Water conflicts in Tepetitlán (Hidalgo, Mexico), 18th century.

In this article we approach the struggles for control and access to water between the regional Hispanic and Creole elites and the Indian villages in the jurisdiction of Tula during the eighteenth century. A struggle that, ultimately, was rooted in the new regional economic perspectives, caused by the decline of cattle ranching activity. Thus, by the eighteenth century, the regional economy turned its attention to the cultivation of grains, without neglecting the raising of cattle for slaughter. In this context, the regional elites, former owners of large herds of cattle, invested significant capital in the construction of a hydraulic infrastructure (ditches, dams, jagüeyes), aimed at crop irrigation. However, it was the Indian peoples who had controlled an important part of the available water resources since ancient times, so confrontation was the inevitable result of the process.