Settler Colonialism and Slavery
Settler colonialism functions through the replacement of indigenous populations by a settler society that imposes control over the native people. Indigenous populations are erased in this process through genocide, rape, disposition, and forced assimilation in order to erase indigenous culture in favor of ingraining white Christian practices to the population, such as through boarding schools for indigenous children. Unlike other forms of colonialism, the settler stays in the occupied territory as opposed to returning to their home country after profiting from the land. Here, the goal is emigration and settlement instead of the extraction of labor and material resources from the land. Settler colonialism represents a system of occupation, not a singular event. As long as settlers remain on indigenous land, institutional structures are created and sustained, such as the enslavement of colonized populations.
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In the introduction to his book African American Religions, 1500-2000: Colonialism, Democracy and Freedom, Sylvester Johnson breaks down how colonialism, democracy and freedom have been combined by US governmental and societal institutions in order to maintain white supremacist racialized structures. This is exemplified through the enslavement of African Americans and subsequent laws and policies designed to marginalize them as the dehumanization of enslaved Africans went hand in hand with the displacement of Indigenous people. One clear example of this link are parallel ancestry laws that target African and Indigenous populations. The “one drop rule,” declared that individuals were Black if they had any trace of African “blood” and for Indigenous communities “blood quantum” was established in which Indigenous people must have a certain percentage of native blood to be deemed a tribal member; the one drop rule increases the Black population in order to have more slave labor and blood quantum is meant to eliminate Indigenous people in order to have control over land. As Johnson notes, there is a myth of freedom and an institution of freedom within American society: the myth is an ideal situation where everyone has access to freedom, whereas the institution of freedom is how it is actually practiced. As the basis of the institution of freedom is rooted in settler colonialism, it neglects to benefit people of color, religious minorities, and indigenous populations. As a result, the racialized institutions of democracy and freedom are working as intended because they were created for the white Christian settler and to maintain control over enslaved populations.
Settler colonialism encompasses the economic, political and psychological methods of subordinating groups of people for their own profit. Groups of people outside the white, Christian majority are racialized by being associated with “savages.” These associations are used in constructing a national myth around what freedom looks like as opposed to how it is practiced by creating an idea that white settlers were the ideal people deserving of the rights of being an American. The United States empire was built on the genocide of indigenous tribes and backs of enslaved people. As a result, white supremacist systems were created in order to maintain white settlers oppressive power over these groups of people. Maintaining this oppressive political, social and economic power was central to the development and reproduction of slavery in the United States.
Sources:
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American Indian Relief Council: History and Culture: Boarding Schools
Johnson: African American Religions, 1500-2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom