The Impact Of Settler Colonialism

On September 8, 2000, the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) made a formal apology for the their participation in ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of the Indigenous Nations of the Western Territories of the Unites States.2 From forced relocation to obscure lands and forced assimilation into the white man’s view of the world, the BIA previously set out to ‘destroy all things Indian’.3 Through the colonization of Turtle Island (North America), the American Federal policy set out to eliminate in part or as a whole, the Indigenous populations.4 The attitudes of the colonists were intentionally detrimental and the process is naturally exterminatory.5 The process of colonization was often exemplified by violent confrontations, deliberate massacres, and in some cases, total annihilations of a people.6 The culture of conquest was developed and practiced by Europeans well before they landed on Turtle Island as the practice was developed, and perfected well before the fifteenth century.7 Taking land and imposing values and ways of life on the social landscape created a conflictual relationship with the Indigenous peoples and forced a new way of life that ultimately destroyed those that previously existed there.8 Modern Europe

Within the Native culture and the Colonial cultures in North America, there are confusion, misjudging, assumptions and conflicts among the two.

The authors explain that colonialism is built upon relationships between settlers, natives, and slaves, and that these types of relationships still exist; especially among those who still have the desire to resettle, reoccupy and reinhabitate (page 11).

Colonialism is an ongoing practice that is marginalizing indigenous communities because of their race, class, gender, and sexuality. Qwo-li Driskill et al quoted Rayna Green claiming “that colonial discourses represent Native women as sexually available for white men’s pleasure” (34). From their first contact the Europeans through to the present day, Aboriginal, Indigenous, and First Nations women have been categorized and seen as Other. Sarah Hunt employs in her analysis a form of postcolonial critique used by Edward Said, who argues in Orientalism (1978) that there exist constructs of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes towards racialized others, including Indigenous groups, rooted in Eurocentric prejudice, serving as an implicit

The migration of European settlers and culture to North America is an often examined area. One aspect of this, however, is worthy of deeper analysis. The conquest of North America by Europeans and American settlers from the 16th to 19th centuries had a profound effect on the indigenous political landscape by defining a new relationship dynamic between natives and settlers, by upsetting existing native political, economic and military structures, and by establishing a paradigm where the indigenous peoples felt they had to resist the European and American incursions. The engaging and brilliant works of Andres Rensendez and Steve Inskeep, entitled respectively “A Land So Strange” and “Jacksonland”, provide excellent insights and aide to this analysis.

American settler colonialism is no different than the colonialism in South Africa, Australia and Algeria because the similarities between them: indigenous populations were depleted, indigenous resistances arose, and colonizing culture religion becomes the dominant culture. Indigenous population was depleted in two way: through human involvement and also by biological diseases. Biological diseases killed the vast majority of Indians in the 16 century.

Economic imperialism is a central part of the ongoing contemporary colonization of indigenous peoples in Canada. Since the colonial era marked the beginning of imperialism in North America, an intricate web of power and domination have formed leaving Indigenous communities in the grip of its economic philosophy. This has led to the ongoing contribution to the disposition of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Economic imperialism can be defined as the need for countries to expand their territories in order to collect resources from their colonies. This illustrates the inherent unsustainability of colonial settler society. In this essay I will look at how the impacts of economic imperialism has had an effect on the development of the indigenous

No analysis of violence against Indigenous women can be made without first looking at colonization as the antipasto of the conflict (Cooper & Salomons 2010). “It is thus paramount to understand the context of colonisation in Canada in order to begin to understand the structural problems and barriers that lead to serious numbers of missing and murder Indigenous women in Canada.” (Cooper & Salomons 2010, 31). When the Europeans first came to “turtle Island” they were “highly dependent” on the assistance of Indigenous women (Cooper & Salomons 2010). However when the Euro-North American governments were forming, the issue of ownership of land became significant. “As the settler society

Canada was colonized by the British in the 17th century for economic exploitation purposes. Postcolonism looks the impact of colonixation on native settles after the colonizers rule is abolished. In Canada, Aboriginals were forced on to reserves, their land was taken through deceit and their children were sent to residential schools in order to assimilate them and end the ‘Indian Problem’.

Historically, relationships between European colonists and Native American were extremely complex and complicated. Due to the violent European colonization of America, Native Americans became susceptible to oppressions and extinction for over five hundred years (Poupart, 2003). European colonists’ central focus were directed towards acquiring maximum profits by exploiting Native American’s vast resources and utilizing their physical performance toward enslavement. This created devastation among Native American families, movement of various fatal diseases, and destruction of the traditional lifestyle of Native Americans (Starkey, 1998). The elimination of Native American culture came with strong opposition and resistance through civil organizations, religious movements, and conflict revolutions.

Soren C. Larson writes the second article, titled, Promoting Aboriginal Territoriality Through Interethnic Alliances: The Case of the Cheslatta T’en in Northern British Columbia. Larson worked for five years from 1998 to 2002 conducting ethnographic research on the Cheslatta T’en tribe in northern British Columbia. He conducted 82 formal interviews between himself and tribal as well as non-tribal members alike, as well as becoming integrated with the aboriginal

Settler Colonialism is a constant social and political arrangement in which new comers/colonizers/settlers come to a place, claim it as their own, and do whatever it takes to vanish the Indigenous people who reside there.

In April 1995 Pamela George, an Ojibway women, was brutally murdered in Saskatchewan. Her murderers Steven Kummerfield and Alex Ternowetsky, young middle-class white men, were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to merely six and a half years in prison. George’s story is one of the many Indigenous women who have been murdered or missing over the past years. There are over 580 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, close to half are put aside and left unsolved. Only 53% of these cases have lead to charges of homicide (Klement 8). Drastically, statistics indicate that Aboriginals are faced with more hardships throughout their life compared to the average Canadian. Indigenous groups, particularly women, suffer from a lower rate of education, higher suicide rates and an array of health risks. This paper will examine the role settler colonization history has played in perpetuating conditions for violence to indigenous women, many of which are still experienced today. This will be accomplished by first assessing the history of settler colonization and its negative repercussions. Secondly, it will use Sherene Razak’s concept of “spatial segregation,” to illustrate how state institutions have facilitated violence through space, race and the law. Lastly, this paper will use evidence from the film “Finding Dawn” to further demonstrate how violence towards indigenous women is institutionally produced.

From the first contact between Aboriginal Peoples and European immigrants to the present day, the aim of Canadian government policy has been to assimilate the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. The attempted forced abandonment of their culture was perpetrated through a variety of strategies including force, aggression and legalities. While historians and politicians may disagree about the motivations of Canadian policy, the impact has been irrefutable. In efforts to create one unified nation, successive governments failed to recognize their destructive actions. In this failure, Canada has come close to shattering the sub-nations and peoples who comprise them. This paper will review the government’s effort to absorb the Indigenous peoples’ culture, their refusal to assimilate, and will also identify potential strategies for future relations.

Each individual makes up the society as it is, and various characteristics and beliefs makes up an individual. Although, individual lives together with a variety of personal ideologies, emotions, cultures, and rituals, they all differentiate one person from the other making up one’s own identity. This identity makes up who one is inside and out, their behaviour, actions, and words comes from their own practices and values. However, the profound history of Indigenous people raises question in the present about their identities. Who are they really? Do we as the non-native people judge them from the outside or the inside? Regardless of whether the society or the government were involved in their lives, they faced discrimination in every