Progress or Environmental Politics? Mexico’s Indigenous People, Technocrats, and River Basin Projects, 1947–78

President Miguel Alemán Valdés had high hopes and even greater ambitions when he created the Papaloapan Commission in Oaxaca and the Tecaltepec Project on the Pacific coast in 1947. The Grijalva Project in Tabasco and Chiapas and the Fuerte River Commission in Sinaloa soon followed in 1951. Each were intended to boost development in areas where officials determined that agricultural potential had not been reached. Mexican politicians loved the idea that underdeveloped regions could, through careful management, become vibrant contributors to the nation’s economy. At first glance, the objectives of these commissions would have benefitted everyone, irrespective of race or class, but image did not always reflect reality. While there is no argument that the efforts of each commission’s development experts led to advancements in agricultural output in the regions they served, the cultural and environmental costs, especially to local indigenous populations, were immeasurable. The cornerstone to these projects was the Mexican state dispatching irrigation technology experts—many from the United States—to commence the construction of dams and other hydraulic infrastructure. These experts’ attention to detail and level of engagement was admirable, but, by contrast, the attention paid to people who lived in these regions was trivial. Displacement and relocation of local Indigenous communities, and changing relationships with their ecosystems, brought into question the success of these river basin projects. While politicians worked with river basin development experts to transform the countryside—and simultaneously the notion of Mexican nationalism—their actions had a similar impact on several Indigenous communities. This paper will trace the extent to which the environmental effects of these river basin projects’ development initiatives had on the cultural and agricultural practices of local indigenous groups, and how it allowed these indigenous groups to reconsider their roles in national development and what it meant to be Mexican.