Native American Colonialism

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Settler colonialism constructed both Native lands and Native bodies as rapable and the world we live in is a direct result of many of the social constructions and/or discourses that were created when Native land was forcefully taken thousands of years ago. There are several modern binaries that are directly connected to how settler colonialism constructed both Native lands and Native bodies as “rapable.” These modern binaries are polarized opposites with no middle ground that help us organize the world around us in opposing terms; many of the modern binaries that help us organize our world are direct results of settler colonialism. The most important binaries in relation to the rape of Native lands and Native bodies are masculine/feminine, …show more content…
In our world today it seems that minorities (especially women and people of color) are set to fail while white men are those who are set up to succeed. The rape of Native lands and bodies has lead to severe consequences in our world, it has lead to the sexualization of our society, the prevalence of rape culture, the binary between men/women including wage gaps, the second shift, the glass ceiling, gender specificity (masculine/feminine), and inequality and excessive violence towards women and people of color.
Inequality is the natural result of a capitalist society. Aristotle said, “the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind. Where there is such a difference as that between soul and body, or between men and animals…the lower sort are by nature slave, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master.” Settler colonialism separated men (who were …show more content…
This image feminized the land and characterized colonial land as symbolically feminine. This land was seen to be passive, inert and virginal; it was considered “terra nullius.” On the other hand, the land was also seen as wild, untamed and dangerous; something that needs to be dominated by man. This domination was really violent rape against the Natives who were already living on the land. Andrea Smith writes in Conquest that “the project of colonial sexual violence establishes the ideology that Native bodies are inherently viable — and, by extension, that Native lands are also inherently violable.” This sexualization and feminization of the land helped to create the virgin/whore binary that impacts our world today. This land was seen as either virgin and passive, or wild and untamed; women are often compared to the land in the fact that they are also placed in one of these two categories as well. Much of settler colonialism focused on the idea of subduing nature, which was not as easy as it seemed… “colonizers attempted to deny
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