American Indians were imagined and punished as Muslims.

Evidence

American Indians were also identified with Muslims. These New Moors were “imagined as extensions of either the defeated Moors or the still-troublesome Moriscos.” They were also punished as if they were Muslims. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 584

Categorization

• XREF: The conflation of Indians with Muslims shows the Muslim-monster template being imposed on a people with no connection to Islam — a direct instance of the projection the reader is tracking. — connects to: Britain borrowed demonization of Native Americans and applied it to Muslims — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 111