Modern Lives and Issues
After moving to their three reservations, most Yavapai made a living through a combination of farming and wage labor. Farming on the Fort McDowell reservation, however, was made difficult by the regular flooding of the Verde River, which repeatedly damaged their irrigation systems. Frustrated with spending money to repair these systems, in 1906 the Bureau of Indian Affairs recommended that the McDowell farmers be relocated to the Salt River Pima Maricopa Reservation. With the help of Dr. Carlos Montezuma, the Yavapai fought to retain their lands and water rights. Dr. Montezuma, a Yavapai Indian, had been captured by Pima Indians as a boy and subsequently sold to a white man. Raised in Chicago, he went on to earn his medical degree before returning to Arizona and becoming Indian rights activist.
In the 1970s the community faced a new threat, in the proposal by the federal government to construct Orme Dam. This dam would have flooded nearly 65% of the Fort McDowell reservation, but the government finally abandoned the plans in 1981 after substantial opposition from the Yavapai people.
Carlos Montezuma.
Source - http://sirismm.si.edu/naa/73/06702900.jpg