603. Settler Colonial Warmaking: American Indian Wars, 1840-1890

Indian removal to west of the Mississippi River in the 1830s and the violent military campaigns to come were part of an unprecedented state-administered project to dispossess Native Americans of their land and culture. As two noted scholars have argued, the “Indian wars of the Reconstruction era devastated not just Native American nations but also the United States” at a key moment when it appeared the country might embrace a multiracial democracy following the Civil War. This is the first of two stand-alone talks on settler colonialism, a racial system that seeks to displace and destroy indigenous peoples and cultures and replace them as the “rightful” inhabitants.