One Sentence, Thirty Tribes, Zero Water: How Article VII Dressed Erasure as Protection

Herbert Hoover changed one word. Four days before the seven states signed the Colorado River Compact on November 24, 1922, he revised the draft clause on Indian water rights. "Rights" became "obligations." Wyoming's commissioner, who had balked at the original phrasing, relaxed.

The final Article VII: "Nothing in this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States of America to Indian tribes."

No tribal representative sat at the table. No allocation followed. The sentence preserved a legal abstraction while the compact divided every acre-foot among seven states.