Source: Lecture 12, A Comparative Survey of Racial and Ethnic Groups in the U.S. (UC Berkeley)
Tags: settler colonialism, historical trauma, Native Americans, Indigenous peoples, reservation to penitentiary, Dawes Act, boarding schools, Ghost Dance, Wounded Knee, assimilation policy, Frederick Jackson Turner, frontier thesis, Leonard Peltier, VAWA, natal alienation, Major Crimes Act
Settler colonialism is an ongoing structure, not a past event, and it operates through specific tools: land seizure, forced education, and religious conversion. This lecture traces how those tools produced cascading violence across individual, relational, community, and societal levels for Native Americans, from the Dawes Act's destruction of reservation land to boarding school policies designed to erase Indigenous identity. The legacy persists in disproportionate rates of incarceration, sexual violence, substance abuse, and underfunded sovereignty.
Settler colonialism
A form of colonialism where the colonising population intends to permanently occupy and assert sovereignty over Indigenous land, rather than simply extract resources. Distinguished from extractive colonialism by its emphasis on replacing the native population entirely.
Historical trauma
Cumulative emotional and psychological wounding across generations, caused by massive group trauma (genocide, forced removal, cultural destruction). The effects compound over time rather than fading.
Natal alienation
The systematic severing of familial and kinship bonds, particularly through practices like boarding schools and forced removal of children. Appears at both individual and relationship levels in the socioeconomic framework of violence.
Ghost Dance
A spiritual movement among Native peoples intended to reunite the living with spirits of the dead, summon ancestral spirits to fight on their behalf, drive out white colonists, and restore peace, prosperity, and unity to Indigenous nations.
Dawes Act (1887)
Federal legislation that broke up communal reservation land into individual allotments of 160 acres. Recipients were required to accept U.S. citizenship. Resulted in the loss of approximately two-thirds of Native American land.
Major Crimes Act (1885)
Federal law placing certain serious crimes under federal jurisdiction when committed by a Native American in Native territory. Enacted because the federal government considered tribal justice systems insufficiently punitive.
Frontier thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner's argument in "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" that westward expansion into "free land" drove American economic and social growth. Framed Indigenous displacement as the "disintegration of savagery."
Heteropatriarchy
A social system in which heterosexuality and patriarchal gender roles are treated as the norm and are enforced structurally. In this context, imposed on Native communities as part of colonial disruption of Indigenous gender systems and governance.
VAWA (Violence Against Women Act)
Federal legislation intended to address domestic violence. In relation to Native American women, the lecture notes that VAWA was effectively unenforced on reservations, leaving Native women without legal protection.
Virtual internment
The condition of Native peoples being confined, controlled, and surveilled on reservations in ways that parallel internment, even without the formal label.
Treadmill of destruction
A cycle in which colonial policies continuously produce conditions (poverty, addiction, incarceration) that further erode Indigenous communities, which then justifies further intervention and control.
Violence against Native Americans operates across four interconnected levels: individual, relationship, community, and societal. Each level feeds into the next.
Individual level
Suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, disrupted family and parenting structures
Native American women are 3 times more likely to be raped than other groups (12 times more likely in rural reservations)
Natal alienation and the legacy of boarding schools
Relationship level
Natal alienation severing kinship bonds
Lack of social relationships and support networks
Community level
Chronic underfunding and lack of resources
Limited access to education, high unemployment
Lack of sovereignty and self-governance
Policing paradox: simultaneous under-policing (failure to protect) and over-policing (criminalisation and surveillance)
Societal level
VAWA going unenforced for Native women
Imposition of heteropatriarchy
Cultural extermination, genocide, and cultural appropriation
Virtual internment and the treadmill of destruction
Dependence on a legal system that was designed to marginalise Indigenous peoples
Leonard Peltier was sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the first-degree murder of two FBI agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
A witness who would have testified in Peltier's favour was prevented from doing so by the state
The lecture frames Peltier as a political prisoner
Despite President Obama commuting many sentences during his presidency, Peltier's was not among them
Connects to the broader call to "police the police," a concept borrowed from the Black Panther Party
The Ghost Dance was a pan-Indigenous spiritual movement. Its purpose was to reunite the living with ancestral spirits, enlist those spirits in the fight against colonisation, and restore Indigenous land and unity.
The U.S. government perceived the Ghost Dance as a threat
The Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) followed, a clash between Native peoples and U.S. forces
The National Park Service plaque at the site obscures the accurate historical account, framing the event in sanitised terms
Turner's 1893 essay, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," argued that the existence of a frontier and continuous westward expansion shaped American democracy and character.
Framed expansion as enabling economic and social growth for the nation
Described the process as the "disintegration of savagery," explicitly positioning Indigenous peoples as obstacles to progress
Settler colonialism operated through three primary mechanisms of civilisation and assimilation policy:
(1) Land – seizure, redistribution, and destruction of communal land holdings
(2) Education – forced assimilation through boarding schools
(3) Religion – conversion as a tool of cultural replacement
Roosevelt argued that settlers and pioneers "had justice on their side" and that the continent "could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages."
Reflects the ideology that land must be actively used and made productive to be legitimately held
Ties directly to George Lipsitz's concept of use value, where land only "counts" if it generates economic return under a Euro-American framework
The Dawes Act was the primary legislative tool for breaking up reservation land.
Allotted 160 acres per individual
Acceptance of an allotment required accepting U.S. citizenship
Designed to "pulverise" reservations as white settlement demanded more territory
Result: approximately two-thirds of all Native American land was lost through this process
The federal government felt that tribal justice systems were insufficiently severe in their punishments
The Act placed certain crimes under federal jurisdiction when committed by a Native American on Native land
Represents a direct assault on tribal sovereignty and self-governance
The boarding school system was a core tool of forced assimilation. Henry Dawes defined the markers of "civilisation" as wearing Western clothes and adopting Western manners.
Children were sent to Western churches
Students were taught to laugh at Indigenous culture
All expressions of Indigenous identity were forbidden, with severe physical punishment (beatings) for violations
Indigenous cultures traditionally did not believe in corporal punishment, favouring "kind words" as more effective
Schools were run on a militarised model: marching, conformity, uniformity
High mortality rates among students
Forced hair cutting carried particular symbolic weight
In many Indigenous cultures, hair is cut during mourning, so forced cutting represented the death of identity and culture
⚠️ The socioeconomic framework of violence (individual → relationship → community → societal) is a key analytical tool. Be prepared to place specific policies or events at the correct level, and to explain how they cascade upward.
⚠️ The Dawes Act's two-thirds land loss statistic is a commonly tested figure. Know the mechanism (allotment, citizenship requirement) as well as the outcome.
⚠️ The distinction between under-policing and over-policing on reservations is a nuanced point. Under-policing means failure to protect (e.g., unenforced VAWA). Over-policing means criminalisation and surveillance. Both happen simultaneously.
⚠️ "Kill the Indian to save the man" is the central phrase for boarding school policy. Connect it to natal alienation, cultural destruction, and the hair-cutting symbolism.
⚠️ Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis provides the ideological justification for dispossession. Know his phrase "disintegration of savagery" and how Roosevelt's rhetoric reinforces it.
⚠️ Leonard Peltier's case is used to illustrate the concept of political imprisonment and the selective application of justice for Indigenous activists.
Q: What are the four levels of the socioeconomic framework of violence, and give one example at each level as it applies to Native Americans?
A: Individual (suicide, sexual violence, substance abuse), relationship (natal alienation, severed kinship networks), community (underfunding, unemployment, lack of sovereignty), societal (unenforced VAWA, heteropatriarchy, cultural extermination).
Q: What was the Dawes Act of 1887, and what was its practical effect on Native American land?
A: The Dawes Act divided communal reservation land into individual 160-acre allotments, requiring recipients to accept U.S. citizenship. It resulted in the loss of roughly two-thirds of Native American land, as "surplus" land was opened to white settlement.
Q: Explain the phrase "Kill the Indian to save the man" and how boarding schools implemented this ideology.
A: The phrase captures the assimilationist goal of destroying Indigenous identity while physically preserving Indigenous people. Boarding schools enforced this by forbidding all Indigenous cultural practices, imposing Western dress and religion, using corporal punishment, militarising daily life, and forcibly cutting students' hair, which in many Indigenous cultures is associated with mourning and death.
Q: What is the distinction between under-policing and over-policing on Native American reservations?
A: Under-policing refers to the failure to protect, such as the non-enforcement of VAWA for Native women and the lack of adequate police resources. Over-policing refers to disproportionate criminalisation and surveillance of Native peoples. Both occur simultaneously and reflect a lack of meaningful sovereignty.
Q: How does Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis relate to the ideology of settler colonialism?
A: Turner argued that the frontier and westward expansion were the engines of American social and economic growth, framing Indigenous displacement as the "disintegration of savagery." This positions Native peoples as obstacles to national progress, providing intellectual justification for land seizure and forced removal.
Q: Why is Leonard Peltier's case cited as an example of political imprisonment?
A: Peltier was sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the killing of two FBI agents at Pine Ridge in 1975. A key defence witness was prevented from testifying by the state. Despite President Obama commuting many sentences, Peltier's was not among them, suggesting his continued imprisonment is politically motivated rather than purely judicial.
settler colonialism, historical trauma, intergenerational trauma, Native American violence, reservation system, natal alienation, Ghost Dance, Wounded Knee 1890, Wounded Knee Massacre, frontier thesis, Frederick Jackson Turner, Theodore Roosevelt Winning of the West, Dawes Act 1887, allotment policy, Major Crimes Act 1885, boarding schools, Kill the Indian Save the Man, VAWA Native Americans, Leonard Peltier, Pine Ridge, political prisoner, heteropatriarchy, virtual internment, treadmill of destruction, under-policing, over-policing, tribal sovereignty, cultural genocide, assimilation policy, use value Lipsitz, ES21AC, UC Berkeley ethnic studies