As of December 2010, the US Congress had enacted more than twenty major community-specific Native water-rights settlements, and the state of Arizona had more of these settlements (eight) than any other US state. This unique situation has invited voluminous studies on Arizona's Native water-rights settlements. Although these studies have clarified the political and legal implications of the settlements and offered some practical future recommendations for Native water-rights policy, several ethnohistorical and theoretical questions still remain as to what factors galvanized and formed these settlements and whose ideas they were. In this article, the author examines the history and implications of two water-rights settlements: one for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian community, and the other for the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation in central Arizona, both near the city of Phoenix. In order to clarify the ethnohistorical aspects of these settlements, the author focuses on interactions and negotiations between the two Native communities and non-Native stakeholders about Native water rights and the impact of water works that affected these communities during the twentieth century. By providing a detailed documentation of Native and non-Native reactions as well as the interactions between these peoples, the author attempts to clarify the evolving and hybrid nature of Native water-rights settlements. He argues that these features, which scholars have not yet discussed in adequate detail, somewhat resemble historic peace treaties between Native peoples and the federal government. (Contains 86 notes.)