Native American Colonialism

In discussing the contact between Europeans and the indigenous populations of the Americas, we often consider the historical and political aftermath of their imbalance, the complex relationship between the two established over the course of hundreds of years. However, what we too often forget to discuss is how this colonialism too easily continues to exist to this day, albeit with the ratio of interests involving economical gain versus imperial expansion perhaps reversed a little bit. In this piece, we will analyze the article of “Construction of the Imaginary Indian” by Maria Crosby and the first chapter of “Debt: The First 5000 Years” by David Graeber to help us construct what can be understood as modern colonialism by investigating the
power relation caused by debt, how colonialism and imperialism are defined, and the values and interests we invest in Native American culture over the course of history. One wouldn’t usually consider debt as a centre for establishing a relationship of power between nations, but, as described by Graeber, what we consider the logic behind debt is very much “a moral statement” (4). The assumption that paying back one’s debt being something based on morals is exactly what cleverly disguises and justifies the imbalance of power that arises between the debtor and the creditor, indeed creating an opportunity for one side to come on top very drastically so. Two case studies, both presented by Graeber, of how this kind of power can arise exists in the relationships of Haiti—France and the United States of America with many other countries. In the first, debt is used as a way of “punishing winners who weren’t supposed to win” (Graeber 6), in which France was defeated and driven out of the newly founded Republic of Haiti by the rebellion of former plantation slaves. However, in response to this, they insisted that the newly independent nation pay an impossible sum of about 18 billion dollars for “damages of the expropriated nations, and all other nations […] agreed to impose an embargo on the country until it was paid” (Graeber 6). By imposing debt onto Haiti, France managed to take the situation where it was at a disadvantage and place themselves back on top. In the case of the United States, debt is a financial space where they are able to take advantage of their already advantageous position as a top world power; investments from countries such as China, Japan, South Korea amongst others in U.S. treasury bonds are very much a U.S. interest, with these sums cleverly called “loans” by the U.S. government in denial of the reality of them as “tributes” and the imperial nature of that relationship. Therefore, despite being the debtor, the U.S. becomes the one on top. Moving forward, the relationship between European colonizers and the native populations of the Americas can be more easily described and found in the definitions of colonialism and imperialism.
Colonialism, in the long run, involves the “transfer of population to a new territory, where the arrivals [live] as permanent settlers while maintaining political allegiance to their country of origin” (Kohn 2006), and imperialism exists as the “way that one country exercises power over another, whether through settlement, sovereignty, or indirect mechanisms of control” (Kohn 2006). When we lay these power relations of colonialism and imperialism next to debt, it’s easy to understand debt as a tool that can be used under the nationalistic interests of imperialism, as well as a standalone display and method of maintaining power, and many parallels arise between our understanding of this and what we can see in a modern context. We are thus able to recognize modern versions of colonial structures that have been built today in the form of companies like McDonalds, with its golden-arches logo ranked as the most recognizable symbol in the world, and establishing its permanent presence, and in turn the U.S.’s, in 119 countries (Badkar
2011). When continuing to consider the context of today, it’s quite easy to see that the political landscape has changed; the struggles of POC (persons of colour) in North America are beginning to be acknowledged, rights have been established, amongst others.
As stated by Marcia Crosby, difference is being encouraged and praised (277). However, this does not change the fact that much of this is still done in North America from a Western perspective, with Western interests. All throughout history, the way the “white man” has interacted with cultures foreign to its own has been very rooted in the way their society did things; women in cultures who wore less clothes were considered crude and sexually available, grass huts and canoes were considered primitive and uncivilized (Kelly 2015). Despite this, the West has always been very much interested in the cultural production of these populations, which stays consistent to the nature of colonialism and imperialism and its colonial history. Crosby discusses how the Western interest in First Nations people extends across history from “dominating or colonizing First Nations people, [their] cultural images and [their] land” to “salvaging, preserving, and reinterpreting material fragments of a supposedly dying native culture for Western “art and culture” collections” (277). From such examples as Captain Cook’s Club gifted by the Nuu-chal-nulth, indigenous works and artifacts are being labelled with unbelievably high prices—the simple club
carved from yew, currently valued at $1.2 million, was purchased by philanthropist Michael Audain and donated to the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, supposedly returning it home from its previous location in New York. (Kelly 2015) (Ballingall 2012). However, the club hasn’t really been returned to where it came from—it now lies in a museum at a Western institute of higher learning as an artifact of “the lost Indian.” What we essentially see here is a continued interest in the cultural production of indigenous populations that does not equate with the interest invested in the people themselves. A market has been established for Native art and the identity that comes with it has become images that companies and locales utilize for when they want to seem more grounded in culture, and this is completely thus because the West has decided what to make of America’s indigenous people. Native Americans have become a resource, and in this they easily fit into the models of neocolonialism and neo-imperialism constructed around Western capitalism and implied supremacy. This space is something that can be seen investigated by Brian Jungen’s series of works, Prototypes for a New Understanding, in which he created stylistically First Nations’ masks out of Nike Air Jordan shoes, referencing the sports world’s appropriation of native culture for team names (Kelly 201), something that reinforces ideas we have of native peoples through the images and traits that these teams attempt to associate with themselves through the use of these names. What they see as “Native American” is romanticized, reduced to a character in a play being written by the Europeans— free, but only within the framework and imagery made available by the writer in control.
In the end, we are still perpetually obsessed with expansion under nationalistic interests, disguised under the guises of catchy names and slogans of corporate giants. Colonization of foreign populations is a concept that is far from dead, especially in relation to the landscape of indigenous populations in North America. Our values and investments in ideas, culture, and society—what we think is worth our interest— seem to, ultimately, connect back to what stands as the most profitable.