The Yaqui used simple irrigation techniques to cultivate corn, beans, and squash while also hunting local game and gathering wild foods from the area.

Yaquis traded native foods, furs, shells, salt, and other goods with many indigenous groups of central North America.

In the early 20th century, after a series of conflicts with the Mexican Army, many of the remaining Yaqui were arrested and dispersed to plantations in the Yucatán Peninsula.

Also in the early 20th century, Major Frederick Russell Burnham, a celebrated American scout, went to Mexico in search of mineral resources.

Burnham reasoned that a dam could provide year-round water to rich alluvial soil in the valley; turning the region into one of the garden spots of the world and generate much needed electricity.

[3] In his case study of Burnham's American colonization scheme, Professor Bradford concluded: "a combination of Indian problems, the intricacies of the developing Mexican revolutionary process, and a less than clear-cut mandate from Washington, DC, served to bring the colony down.