Prior to the arrival of Europeans, their primary military rivals were the Apache and Yavapai, who raided their villages at times due to competition for resources.

The Akimel Oʼodham were affected by introduced European elements, such as infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, new crops (such as wheat), livestock, and use of metal tools and trade goods.

The Akimel Oʼodham traded and gave aid to the expeditions of Stephen Watts Kearny and Philip St. George Cooke on their way to California.

After Mexico's defeat, it ceded the territory of what is now Arizona to the United States, with the exception of the land south of the Gila River.

The 1860 census records the Akimel O'odham villages as Agua Raiz, Arenal, Casa Blanca, Cachanillo, Cerrito, Cerro Chiquito, El Llano, and Hormiguero.

[9] After the American Civil War, numerous Euroamerican migrants came to settle upstream locations along the Gila, as well as along the lower Salt River.

Due to their encroachment and competition for scarce resources, interaction between Native American groups and the Euro-American settlers became increasingly tense.

The establishment of agency headquarters, churches and schools, and trading posts at Vahki (Casa Blanca) and Gu U ki (Sacaton) during the 1870s and 1880s led to the growth of these towns as administrative and commercial centers, at the expense of others.

The most ambitious effort to rectify the economic plight of the Akimel Oʼodham was the San Carlos Project Act of 1924, which authorized the construction of a water storage dam on the Gila River.

Since World War II, however, the Akimel Oʼodham have experienced a resurgence of interest in tribal sovereignty and economic development.

In addition, they have developed several profitable enterprises in fields such as agriculture and telecommunications, and built several gaming casinos to generate revenues.

It encompasses a great deal because O'odham him-dag intertwines religion, morals, values, philosophy, and general world view which are all interconnected.

The Gila and Salt Rivers are currently dry, due to the (San Carlos Irrigation project) upstream dams that block the flow and the diversion of water by non-native farmers.

This abuse of water rights was the impetus for a nearly century long legal battle between the Gila River Indian Community and the United States government, which was settled in favor of the Akimel Oʼodham and signed into law by George W. Bush in December 2005.

In the weeks after December 29, 2004, when an unexpected winter rainstorm flooded areas much further upstream (in Northern Arizona), water was released through dams on the river at rates higher than at any time since the filling of Tempe Town Lake in 1998, and was a cause for minor celebration in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.

The diversion of the water and the introduction of non-native diet is said to have been the leading contributing factor in the high rate of diabetes among the Akimel Oʼodham tribe.

The remaining band, the Hia C-ed O'odham ("Sand Dune People"), are not federally recognized, but reside throughout southwestern Arizona.

The Gila River Indian Community is involved in various economic development enterprises that provide entertainment and recreation: three gaming casinos, associated golf courses, a luxury resort, and a western-themed amusement park.

While they do not have a greater risk than other tribes, the Akimel O'odham people have been the subject of intensive study of diabetes, in part because they form a homogeneous group.

[11] The general increased diabetes prevalence among Native Americans has been hypothesized as the result of the interaction of genetic predisposition (the thrifty phenotype or thrifty genotype), as suggested by anthropologist Robert Ferrell in 1984[11] and a sudden shift in diet during the last century from traditional agricultural crops to processed foods, together with a decline in physical activity.

For comparison, genetically similar O'odham in Mexico have only a slighter higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes than non-O'odham Mexicans.

[citation needed] Traditionally, the Akimel O'odham lived in a thatched wattle-and-daub houses, as seen by the early European-American settlers who ventured into their country:[13] Their homes are jacales which are huts made of mats of reed-grass cut in half and built n the form of a vault on arched sticks.

The top is covered with these mats, thick enough to resist the weather, Inside, they have only a petate on which to sleep, and gourds in which to carry and store water.