Final Invasions: War, Resource Development, and the Occupation of Tribal Territories

Abstract

The invasion of indigenous territories occurred in broad, sweeping waves, spread over hundreds of years. For sheer intensity, sweep, and impact, however, few generations in history have witnessed the dramatic transformations of the period between 1940 and 1970. In these thirty years, indigenous peoples insulated by distance, geography, and climate from outside populations faced unprecedented pressures and technological change. The combination of a truly global military conflict — one which reached from the frozen expanses of Siberia to the central desert of Australia, and from Greenland to hundreds of tiny islands in the Pacific — and a postwar development boom of massive proportions broke the final barriers between tribal peoples and surplus-producing populations.