for irrigation of the Colorado River Indian Reservation, the delegate from the Territory of Arizona made this statement: "Irrigating canals are essential to the prosperity of these Indians. Without water there can be no pro- duction, no life; and all they ask of you is to give them a few agricultural implements to enable them to dig an irrigating canal by which their lands may be watered and their fields irrigated, so that they may enjoy the means of existence. You must provide these Indians with the means of subsistence or they will take by robbery from those who have. During the last year I have seen a number of these Indians starved to death for want of food." Congo Globe, 38th Cong., 2d Sess. 132i (1865). The question of the Government's implied reservation of water rights upon the creation of an Indian Reservation was before this Court -in Winters v. UnUed States, 207 U.. S. 564, decided in 1908. Much the same argument made to us was made in Winters to persuade the Court to hold that Congress had created an Indian Reservation