Abstract
American settler colonialism was a winner-takes-all proposition that demanded the removal of indigenous peoples and the destruction of their cultures. Even Americans who empathized with the indigenes urged them to abandon their cultures and vacate colonial space for white settlers. Indians participated at every level of the colonial encounter and, contrary to settler fantasies, the indigenes did not “vanish.” Nonetheless, they overwhelmingly were dispossessed, their cultures and way of life assaulted, and the consequences of this postcolonial history remain apparent in indigenous communities today.
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Notes
Aziz Rana, The Two Faces of American Freedom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 13;
Paul C. Rosier, Serving Their Country: American Indian Politics and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 3;
Lorenzo Veracini, Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 94.
John E. Ferling, Struggle for a Continent: The Wars of Early America (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1993), 6;
Colin G. Calloway, New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 114;
Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 37, 540;
see also the classic work by Richard Drinnon, Facing West: The Meta-physics of Indian Hating and Empire Building (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1980).
On World War II see William Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom: The Human Cost of Allied Victory in World War II Europe (New York: The Free Press, 2009);
John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon, 1986);
and Michael S. Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987);
on the legacies of World War II and Korea, see Sahr Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage: Americans, Noncombatant Immunity, and Atrocity after World War II (New York: Routledge, 2006); on the Korean War see The Korean War: A History (New York: Modern Library, 2010) by Bruce Cumings, who estimates that the US Air Force killed one ninth of the Korean population;
on Vietnam, see Bernd Greiner, War Without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009). John Tirman (see footnote 4) has chapters on all these conflicts and more.
See also Michael S. Sherry, In the Shadow of War: The United States Since the 1930s (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995);
Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn B. Young, Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth Century History (New York: The New Press, 2009);
and Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/ Hiroshima/ 9–11/ Iraq (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010).
John Tirman, The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America’s Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 5, 15;
Christopher Waldrep and Michael Bellesiles, eds., Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 6.
Jennifer Rutherford, The Gauche Intruder: Freud, Lacan and the White Australian Fantasy (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000), 207–208.
Rob Capriccioso, “A Sorry Saga: Obama Signs Native American Apology Resolution; Fails to Draw Attention to It,” January 13, 2010: http://www.indianlaw.org/node/529;
Audra Simpson, “Settlement’s Secret,” Cultural Anthropology 26 (May 2011), 205–217;
see also Roy L. Brooks, ed., When Sorry Isn’t Enough: The Controversy over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice (New York: New York University Press, 1999).
As Elvira Pulitano has pointed out the UN Declaration is an ambiguous and in some respects contradictory document, yet “UNDRIP constitutes, with all its imperfections and among all the controversy, a significant achievement for peoples worldwide.” Clint Carroll adds, “In highlighting on a global stage the persistence of colonial relations between indigenous peoples and settler states, it seems that the Declaration has already served an important purpose.” Elvira Pulitano, ed., Indigenous Rights in the Age of the UN Declaration (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 25, 143.
Robert J. Miller, Jacinta Ruru, Larissa Behrendt, and Tracey Lindberg, Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 266.
Lorenzo Veracini, “Telling the End of the Settler Colonial Story,” in Fiona Bateman and Lionel Pilkington, eds., Studies in Settler Colonialism: Politics, Identity and Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 209.
Larissa Behrendt, Achieving Social Justice: Indigenous Rights and Australia’s Future (New South Wales: The Federation Press, 2003), 5, 176;
see also Manfred Berg and Bernd Schaefer, eds., Historical Justice in International Perspective: How Societies are Trying to Right the Wrongs of the Past (Washington, DC: German Historical Institute and Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y. Okamura, eds., Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai’i (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008), 13.
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© 2013 Walter L. Hixson
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Hixson, W.L. (2013). Conclusion: The Boomerang of Savagery. In: American Settler Colonialism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137374264_10
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