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The Settler Sea: California's Salton Sea and the Consequences of Colonialism
2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
2022 WHA Caughey Western History Prize for the most distinguished book on the American West
Can a sea be a settler? What if it is a sea that exists only in the form of incongruous, head-scratching a wetland in a desert, a wildlife refuge that poisons birds, a body of water in which fish suffocate? Traci Brynne Voyles’s history of the Salton Sea examines how settler colonialism restructures physical environments in ways that further Indigenous dispossession, racial capitalism, and degradation of the natural world. In other words, The Settler Sea asks how settler colonialism entraps nature to do settlers’ work for them.
The Salton Sea, Southern California’s largest inland body of water, occupies the space between the lush agricultural farmland of the Imperial Valley and the austere desert called “America’s Sahara.” The sea sits near the boundary between the United States and Mexico and lies at the often-contested intersections of the sovereign lands of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla and the state of California. Created in 1905, when overflow from the Colorado River combined with a poorly constructed irrigation system to cause the whole river to flow into the desert, this human-maintained body of water has been considered a looming environmental disaster.
The Salton Sea’s very precariousness—the way it sits uncomfortably between worlds, existing always in the interstices of human and natural influences, between desert and wetland, between the skyward pull of the sun and the constant inflow of polluted water—is both a symptom and symbol of the larger precariousness of settler relationships to the environment, in the West and beyond. Voyles provides an innovative exploration of the Salton Sea, looking to the ways the sea, its origins, and its role in human life have been vital to the people who call this region home.
2022 WHA Caughey Western History Prize for the most distinguished book on the American West
Can a sea be a settler? What if it is a sea that exists only in the form of incongruous, head-scratching a wetland in a desert, a wildlife refuge that poisons birds, a body of water in which fish suffocate? Traci Brynne Voyles’s history of the Salton Sea examines how settler colonialism restructures physical environments in ways that further Indigenous dispossession, racial capitalism, and degradation of the natural world. In other words, The Settler Sea asks how settler colonialism entraps nature to do settlers’ work for them.
The Salton Sea, Southern California’s largest inland body of water, occupies the space between the lush agricultural farmland of the Imperial Valley and the austere desert called “America’s Sahara.” The sea sits near the boundary between the United States and Mexico and lies at the often-contested intersections of the sovereign lands of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla and the state of California. Created in 1905, when overflow from the Colorado River combined with a poorly constructed irrigation system to cause the whole river to flow into the desert, this human-maintained body of water has been considered a looming environmental disaster.
The Salton Sea’s very precariousness—the way it sits uncomfortably between worlds, existing always in the interstices of human and natural influences, between desert and wetland, between the skyward pull of the sun and the constant inflow of polluted water—is both a symptom and symbol of the larger precariousness of settler relationships to the environment, in the West and beyond. Voyles provides an innovative exploration of the Salton Sea, looking to the ways the sea, its origins, and its role in human life have been vital to the people who call this region home.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
382 pages, Hardcover
First published November 21, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 3, 2024
Having read the introduction of this book I came close to setting it aside, in as much as I was mostly concerned with issues of natural history and environmental degradation. The real thrust of Voyles' study is the fate of the First Nations of California, and how they have sustained themselves in the face of various hostile colonial agendas. Still, once you get into the meat of this book you will learn as much as you might want about how the Salton Sea (Lake Cahuilla if you prefer) came to be, its history as a real-life mirage, and what might be done to alleviate its current state as a locality that has become mostly known as a health hazard, and a tribute to various grandiose "settler" schemes that ultimately came to grief. Dr. Voyles own modest proposal is to allow the Colorado River to flow into the Salton Basin as it might; it's not as though the current use rate of water in the Greater American Southwest is sustainable anyway.
Actual rating 3.5.
Actual rating 3.5.
January 1, 2022
Read this in manuscript form — really appreciate the nuanced intersection of environmental and settler colonial history.
March 2, 2025
Super interesting and informative!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews