Britain borrowed demonization of Native Americans and applied it to Muslims

Evidence

Matar argues that the construction of Muslims in this period drew not from the actual encounter with Muslims but with the Native Americans. Whereas Britain had succeeded in dominating Native Americans, they were unable to do the same with Muslims. Thus, they “borrowed constructions of alterity and demonization from their encounter with the American Indians” and applied them to Muslims. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 111

Matar argues that the construction of Muslims in this period drew not from the actual encounter with Muslims but with the Native Americans. Whereas Britain had succeeded in dominating Native Americans, they were unable to do the same with Muslims. Thus, they “borrowed constructions of alterity and demonization from their encounter with the American Indians” and applied them to Muslims. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 123

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the familiar pattern that a colonizing power’s representational toolbox is built from its prior conquests — same logic as how medieval Christian representations of Jews migrated to other groups. — connects to: Tools of racecraft honed on Blacks and Native Americans get retargeted at Muslims — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 41; Early British anti-Muslim imagery was borrowed from Native American encounters — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 111; Americans derived much of their Islamophobia from British colonial sources. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 40 (+3 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely counterintuitive causal claim: the template for demonizing Islam came not from Islam at all but from a separate colonial encounter — foregrounding how power, not cultural contact, generates racist representation.
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 111; Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 123

Broader Connections

• Early British anti-Muslim imagery was borrowed from Native American encounters #corroborates (1.00) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 111
• Americans derived much of their Islamophobia from British colonial sources. #expands (0.95) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 40
• European colonial imagination mapped its Moorish fears onto Native Americans before meaningful contact. #corroborates (0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 33
• American Indians were imagined and punished as Muslims. #exemplifies (0.70) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 584