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North America: An History of Settler Colonialism
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17th - 20th century North America
An History of Settler Colonialism
What is Settler Colonialism?
Settler colonialism is a specific form of colonialism where the land is colonized by foreign settlers through a process of deportation and elimination of native populations.
This process is only made possible through a history of domination, war and violence used against indigenous people to gain control over their territory.
It is a form of environmental injustice of genocidal proportions with ongoing historical, political, economical and social consequences.
Native Americans and the US Expansion era
The rapid growth of the United States population, especially in the early 19th century, was driven by a desire to conquer the west Frontier and to expand their territory all across the continent, up to the western coast.
Thus began the expansion era of the United States where the country quickly took over native territories and pushed indigenous people out of their homeland and into delimited reservations.
To do so, several treaties and laws were passed to deal with what was deemed as the "Indian question" and enforce their claim over the land.
The Indian Removal Act, 1830
This desire of the United States to expand west and claim these territories as their own sparked tensions between them and native nations who fought back and defended their land against white settlers.
By 1830, these tensions had become a permanent state of guerrilla between settlers and natives.
Thus, following Andrew Jackson's election as President of the United States in 1828 and the strong ambitions of the expansion era, the US took action by passing several laws such as the Indian Removal Act of 1830 as a means to establish itself as the rightful owner of many territories until then occupied by native nations.
The Indian Removal Act was not the start of deportations of indigenous people but it did greatly accelerate its process through white settlers proclaiming their own supposed legitimacy over native territories and using the US Congress to sign it into the law.
The Indian Removal Act, 1830
With the Indian Removal Act, the United States enacted "an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the States or Territories, and for their removal West of the river Mississippi" as a way to expand their territory over native ones.
Through signing this bill, they decided that these territories belonged to the United States and thus they were to decide of whether or not, and where, native nations could live on these territories.
By this exchange, the United States would now legally delimit "districts" where indigenous people would live with the possibility to remove them there as they would wish, as an exchange against there native land that would now be made part of US territory.
The Indian Removal Act, 1830
Similarly, the President of the United States was now allowed to decide to exchange any of these "districts", also called reservations, with any native nation regardless of the size of the territory they had lost.
Under the promise of providing through the exchange "security" and "guaranty" to the reservation that was exchanged to them, it was now stated that "if the Indians become extinct" then the land would rightfully belong to the United States.
Through such a clause, it can be understood that the United States at least expected even without clearly declaring itself to be the cause of it, that native nations were to disappear and ultimately leave the land free for the United States to take over.
The Indian Removal Act, 1830
Through the Indian Removal Act, the United States adopted a paternalistic approach towards indigenous people by placing the President as a figure of authority over them, as they believed that by their status of white and civilized settlers, they were considered superior to native nations that they deemed an inferior race, and thus would know better what was in their interest in the name of progress.
This Act ends with the promised "sum of five hundred thousand dollars to be used from public fund as a means of negotiation, as it was believed to be for the benefit of the entire Nation and a manifestation of their destiny as such.
The Trail of Tears
The enactment of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 greatly accelerated the already ongoing deportation of native nations out of their homeland, but it also launched what is known as the Trail of Tears.
The name itself of "Trail of Tears" is an euphemism for the violent deportations indigenous people suffered.
The US government used the Indian Removal Act to then sign Treaties with Indian tribes, especially the Cherokee, to make official the exchange.
Treaties were rejected by the very small minority who signed it was used as a sign of legitimacy.
Thus President Jackson sent the army to round them up and force them westward.
Map of the Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was the long forced march supervised by the US Army which lasted several months, from their now lost homeland to the reservation delimited for them by the US government.
The five native nations known as the five civilized tribes were forcefully deported west with the Trail of Tears along the routes as shown on this map of the Indian Removal.
The Trail of Tears in Native American Poetry
The Trail of Tears
University of Oklahoma Magazine 10 (February 1, 1922):14.
By Ruth Margaret Muskrat
In the night they shriek and moan,
In the dark the tall pines moan
As they guard the dismal trail.
The Cherokees say it is the groan,
Every shriek and echoed groan
Of their forefathers that fell
With broken hopes and bitter fears
On that weary trail of tears.
Broken hopes and broken hearts,
A quivering mass of broken hearts
Were driven over the trail.
Stifling back the groan that starts
Smothering back the moan that
Full four thousand fell;
But still the Great Spirit his people
As they travel the trail of tears.
From the homes their fathers made
From the graves the tall trees shade
For the sake of greed and gold,
The Cherokees were forced to go
To a land they did not know;
And Father Time or wisdom old
Cannot erase, through endless years
The memory of the trail of tears.
From a Cherokee perspective
This poem from Ruth Muskrat Bronson, a Cherokee poet, was written in 1922 in memory of the Trail of Tears her ancestors went through almost a century earlier.
As analyzed by Dr. Adil Jamil in an article titled "The Trail of Tears Poems Revisited", this poem is a typical Indian war poem on this traumatic event.
Its purpose is to commemorate the pain native people experienced through this as well as to celebrate their culture and their strong spirituality which had been targeted by white settlers as a symbol of their supposed inferiority.
As such, a strong emphasis is put on Nature as is common in their culture through the image of the "pines".
Here Nature is connected to spirituality and their sacred land they were forcefully removed from.
As per their beliefs, "the Great Spirit" is everywhere through Nature, watching over them, as opposed to the white settlers with their greed and gold who are the cause of the suffering of her people.
The Aftermath of the Trail of Tears
As expressed with "Full four thousand fell", numerous native people died along the Trail of Tears during which they lost their sacred land, their livestock and their crops.
It is was a terrible and traumatic event for these nations, one which long since then still continue to inspire native writers.
Following in Ruth Muskrat Bronson's footsteps, many wrote similar poems as a means to reaffirm their native identity and culture and continue to denounce the crimes of the past, as she did with:
"And Father Time or wisdom old / Cannot erase, through endless years / The memory of the trail of tears."
The US: built on a logic of elimination
With events such as the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Trail of Tears as depicted through the Bill itself, signed by the US Congress, or the poem by Ruth Muskrat Bronson, it is important to understand and recognize that the foundation of the United States as a Nation is entirely built on an history of settler colonialism aimed at eliminating native nations and appropriating their homelands over the corpses of its indigenous population.
It is only by recognizing this history and identifying its still ongoing consequences that more violence and discrimination against indigenous people can be prevented.
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
- Indian Removal Act, 1830, National Archives, General Records of the U.S. Government
- The Trail of Tears, Ruth Margaret Muskrat, University of Oklahoma Magazine 10 (February 1, 1922):14.
Secondary Sources:
- Ambivalence in the Settler Colonial Present: The Legacies of Jacksonian Expansion, Laurel Clark Shire, Joe Knetsch, Tennessee Historical Quarterly Vol. 76, No. 3 (FALL 2017), p. 261-275
- Settler Colonialism: Then and Now, Mahmood Mamdani, Critical Inquiry Vol. 41, No. 3 (Spring 2015), p. 611-613
- Practicing Sovereignty: Colonial Temporalities, Cherokee Justice, and the “Socrates” Writings of John Ridge, Kelly Wisecup, Native American and Indigenous Studies Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 2017), pp. 30-34
- The Trail of Tears Poems Revisited, Dr. Adil M. Jamil, International Journal of English, Literature and Social Sciences Vol-5, Issue-1, Jan – Feb 2020
Tertiary Sources:
- Mary Beth Norton, Carol Sheriff, David W. Blight, Howard Chudacoff - A People and a Nation: A History of the United States (2012) p.252-257
- The American Yawp, Chapter 12, Manifest Destiny