Читать книгу Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law - Natsu Taylor Saito - Страница 39

The American settlers’ presumed colonial prerogative extends not only to determining who may live within the state’s claimed boundaries, but also where they are allowed to be. Throughout US history various forms of removal, relocation, incarceration, and exclusion have been utilized to maximize settler landownership, ensure its profitability, and maintain social control. As the American Indian population base, along with its ability to effectively defend itself, was reduced to the point where complete physical elimination no longer made economic or military sense to the settlers, they “cleared” coveted territories by removing the remaining Indigenous populations to what were considered, at that time, the least desirable lands. These removals met with considerable resistance, and the military often was deployed to forcibly transfer peoples and to prevent them from leaving their assigned locales.